Tales from Toril- The Adventures of Critical Bumbersnoot: the Odd Company: A Yawning Portal Novella, Chapter Seven

A Tale of Two Steves

Dramatis Personae:

Winry Steamgear, the Rock Gnome Alchemist Artificer

"Critical" Bumbersnoot, Winry's Dachshund Mechanimal Construct

Mara Quinn, the Water Genasi Werewolf Sea Sorceress

Steve, Quinn's Octopus familiar

Oskar Heartforge, the Shield Dwarf Werewolf Priest of Moradin

Jak Foostus, the Minotaur Monk

NOTE: Things will be mostly from Winry's perspective, anything in italics is from a third party view, since the artificer can't be everywhere at once. 

***** Tarsahk 20, 1489 DR (The Year of the Warrior Princess), White Plume Mountain

       When we woke up from our rest, a voice in my head said "Neural Assist Tactical Arms System neural link established. NATAS systems at 25%, semi-automatic mode enabled." It felt almost like I was thinking that, but I had no idea what the Hells any of that was about. I was hella confused and spazzed out a little bit.

       NATAS is the odd energy gun Winry acquired in the ship at the top of the mountain; it has an artificial intelligence that links with its owner. It hadn't been able to connect with Winry earlier because it had to repair her when the chest bursters were in her, thus preventing it from repairing itself.

       It seems that this morning was the day for freak outs. Oskar started hitting himself over and over while laughing manically. Apparently the armor he'd taken from Sir Balto gave him regeneration powers, and he was testing them out. On top of all of that, Wave was still fucking singing sea shanties. The stupid trident hadn't stopped singing since we found Blackrazor.

       Eventually we headed back out to go find the warhammer- the final item the Coldfire Initiative had hired us to acquire. When we got back to the stupid fucking frictionless hallway and started discussing going back through it, I remembered that Wave has a cube of force, that we could use to get across with ease. Would have been nice if Quinn had remembered it the first time we went through here- you know, when we wouldn't have had to spend five fucking hours trying to cross that stupid thing, with Quinn and Jak taking a nasty beating in the process. So, she set up her cube of force, piled in, and started sliding across. Bumbersnoot tumbled a bit, hurting himself and Jak in the process; and Quinn tripped when we went over the second pit and hurt herself pretty bad.

       Next we had to get through the heated hallway again. I got Quinn to empty her bag of holding so we could do this quicker; of course she was pissed, how dare we want her to use her bag for something other than her stupid octopus. I stripped and stuck Bumbersnoot in my bag, then went across with Jak so we could guard us as he made all the trips across. About halfway through the hallway, I felt like I was burning- as if there was metal in my body. I jumped in my bag for the rest of the way, since I didn't want to get hurt.

       Winry was heating up because part of her bond with NATAS includes her being injected with nanites- while they hadn't affected Winry before, because NATAS hadn't fully linked with her yet, but now that it had repaired enough to connect, there were enough nanites in the gnome for the heated hallway to cause her pain.

       When we got back to the cross path again, where we'd encountered the gynosphinx before, and we realized we couldn't take all of our loot into that submerged path again. We decided to stash it in the gynosphinx's lair- but there was a hella heavy stone slab on it. So we used my lift system, and combined with Jak and Oskar's strength, we were able to move the slab.

       Once our stuff was stashed, Quinn gave us all water breathing, and deactivated water walk, so we could actually walk into the submerged hall. After a few feet, Blackrazor announced to us that Jak had been hit with acid. Oskar had us all back up, and once we were out of the water we saw that Jak was covered in green slime. Quinn helped clear the slime off of Jak, and stormed off, bitching that we're all useless in water; as if that should be fucking surprising. She cleared the slime by freezing it, then came back and got us.

       After a bit, the hallway branched off into two paths. We chose the path on the right, and eventually came upon a door- just a normal looking wooden door that was bound in iron, and swollen from the water. As we reached it, Jak stepped on a loose floor tile, and he spazzed out and attacked the door. He hacked at it for a little bit before getting it open, and as soon as it opened all of the water in the hall behind us whooshed past us and into the room, where it drained out. As soon as we walked into the room the door reassembled itself, slammed shut, and locked. That was just fanfuckingtastic. In the room were nine silvered glass spheres suspended by chains. As we began deliberating our options for dealing with the spheres, Oskar chucked him hammer at one of them, shattering it. Jewelry and gold rained down upon us, as a mini tornado emerged from the globe, and went right for us- it was a hella pissed air elemental.

       The elemental took a vaguely humanoid form and swung at Oskar. Oskar responded by activating his spirit weapon and spirit guardians. Quinn blinked, of course, and Bumbersnoot bit it- though he couldn't really trip it. I missed with my energy gun, and right after Jak pounded on it- which was a little weird, since he was basically beating the crap out of air- it created a whirlwind that hit Bumbersnoot, Jak, and I, and in its swirling rage it hit the release valve on Bumbersnoot's saddle, sending me flying. Oskar hit it with his spirit weapon and his regular weapon, and Jak finished it off. I hoped there weren't eight more of those in those globes. Bumbersnoot fished a key that had fallen from the globe out of the muck that covered the floor of the room- but it wasn't the right key.

       Oskar hurled his hammer at another globe, and a ring and a key fell out, but thankfully, there was no angry elemental this time. However, a voice rang out in all of our heads ""Stop before you put me on. I confer the following powers upon my wearer: invisibility, haste, immunity to charms, fly once per day, detect magic, and one wish. I also provide the benefits of protection and spell turning. The only drawback is that once a year I permanently eat a small part of your life. I must be worn before I can leave this room; merely carrying me away is not possible. If ever I am removed from my wearer's finger, however, all my powers are lost. So you must decide right now who will wear me forever."*

       I was curious about this ring, but the others just shrugged and went back to breaking globes. The ring said it could make Bumbersnoot fly too, and it seemed pretty cool, so I put it on. It said its name was Steve, which annoyed Quinn- apparently the bubble head thinks that Steve is a ridiculous name for anything except her octopus. As another random thing dropped in the muck, Quinn flipped out and decided to destroy the water in the floor- turning the muddy ground into hard packed dirt, that we were all now stuck in. Bumbersnoot hurt his leg when he tried to get out, so I had to help him get out. Quinn flipped out even more because her feet were stuck in the dirt and set off a thunderwave... hitting Bumbersnoot and I, and it didn't even break her free. Fucking hell, she's losing her gods damned mind. Once we'd gotten her free, having broken all of the globes, we found the proper key. I grabbed Steve the ring, who was hella cool, and we continued on our path.

       We eventually reached another bloated wooden door, and as usual we had Jak bust it open. In this room were five flesh golems that were clustered together against a wall. They each had a number on their chest: 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13. Number five announced "One of us does not belong with the others. If you can pick it out, it will serve you, and the others will allow you passage. If you pick the wrong one, we will kill you. You have sixty seconds." Jak spouted out the answer before I could- number 9 was the odd one, because unlike the others, it wasn't a prime number. We now had golem number 9 following us to aid us in this area.

       We continued on our way with our new golem following us, and after going down a short flight of stairs we came upon a turnstile, which was kinda annoying, because it wasn't easy to fit Bumbersnoot or the golem in it, but we all made it through. After another short hallway, we came to another door, which opened onto a stone platform in a large cave. On the opposite side in the distance was another stone platform, and standing between us and it was a series of wooden disks that were suspended from the ceiling by massive steel chains. Under the disks was a pool of boiling mud. Fuck. I tried to activate fly on Steve the ring, but nothing happened. He didn't even respond to me. Maybe this room has another issue like the frictionless hallway that suppresses magical means of crossing.

       The best option we had for getting across these stupid disks was using my zipline to support us as we crossed. Jak decided he'd take it across, since he would have the easiest time with it. We had the golem hold the end on this side to keep it secure, and Jak began bouncing across the way. The disks and chains were slippery, because this place was designed by a giant douche nozzle. When Jak was about halfway across, a geyser of boiling mud exploded near him; another one followed before he reached the other side.

       Quinn went next, and like most things, this didn't go well for her. She fell when she was almost there, and Jak- deciding to be helpful- tossed a ball of Sir Balto goo into the mud to try to cushion Quinn's fall. She misty stepped back onto the disk, and then fell again, this time activating a cube of force before plummeting into the scalding mud.

       Oskar went after Quinn, and slipped when he was almost there, so he banished himself. Jak got a rope to Quinn and pulled her out of the muck. I shrunk Bumbersnoot and stuck him in my satchel of holding and jumped across the platforms- thankfully, my new boots helped me get over there without much trouble- I slipped a couple of times, but I caught myself, except for the very last platform, but Jak caught me that time. After I got situated, Oskar reappeared and got himself the rest of the way across those stupid disks. I tied the rope off with pitons on this side, and we left the golem on the other side holding the rope.

       We busted through the bloated door on this side, and found a long hallway on the other side. At the end of the hallway was yet another door, and it opened into complete darkness. Oskar cast a daylight spell to cancel the darkness, and we saw a stone coffin in the room. Bumbersnoot drug the lid off the coffin, and found it empty, except for a single stone pillow. Then the darkness returned.

       Bats began fluttering around us, attacking us viciously. I was hurt badly almost right away, and I couldn't see anything. I heard the distinct crack of thunder that signified Quinn's thunderwave spell- Jak called out that she missed. When Quinn cast thunderwave her wild magic went off, casting darkness again- the room now had two darkness spells overlapping it, which would prove difficult for the party to regain their sight in the room. Oskar called out that he was dispelling the darkness, but nothing happened; the vampire must have made it a stronger spell than Oskar could handle.

       Oskar smashed the coffin and found the treasure underneath it, grabbed Whelm- the warhammer they'd been hired to find, a dwarven artifact. Bumbersnoot snapped blindly at the air, getting some of the bats, but it was hard for him to be terribly effective when we couldn't see. We backed up to the door, trying to get out of the darkness, but the fucking door was shut and the door was locked. I was able to get it picked blindly, and we all piled out of the room. Apparently Quinn had gone down at some point in the chaos, but Oskar managed to find her and revive her. Oskar said he'd scared the vampire away, which would give us a moment to regroup.

       I chucked a couple of my exploding mice into the room, but Oskar and Jak had come to the conclusion that the vampire was gone. Oskar sent him a taunting sending, but he didn't come back. Badly injured, we shut ourselves into the hallway to rest. First Oskar got rid of the darkness in the room so we could claim the treasure in it, and I relocked the door.

       When we were rested, we headed back across the disks dangling over the boiling mud. I didn't want to leave behind my rope, it was the weird rope I'd gotten from the ship in the mountain. We all made it back across with ease this time, and since Oskar couple apparently now fly, he was able to collect my rope once we'd all crossed.

       We made it back to the cross path unmolested, but once we got there we were locked into the intersection by a wall of force, and a voice rang out: "Not thinking of leaving, are you? You've been so very entertaining. I just couldn't think of letting you go, especially with those little items of mine. And since you've eliminated all of their guardians, why, you'll simply have to stay... to take their places. I'll have to ask you to leave all of your ridiculous weapons behind and let Nix and Nox escort you to the Indoctrination Center. I'll be most disappointed if you cause me any trouble and Nix and Nox have to eliminate you. Don't worry- you'll like it here."* Two efreet approached us, one slightly bigger than the other.

       The smaller one took a swipe at Bumbersnoot, but it thankfully missed. The bigger one hit Jak, and then when it swiped at him again, it stumbled, allowing Bumbersnoot and I to hit it. Bumbersnoot scored another bite on it, and I missed with my gun; Quinn blinked away, and Jak grappled the big efreet. Oskar's spirit guardians activated just before two walls of fire sprang up- one of which hurt me hella bad. Bumbersnoot bit the big efreet again, and I hit once with my gun, and missed a couple more times; then the wall of fire hit me again.

       Quinn reappeared and shot ice bolts at them, and then was suddenly covered in thorns... That was fucking weird. Then, because Quinn covered in thorns wasn't weird enough, Jak suddenly impaled himself with Blackrazor, stabbing the big efreet in the process, and Jak went down. Oskar healed my wounds and revived Jak, and then he got rid of the walls of force and fire, so we weren't as pinned down. Bumbersnoot was in bad shape too, so I had him back out of attack range of the efreets so I could give him a butterfly to heal him a little bit.

       Oskar gently got Blackrazor off of Jak so he could heal him, while Quinn shot more ice bolts. Then the asshole efreets summoned fire elementals. Jak dropped again, so I had Bumbersnoot run us up to him, I revived him, and had Bumbersnoot retreat to safety. My puppy was way too hurt for me to have him right in melee range, especially with these fuckers. I really need to come up with a way to heal him. Quinn dumped a bunch of water on the elementals, which did absolutely nothing. Jak took out one of the elementals and the smaller efreet.

       The remaining elemental walked through Jak, Oskar, Bumbersnoot, and I- it hurt hella bad. The big efreet turned into smoke and attempted to flow into Jak, I'm not entirely sure it it worked. Bumbersnoot bit the elemental, and I shot it a couple times with my gun, then scored an awesome hit with my daring sir. Oskar banished Jak and the efreet, while I shot the Hells out of the elemental, finishing it off. When Oskar canceled the banishment spell, Jak returned without the efreet.

       Mad cackling echoed throughout the entire dungeon, then war cries rang out, coming from all directions. We hurried up to the gynosphinx's lair to get our stuff, and found two gargoyles waiting for us. A metal clanking sound came from somewhere in the dungeon, and we heard water flowing. That didn't sound good, but we weren't leaving that stuff behind, we just had to kill those two gargoyles. We killed them with ease.

       The water in the tunnels below us was rising rapidly, so we decided to get out while we still could. We made it out before the water completely filled the area. We were all in bad shape, and I really needed to repair Bumbersnoot. We decided to return to the captain's quarters, but when we got close we discovered a campfire inside it. Oskar flew into it and scared the crap out of them. There was a human woman, and two younger girls- teens- with her, along with an older man who was sick and dying. Of course Oskar wanted to help them man, and the girls accepted, though they were definitely uncomfortable with it.

       We heard hunting horns ring out from outside, and the girls became terrified. They said they were being hunted, but they didn't know why. Jak and I went out to scout the hunters while Oskar and Quinn figured out what the Hells to do. There were about three score out there, and we were in no shape to deal with them. The girls told Oskar that they needed to get to Luskan, and their father told them the needed to run. We prepped the bundle of loot Jak had been dragging, and set up a way to attached the father to it, but before we finished we heard a wail of anguish from inside the room- the man had died. Oskar revivified the father, and he instantly cried out in pain, then passed out. I healed him to ease his pain and we got him set up. Oskar said he'd distract the hunters while we got the girls out of there- and he didn't really give us a choice in the matter. I gave him a humming bird to boost his speed when he was ready to catch up with us.

       The hunters demanded the girls from Oskar, but before he could really respond, a black dragon flew over the crowd, and breathed a yellowish cloud at the hunters. It was a xenomorph dragon, it turns out some of them had escaped when the group blew up the ship. With the hunters distracted by the xenomorph, Oskar was able to flee and catch up to the party. 

       After a couple hours of travel we came across the remains of the red dragon, with a hole in its chest... just like the hole in Quinn's chest from the snake thingy back in the ship. Well, at least we didn't have to worry about it taking our loot. I caught it in a bottle, thinking Professor Jackass would like to study the affects up close.

       When we stopped to make camp, the girl's father was dead again. Oskar said he'd died from exhaustion. Oskar and I slipped away to talk about this weird ass situation we'd found ourselves in, and we spoke in dwarvish so the girls couldn't understand us. I had found a Harper pin on the father, which could be important. Oskar said he thought the girls were nobles of some sort, based on the dress of the hunters and their horses. We decided to keep everyone away from the body for the night and Oskar would take a better look at it in the morning before everyone got up.

       We learned the girl's names were Carmina, Amara, and Sylvia. They asked for our aid to get them to Luskan.

       I took third watch and Oskar took fourth so we could proceed with Oskar's plan. About an hour and a half into my watch- shortly before sunrise- the girls got up and said they had to bury their father with the dawn. I told Bumbersnoot in gnomish to get Oskar, but Amara insisted we should just go do it, and I couldn't say no to her. We got him buried as the sun rose.

Map from "Tales from the Yawning Portal" by Wizards of the Coast

Map from "Tales from the Yawning Portal" by Wizards of the Coast

*This content is a quote from the White Plume Mountain adventure in "Tales from the Yawning Portal" by Wizards of the Coast.

Tales from Toril- The Adventures of Critical Bumbersnoot: the Odd Company: A Yawning Portal Novella, Chapter Six

The Terrace of Doom

Dramatis Personae:

Winry Steamgear, the Rock Gnome Alchemist Artificer

"Critical" Bumbersnoot, Winry's Dachshund Mechanimal Construct

Mara Quinn, the Water Genasi Werewolf Sea Sorceress

Steve, Quinn's Octopus familiar

Oskar Heartforge, the Shield Dwarf Werewolf Priest of Moradin

Jak Foostus, the Minotaur Monk

NOTE: Things will be mostly from Winry's perspective, anything in italics is from a third party view, since the artificer can't be everywhere at once. 

***** Tarsakh 19, 1489 DR (The Year of the Warrior Princess), White Plume Mountain

       After scouting our surroundings, we retreated into the secret ambush room to sleep. We were all exhausted, and Bumbersnoot was in dire need of repairs.

       When we were all up and moving the next morning- technically afternoon- Oskar had a full black beard on his face... until he lit the fire to make our breakfast, when it caught fire and disintegrated. Moradin is definitely fucking with that dwarf.

       Once we'd finished eating we began searching the walls for the secret door the captain guy escaped through. Quinn said his name was Sir Balto and there was a 10,000 gold bounty on his head, so we really wanted to find him. While Oskar and I searched the stone walls, Jak bundled up all of the plate armor the other dicks had been wearing when we killed them, into nets, so he could just pull everything around. The armor wouldn't fit in my bag, and even if Quinn had a proper sized bag, she wouldn't be willing to let us use it because of her fucking octopus.

       Oskar found a section of the wall that seemed like it should be a passage, but there was no seam or anything that would open it. As Oskar searched the stone, I began looking around the rest of the room for some sort of mechanism that opened it, to no avail. At that point, Jak decided that the best course of action was to break the wall down... by ramming his head into it over and over. I pointed out that we could just go around, but the insane minotaur ignored me, so I sat down and tinkered while watching Jak try to knock himself out. It took the boys a half hour to break the stupid wall down. A few minutes into it, Oskar remembered he had a pick and sped up the process. Honestly, I was hella shocked that Jak was conscious after that, and didn't seem dizzy or anything. Dude's got a hella hard head apparently.

       On the other side of the wall was a narrow passageway. The path eventually sloped down a little, and revealed a short side passage with a door that was ajar. Inside was a bedchamber. The oil lamp on the table was almost completely burned out, at the end table near the bed was another almost burnt out lamp; sitting on the bed was the plate armor that Sir Balto had worn during our fight. The wardrobe was wide open and empty, save for an armor mannequin, which was naked. Oskar decided to take the armor, since it was better than what he currently had on, so while he changed, I rifled through the open chest, which was boring aside from one health potion. That'd come in handy later.

       Once Oskar was changed and the room thoroughly searched we continued down the other passage, until we reached a dead end. Oskar said it intersected with another corridor, and Jak thought it was the main one that had freaked him out last night from the single loose stone. Apparently he didn't feel like beating his head against the wall again, because Jak decided to turn around and go out the normal passage.

       The loose stone that had freaked Jak out really was just a loose stone. Oskar lifted it up, shifted some dust around, and it laid down flat- the exasperated look he gave Jak was fucking hilarious. After moving a little further down the passage, Jak found where he thought the hidden passage intersected with this one, and Oskar confirmed it. At the end of this hall was another closed door- surprise, surprise.

       Beyond the door was the most peculiar room we'd seen yet. We were looking out and down into a huge chamber with terraced steps that ring the entire area and descend to a central enclosure. Water was lapping at the floor just a few feet in front of us. Looking closer at the room, we saw that the terrace water a 10 foot deep ring of water, enclosed in glass, and another one was two steps down from it. In between these water steps were dry ones, but they were also still ringed in glass. The first ring had giant crayfish in it, the second had giant scorpions, there were sea lions in the third, and waiting at the bottom were three fucking manticores.

       The manticores all launched tail spikes at us- hitting Jak and Oskar, and the third one hit the glass wall of one of the terraces below us, cracking the glass. Jak ran right into the water terrace below us with the giant crayfish, and hurled one up to our level. I hit it with my beetle and Critical Bumbersnoot chopped onto it, killing the fish thing. Below us the crayfish had begun surrounding Jak and he was quickly snatched into the claw of one of them. Oskar chucked his hammer at Jak to heal him... and hit the crayfish with healing instead. Then Quinn got the fucking brilliant idea to electrocute the water, with a badly injured Jak in it. I don't know what in the Nine she was fucking thinking.

       The crayfish didn't appreciate being electrocuted either, and one reached up to snap its claws at her from the water- and they seemed to hurt her hella bad. Another crayfish climbed out of its tank and advanced on us, as I saw Jak kill the one holding him- though he also accidentally punched the side of the tank, making it crack and begin leaking. Bumbersnoot bit the crayfish that was coming at us and I shot it with my Daring Sir after giving Quinn a butterfly to heal her. Oskar chucked another hammer at Jak, and Quinn misty stepped away from me, out of the crayfish's grasp, flanking the one Bumbersnoot and I were fighting. In doing so, Quinn left Oskar's flank open, and the crayfish that had been gripping her turned toward the dwarf- a second one climbed out and went for him too; they grappled him with ease.

       The manticores sent another volley of spike at us, narrowly missing Bumbersnoot and I, but hitting Quinn again. Those things just do not like her. Then, because Quinn has the greatest luck ever, the crayfish she was flanking decided she was a better target than Bumbersnoot and I, and it turned around and caught her in its claw. Bumbersnoot bit it, and I hit it with my quickrazor, but really Oskar needed more help than Quinn, so I chucked an exploding mouse at the two crayfish attacking him- and managed to not his Oskar in the explosion. Oskar was struggling to break free of the crayfish's grasp, but he couldn't quite break clear; the crayfish squeezed squeezed him and he cried out in pain. Quinn managed to wriggle free of the one holding her, only to be grabbed by it a second later; and then she was hit by another volley of manticore spikes. The second one that had been attacking Oskar jumped back in the water and grabbed Jak instead- so now there were two on him again, but he took care of that right away, killing the one that wasn't holding him before turning to his captor.

       Bumbersnoot bit the one holding Quinn again, and I finished it off with my quickrazor, then I shot the one holding Oskar with my weird gun. Oskar struggled against his captor, but he just wasn't able to get free. Quinn, now free finally, sent a spell at Oskar's captor and missed completely. Then fucking sea lions from two terraces down began jumping up to us- two of them ganged up on Jak, who was still in a crayfish's claw, and they seemed to hurt him hella bad. Jak was still holding his own though, beating the hell out of one of the beasts surrounding him... and then a third sea lion went after him and dropped him.

       I barely suppressed a cry of pain as the manticores managed to hit me- I think that was the first time none of them hit Quinn in this entire battle. Bumbersnoot's jaws snapped against the open air right in front of the crayfish holding Oskar, and I guess I was a little distracted from the pain of the manticore's stingers because I missed with my quickrazor- though I did get a good shot in with my weird gun. Oskar's spiritual weapon missed the crayfish, that fucker is hard to hit, and he revived Jak.

       Quinn killed the crayfish holding Oskar, only for a damn sea lion to take its place and smacked me. Bumbersnoot bit the sea lion, knocking it off balance, and it fell back into the water; my puppy got another bite in as it went down, and Oskar smacked it. Jak began beating the crap out of the sea lions near him, before he finally got out of the damned water- unfortunately the sea lion followed him and started beating the crap out of him. I hurried to heal him, worried that Oskar may not be able to heal him before more things strike.

       The sea lion that was in the water stood upright and beat on Oskar and Jak, who were the closest to it. Thankfully Oskar sent out a healing wave at everyone, right before another sea lion jumped up and started hitting him; and then the fucking manticores launched spikes at both him and Jak again. I had Bumbersnoot trip the one on our level who'd hit Oskar. Jak pounded one of them before tossing it back into the level below us. I dropped an acid beetle on the one Bumbersnoot had just tripped, and scored a hit with my quickrazor; Oskar's spirit weapon finished it off. As another lion went for Oskar, his spirit guardians activated, that would make this fight a little easier- Quinn stabbed that sea lion.

       The fucking manticores sent more spikes at us, and Jak went down again, I revived him right away. We continued exchanging blows with the sea lions while trying to avoid the damn manticores. Jak went down one more time before we'd finished off the damn sea lions. All that was left now was the scorpions and the manticores.

       We started working on breaking the glass in the first water level, though it didn't feel like we were making much progress until Quinn jumped in and used a thunderwave to break the glass... Which caused Jak to be swept out along with the water and right into the waiting pinchers of the scorpions. Of course he got away, and once Quinn shattered the glass on the last two levels, we flooded the scorpions and manticores. For the most part, they drowned and we didn't have to do too much more to finish them off. Most of us were okay at the end of the battle, but Oskar had expended most of his healing magic, so rest was definitely needed, and I needed to give Bumbersnoot some repairs.

       The bottom level where the manticores were had a door, but there was a force field of some kind over it. Oskar noticed a safe in to wall, and once I disabled the trap I got it open with ease, claiming a hella nice necklace for us, along with some silver. I had put detect magic up before disabling the safe's trap, so with that on I could now clearly see the magic blocking us from the door. Oskar was able to dispel it and the water rushed out of the room. We gave it a few minutes before opening the door, to let the water (hopefully) drain, though I'm not entirely sure why we did that, since Quinn had given us all water breathing.

       On the other side of the door was a fifty foot long hallway with another door at the other end. We all suggested that we just lock the door to the aquarium to rest and deal with whatever was on the other side of it later, but Oskar insisted that we investigate whatever was on the other side first. He's not normally this insistent, but since he's hella stubborn, we went to see what was beyond that door.

       I picked the lock to the door, and on the other side was a comfy looking, well furnished room. The room was filled with lavish furnishings and decorations with rugs and cushions all over the floor, and tapestries covering the walls. A hookah the size of a human was in one corner, some glaives in another, and the biggest piece of furniture was a sumptuous divan that had a lump under the covers.

       Oskar crept forward and yanked the blanket off the form, and we heard a yelp from the halfling that had been under the blanket. He was in heavy armor and told us that he'd been trapped here by an evil wizard. He might have convinced us too, if Oskar hadn't recognized the glaive as one that had belonged to one of the knights we fought in that douchey water tunnel area. Oskar confronted him, and a fucking greatsword appeared in his hand, as the illusion dropped and he became Sir Balto, the knight who'd escaped us. He growled at Oskar, and Oskar growled right back. It was hella funny.

       Oskar muttered a prayer to Moradin, asking for a boon, and based on the divine light that covered the dwarf, I'd say it worked. Balto's sword spoke aloud, demanding that Quinn give it Wave, her trident, and of course she said "never." Then Wave started singing out loud... Balto slashed at her with the sword, but she turned into water and hid behind Oskar. Bumbersnoot snapped at Balto, but his jaws ending up getting nothing but empty air. Jak got on Balto's flank and hit him a couple times, but not nearly as many of his hits landed as normal. This fucker was hella hard to hit. Quinn shot a chaos bolt at him, and then he attacked Jak, Bumbersnoot, and I- it hurt, a lot.

       Bumbersnoot was able to land a hit, though he couldn't trip him, and I couldn't touch him with my acid beetle or my quickrazor. Then Jak wrapped his arms around Balto and he started dragging him away, giving Bumbersnoot and I an opportunity to hit him again- and Critical Bumbersnoot bit him hella hard. I even scored a hit with my weird gun. Quinn shot another chaos bolt at him, and then Oskar's spirit guardians and spirit weapon appeared. The weapon missed, but the guardians seemed to hurt Balto a little bit.

       Balto squirmed in Jak's grasp, but didn't break free- though he still somehow managed to parry Bumbersnoot and I. Jak pinned him and speared him with a horn, allowing Quinn to come up and stab him with Wave, and Oskar to pound on him. Somehow, even though he was pinned, he managed to stab Jak with that greatsword and drop him. Bumbersnoot, Quinn, and I all missed with our attacks, but Oskar managed to disarm him, scooping up the sword before Balto could. He held his shield out, trying to block Balto from getting to him.

       Since Balto couldn't get to his sword, he grabbed the glaive out of the corner of the room and hit Oskar twice with it. Bumbersnoot sunk his teeth into Balto, but again couldn't trip him, and I hit him with an acid beetle, but my quickrazor just zoomed through empty air. Quinn had Wave block Balto off from Oskar with a cube of force, and then Oskar did something hella weird. He stabbed Jak with Balto's sword- apparently the sword sucks out the souls of people it kills- and attempted to put the soul back into Jak's body. I blurred Oskar to make it harder for Balto to hit him, and Bumbersnoot tried, but couldn't score a hit. This guy fucking sucks.

       Quinn launched a chaos bolt at Balto, and missed horribly. Oskar was able to rip Jak's soul out of the sword, and as it returned to his body the sword screamed in rage. Balto lunged and got the sword back from Oskar, tossing him glaive aside, and turned to bolt from the room. Jak, Bumbersnoot, and I all missed our attempted attacks against Balto as he fled. Bumbersnoot and I followed him, and found him standing at the other end of the hallway, with his back toward us. He was just standing there, it was hella weird.

       Some people might think it's dishonorable to shoot a man in the back, but I'm not one of them. I shot the fucker right in the back with my daring sir. Jak tossed some darts at him, an he turned to glare at us- but something felt a little off about him. Quinn missed him with a chaos bolt- sometimes I think that's the only fucking spell she knows that can actually damage a person. Oskar chucked his hammer at Balto's arm, trying to get the sword dropped, but it seemed to just lightly tap him hand. He glared, and announced that he was the sword, Blackrazor- evidently it had dominated him.

       Blackrazor-Balto slashed Oskar several times, before I hit it hella hard with my weird gun and my daring sir; Bumbersnoot's jaws closed on open air again. Jak began pounding on him, and Quinn missed with another chaos bolt. Oskar kept trying to disarm Balto, but it just wasn't working. Then Balto jabbed the sword at me, and I was impaled...

       Critical Bumbersnoot bit Balto with a fury that only a pup trying to protect their alpha would feel. Jak decided to try to talk to Blackrazor, but failed, and found himself killed as well. Quinn jabbed at him with Wave and missed. Oskar finally succeeded at disarming Balto, and scooped up the sword. Balto lunged for Oskar, and tripped over Jak, then Critical Bumbersnoot made another nasty bite attack on Balto. 

       Oskar stabbed Winry with Blackrazor- and Bumbersnoot thankfully, realized what the dwarf was doing, so he didn't attack to protect his mistress- and managed to restore her soul!

       I came to as Oskar was pulling the greatsword out of me, I'm not gonna lie, it hurt hella bad. Balto was still up, unfortunately, and he lunged at Oskar, getting Oskar to drop the sword; Balto scooped it up and seemed to be stunned. Bumbersnoot bit Balto, and I hit him hella hard with my daring sir- it seemed to be extra daring tonight- then I healed myself. Oskar revived Jak again and Jak stood up, put Balto in a headlock, and dumped four pinches of dust of dryness down his throat, killing and mummifying him. Oskar stuffed Balto in one of the stasis balls, the dude was still worth ten thousand gold.

       We barricaded ourselves in the cushy room, and reset the wall of force that prevented the door in the aquarium room to be accessed. We were drained, but we'd defeated Balto, and gotten Blackrazor; Jak decided to claim the weapon as his, he was the only one who could really use it anyways. We only had one more weapon to find now.

       Wave wouldn't stop singing out loud all fucking night. I don't like that trident.

Map from "Tales from the Yawning Portal" by Wizards of the Coast

Tales from Toril- The Adventures of Critical Bumbersnoot: the Odd Company: A Yawning Portal Novella, Chapter Five

The Hallways from Hell

Dramatis Personae:

Winry Steamgear, the Rock Gnome Alchemist Artificer

"Critical" Bumbersnoot, Winry's Dachshund Mechanimal Construct

Mara Quinn, the Water Genasi Werewolf Sea Sorceress

Steve, Quinn's Octopus familiar

Oskar Heartforge, the Shield Dwarf Werewolf Priest of Moradin

Jak Foostus, the Minotaur Monk

NOTE: Things will be mostly from Winry's perspective, anything in italics is from a third party view, since the artificer can't be everywhere at once. 

***** Tarsakh 18, 1489 DR (The Year of the Warrior Princess), White Plume Mountain

       Quinn was so wiped out from the ship that she pretty much slept for 24 hours straight; she didn't even mind the puke and shit that was in the room from us expelling the spider-scorpions. The rest of us went outside after that, and I tinkered with that gun I'd found, and worked on reverse engineering the stasis balls Jackass gave us. I feel like I'm close to unlocking the secrets to those balls, I'm just missing something.

       When Quinn was finally rested enough to get going, we trekked our way back into the mountain to continue hunting down those weapons. The spiral staircase was more rickety than it had been before, but it thankfully didn't collapse under us. The water on the floor had gotten hella deeper and was scalding- nearly boiling. Guess the water from the room with the giant cave mantis shrimp spilled all the way out here. Quinn put the water walking spell on us again so we wouldn't be sloshing through that scalding water.

       When we got to the intersection where the gynosphinx had been, the others heard running water. The path that we'd taken before, the one that led us to the mantis shrimp, had water running down it, it was completely flooded. The path to the right seemed to be dumping water into the sea somehow. We decided to take the path to the left, since it wasn't flooded with scalding water.

       The water was churning hella bad in the intersection, which we still had to cross to get onto the left path. Jak jumped over with ease, Oskar almost fell over but Jak caught him- then Quinn went, and the showoff basically surfed the currents. Then it was our turn. Bumbersnoot lifted his leg and peed on the corner, making himself lighter before getting us across; I was pleasantly surprised by my puppy's method of getting us through that.

       We walked through the tunnel for what felt like forever, before reaching a weird ass hallway. This one was lined with copper metal plates, and it was too steamy to see the end of. About 30 feet down the hallway it started getting uncomfortably hot- Bumbersnoot was burning me, so I turned around- the others followed us. Jak touched one of the copper plates and felt an electrical type charge, and decided he would just pry the plating off the walls. I gave him one of my crowbars, but it started getting super hot, so he dropped it in the water below us- the fucking bar sizzled and steamed like when a blacksmith puts their work in water.

       Since Jak was in the least amount of metal, he stripped and decided to scout the hall for us. After a few seconds we heard him say "oh shit," and he booked it back to us. He got jumped by some fucking ghouls at the other end of the hall. The ghouls didn't follow him, which gave us time to come up with a plan. Since Bumbersnoot could run about 90 feet, I thought if we just booked it down the hallway we might be able to get through it before it burned us. Oskar didn't want to take off his armor- which, considering what was waiting for us on the other side, I couldn't blame him for that- so, I suggested shrinking him and putting him on Bumbersnoot with me would be the best way to go about this.

       Oskar, Bumbersnoot, and I were almost at the end of the hallway when a ghoul reached up from under the water and grabbed Bumbersnoot. I shot it with my gun and yelled for the others as more ghouls moved toward us. Jak charged in behind us, hitting one hard enough to kill it. I couldn't contain the cry that escaped me as another ghoul hit me hella hard. Oskar jumped off Bumbersnoot and booked it to the end of the hall. Then Quinn appeared behind me and shot her chaos bolt at two of the ghouls going for Bumbersnoot and I.

       Bumbersnoot tripped the ghoul in front of him and I shot it as we bolted to the end of the hall- running over Oskar on our way through. With the steam we couldn't see him- but at least we were out of that inferno of a hallway. The ghouls began moving on Oskar, trying to corner him. Suddenly the water in front of us turned into Quinn- that's such a fucking weird thing- and chaos bolted one of the ghouls in the room with us. I felt my flesh knit back together as Oskar touched my arm and healed me- then his spirit weapon appeared and he smacked a ghoul with it.

       Bumbersnoot and I came to Oskar's aid, by tripping and shooting one of the ghouls who was attacking him. I saw Quinn shoot one of the ghouls in the infernal hallway, and Jak pummeled one ghoul who was a fucking archer, but instead of going down, and amulet around his neck flashed and it stayed up. Oskar muttered a prayer, that I think was supposed to dust the ghouls, but all of their necklaces flashed and nothing happened, so he killed one with his spirit weapon.

       Thankfully the ghouls seemed to be having trouble hitting us, because they hit hella hard. Bumbersnoot tripped another one and I disintegrated its head with my gun. I like that thing. There was only one left now- the fucking archer. I cried out in pain as one of its arrows sunk into me. It was close enough for Bumbersnoot to bite and trip it- when he came up from his attack one of its legs was in his mouth- my puppy had ripped it off to protect me. Jak jumped on the fallen ghoul and beat the hell out of it to make sure it was definitely dead... or re-dead I guess?

       After that nasty fight we needed a brief rest. There was a staircase in the room that led to a landing we could rest on without being stuck in the water, and its door was so swollen with water that it wouldn't open, so we thought we should be somewhat safe. When our rest was over Jak and Oskar slammed the door open, and we discovered the hell of a hallway that was waiting for us on the other side. The path in front of us was broken up by a five foot wide pit that had metal glinting in the bottom. The floor beyond the pit had a silvery sheen to it, like it was over waxed or something, and beyond that we could just make out another pit. This was going to be just fanfuckingtastic.

       Jak decided to jump over the pit, but instead he tripped and fell into it instead. It was full of rusty razors. Oskar tossed a rope down to him, and Bumbersnoot and Quinn went to help him pull Jak up. That didn't work so well... Bumbersnoot knocked Quinn over in his attempts to help. I set up my lift system and hauled Jak out of there- he was in seriously bad shape and had to get healed by Oskar as soon as we got him out of the pit. I suggested we take a brief rest so that Oskar could learn that air bridge spell again to let us cross, but since it wouldn't quite get us all the way across, we'd have Quinn take it and misty step the rest of the way. I would build a zip line and have her take it over there for us to get over.

       About 20 minutes into this break we heard a splash in the water in the room we'd fought the ghouls in, and Jak saw ripples in the middle of the room. I set my device down and hopped on Bumbersnoot to prepare, while Quinn shot lightning from her trident... and somehow hit herself with one of the bolts. The four of use waited for something to appear, and hoped we wouldn't have to disrupt Oskar's meditation for whatever was coming. It took a few seconds for an ogre to come around the corner and swing at Jak. We all went for it, and aside from it dodging my beetle, we all hit. Bumbersnoot was able to trip the damn thing.

       Two more ogres came around the corner as the one Bumbersnoot tripped stood up and swung at him- missing, thankfully. The other two tossed javelins at us, and missed horribly. Jak caved in the skull of the one in front of us, and I tossed an exploding mouse at the two in the water. One of them didn't appreciate that much and ran up too punch me, which got him killed by Critical Bumbersnoot. The final ogre reached past me to grab at Quinn, getting it hit by Jak and Bumbersnoot... I missed and accidentally shot Jak instead. Critical Bumbersnoot finished it off.

       I got back to work on the zip line while Jak and Quinn went to look for loot. They didn't look long though, apparently the fucking ogres had dropped bear traps in the water, and Quinn got herself stuck in one. After giving up on that, Jak hauled one of the ogre corpses into the pit to give us a macabre stepping stone.

       Once Oskar had gotten that spell from Moradin he cast it, and nothing happened. We tested a couple other spells to see if it was an anti-magic area, but those went off without issue. Jak hauled one of the ogre corpses into the pit, and decided to toss the others in there to give us a pseudo bridge. After tossing one in, Jak decided to haul the other three in. We tied the corpses to Bumbersnoot one at a time, helping Oskar and Jak to lower them into the pit. The second one was easy, but when we got to the third and final one, Jak slipped, and it hit the other two corpses too hard, causing them all to bounce out of the pit.

       All three of them slide across the stretch of hallway and fell right into the pit on the side. That floor seemed to be much slicker than we'd thought, so to test it, Quinn pulled a ball out of her bag of tricks, which turned into a goat. The poor goat flailed and squirmed as it slid across the floor and vanished on the other side. After that, Oskar tried his air bridge again, and it failed again.

       Since the floor seemed to have absolutely no friction to it, I decided to whip up something that might help us stick to the floor. I made these little glove/booty sets of us with a sticky goo on them that would hopefully do the trick. Quinn volunteered to be the one to test my goo, and moved to attempt to climb across the hall. As she moved to climb over the pit directly in front of us, Quinn slipped and slid across the floor into the other pit. I wasn't sure if my bags had failed or if they weren't able to grab because she was flailing around too much for them to truly hit the floor as she slid.

       To test that theory, I stuck a rock in one of my goo bags and tossed it over the pit; it swirled around the floor as it went straight in. Fanfuckingtastic. We couldn't get across this stupid thing with magic, my alchemy wasn't working, and now Quinn was stuck on the other side, and none of us could get to her to help. Oskar and Jak hoped she had a good grip on the zip line she was supposed to be setting up over there, and they yanked it to try to get her out of the pit.

       Apparently Quinn didn't have a good grip on it, because when they yanked on it, the only thing attached to it was the goo gloves. Jak tossed it back to her, hoping it would reach her. It took a few tries before the boys managed to pull Quinn out of that pit... and she slide head first into the pit in front of us.

       After that fiasco, that left Quinn badly injured, we decided to try to build a wedge that would hopefully catch us before we slid into the stupid pit. We took down the wooden door to this room and attached three bears traps to it, along with some other miscellaneous stuff I had. We attached lines to it to control where it ended up on the other side... and poor Quinn wasn't able to hold her grip, she went sliding across the hall again, landing in the other fucking pit. Eventually we got it set up to where we hoped it would work.

       Oskar made it to the other side with ease. Jak fell in the pit on the other side, but Oskar helped him out. Quinn really didn't want to try again, so I shrunk her and tied her to Bumbersnoot. We spun a little, but made it across. And, as it turned out, the wall on the other side of hall was an illusion, so we had a fairly spacious area to rest in.

***** Tarsakh 19, White Plume Mountain

       Once we'd rested up, we headed into the hall beyond the door. The path to the left seemed to continue on for a bit, whereas the one on the right had a door right in front of it. Jak turned left first, and stepped on a loose stone. Nothing happened, but it made Jak paranoid enough that we decided to go in the door on the right first.

       Before we opened the door we could hear water flowing in it, which made Quinn perk up. But inside was hella weird. There was a stream of water that was floating in the room, about two feet off the floor, flowing into a hole in the wall and out of another hole on the opposite wall. The water seemed to be about three feet deep and there were blind cave fish swimming in it. There were also six kayaks flanking the door, but there weren't any paddles. It looked like two people should fit in each one, but Jak and Bumbersnoot would need kayaks of their own if we decided to brave the floating water- something Oskar and I weren't too keen on doing.

       Jak decided to go fishing by whacking the fish out of the stream. Quinn put them in her bag with her octopus, and apparently one of them attacked Steve, but before Quinn could intervene, her familiar killed and ate the fish.

       We decided someone should go check out the stream- someone other than Oskar or me. Before we'd come up with any sort of plan, Jak jumped into the stream. Quinn gave us all water breathing, and followed him. After a few seconds, Quinn came through my talkie stone, telling us they were under attack. Oskar carried one of the kayaks over to the stream for Bumbersnoot and I, and the plan was for Oskar to grab another kayak and follow us. That ended up not working out so well.

       The second Bumbersnoot and I jumped into the kayak, the fucking thing capsized, before Oskar could let go of it. The stupid thing swirled around, scraping me against the bottom, and banging poor Bumbersnoot's head around. Around that time I got another message from Quinn... she'd escaped, and we needed to turn back because there was a fucking net waiting to capture us. Fanfuckingtastic.

       Jak came up behind us- we totally needed to go help them escape- and pulled Oskar off the bottom of the stupid kayak we were in. Once Oskar was free, Bumbersnoot was able to get out of the stupid kayak, and stand on the bottom of the tunnel the stream was flowing through. Bumbersnoot and I were having a hell of a time moving against the current of that little stream to get back out, so Jak ended up having to come help us. All the while, the dicks were sending canoes in the tunnel to beat on us.

       After what felt like forfuckingever, we got ourselves turned around and we congregated near the exit of the stream. Jak wanted to just barrel though the net, while Quinn wanted to go through the exit. The others headed back toward the exit, but when Bumbersnoot and I went to leave, he spun out of control again. I need to make something for him to let him swim. Jak, thankfully, realized that we weren't following them, and turned out to help us, as we were spinning toward the net like a dachshund missile. I ended up tying a rope around Bumbersnoot and giving the end to Jak so he could help haul us out of that stupid tunnel.

       Bumbersnoot and I were finally almost out of the tunnel- I could see the exit- when we reached a dwarf jam. Oskar had decided to brace himself at the mouth of the tunnel to take down the next kayak thrown at us. Instead of chucking a kayak at us though, we were hit with a huge ball of flotsam, I think it contained the remains of three kayaks. Another mass followed, I think it was about two kayaks worth of shards that time.

       Things got hella crazy after that. As Bumbersnoot was emerging from the tunnel, he slipped, and we were caught in a waiting net- then one of the dicks waiting for us stabbed Bumbersnoot hard. I tried to cut us free, but I ended up hurting him in the process. Quinn dropped her cube of force on a couple of the guys attacking us to keep them off of us, since there were way too many of them. Jak and Oskar tried to help Bumbersnoot and I, by attacking the dicks who were stabbing my poor puppy. I was trying so hard to cut us free that I'm not sure of anything that happened in the next bit of time. Then Bumbersnoot got himself so tangled in the net that it looped around my throat and I began to choke. The others came to help us, but still no one could cut us free. That was all I knew before the lights dimmed out and I felt myself losing consciousness.

       After Winry lost consciousness from lack of air, Quinn was able to cut her free, and Oskar revived the alchemist. 

        When I came to, I was free of the net, and most of the dicks we'd been fighting were dead, aside from five of them in Quinn's cube- which would only be up for a few more seconds. All of them fired crossbows the moment the cube dropped. Jak charged one, and I had Bumbersnoot move us close enough for me to send one of my exploding mice at them- I didn't want my baby in melee right now with as badly damaged as he was. One of them stabbed Quinn in the back, so she used her mist step to get away from him. Then Bumbersnoot and I got surrounded, and they all hurt me bad. Bumbersnoot bit one of them, but wasn't able to trip him.

       I saw Oskar and Jak getting pounded on by the guys, until Oskar cast something that held them in place. Quinn and Jak were beating on another guy, while Bumbersnoot succeeded at tripping one of the guys attacking us, I dropped a beetle on him and swiped my quickrazor across his torso. The boys continued beating the crap out of the other guys, and I saw Quinn drop one of them. We kept on exchanging blows for what felt like hours, before another one dropped, and then Bumbersnoot and I killed a third. There were only two more left- and one of them seemed to be in charge. The one who seemed in charge fled into the water stream while we were distracted. Quinn managed to go after him, but by the time she got to the secret room he had vanished. While she was hunting that fucker down, the rest of us killed the remaining guy.

       Since the captain guy vanished, we thought there had to be a secret door out of the hidden room, but a quick search didn't reveal anything.

Map from "Tales from the Yawning Portal" by Wizards of the Coast

Tales from Toril- The Adventures of Critical Bumbersnoot: the Odd Company: A Yawning Portal Novella, Chapter Four

Queen of the Dragon Thingys

Dramatis Personae:

Winry Steamgear, the Rock Gnome Alchemist Artificer

"Critical" Bumbersnoot, Winry's Dachshund Mechanimal Construct

Mara Quinn, the Water Genasi Werewolf Sea Sorceress

Steve, Quinn's Octopus familiar

Oskar Heartforge, the Shield Dwarf Werewolf Priest of Moradin

Jak Foostus, the Minotaur Monk

NOTE: Things will be mostly from Winry's perspective, anything in italics is from a third party view, since the artificer can't be everywhere at once. 

***** Tarsakh 16, 1489 DR (The Year of the Warrior Princess), White Plume Mountain

       As we settled down to rest, I looked at my watch and realized that it would be dark soon, and we likely had one more day of the full moon- so Oskar would turn during our rest. I pulled some of the weird rope out of my bag, since it seemed a little more durable than our normal rope. We decided Oskar would take first watch- since that was way before dark. Quinn would take second watch, and at the end of that watch she'd wake both Jak and I up. The two of them would secure Oskar while I took the next watch. It was a little convoluted, but we thought it might work.

       Unfortunately our plan didn't work as well as we'd hoped. While the weird rope I'd found was more durable, it was also slicker, making it easier for Oskar to wiggle out of, so as soon as he shifted, that was exactly what he did. Jak began pounding on him instantly, trying to subdue him so we could tie him back up. Oskar bit Jak in the process of getting beat on though- but thankfully he didn't turn. Bumbersnoot bit Oskar to distract him while Jak finished beating him unconscious. Once he was finally down, Jak and Quinn got him tied back up, then Quinn tended to his wounds- not enough to wake him, just enough to make sure he didn't bleed out... Then she cried out in pain and shifted. Fanfuckingtastic. Jak, Bumbersnoot, and I knocked her out quickly though- she was hella easier to drop than the dwarf.

       While waiting for the others to wake up, I tinkered with that weird gun thing that I'd found on the dead body in here. After an hour or so of messing with it, trying to figure out how to take it apart, it bit me or something. There were these two weird, metallic looking dots on my palm. It was hella weird. I kept messing with it for a while longer, trying to figure out where the bullets went, and how the damn thing worked. Eventually Jak passed out, so it was just Bumbersnoot and I keeping watch. Not that it was entirely necessary, since the spider-scorpions and dragon things didn't seem to be able to get in this room.

       After a few more hours, I started feeling sick; I was cold, clammy, and burping some serious acid. I almost puked, but managed to keep it down, just barely. Before I could regain composure, Quinn howled- literally- in pain, and her chest exploded outward. A weird ass snake thingy came out and went to the wall, burning it with acid. Jak was not happy about being woken up- and he tossed darts at it, until it retaliated by whipping him with its tail. I shot it with my crossbow, but it managed to escape through the hole it had made before we could kill it. I mended the wall- I'd figured out that hella cool mending spell Quinn uses! The really fucking weird thing, was somehow Quinn wasn't dead. Her heart- which we could see through the massive hole in her chest- was beating very slowly, and she was breathing.

***** Tarsakh 17, White Plume Mountain

       I searched the desk the body was slumped over, and found a map of the ship, along with a manual for the it. I couldn't make heads or tails of most of it though. After that I started working on reverse engineering a stasis ball, if I could crack the secret I could make more of them, or at least reset the ones we'd missed with. I still felt hella sick though, and I was getting kinda restless.

       When Oskar shifted back to himself, we untied him, and he attempted to tend to Quinn's wound, that had been healing very slowly throughout the night. After flushing out her wound and bandaging it up- because there really wasn't much else he could do- Quinn woke up. Apparently Oskar biting her saved her life.

       A little bit later Oskar randomly grabbed my Alchemist Satchel of Holding and dumped it out. Loose screws and gears and cogs and parts clattered to the ground and began rolling away. Oskar began chasing one of my stasis balls, and grabbed the ring we'd gotten from the dude we fought with the werewolf. He put the ring on, then shifted into a wolf and nosed at the ball. Jak decided to humor him and tossed the ball. Oskar caught it and started shaking it- and the werewolf popped out. And I wasn't paying fucking attention to how he did it, because I was focused on all of my things scattered around the floor, getting stepped on or lost. As soon as the werewolf was out of the ball Oskar began nosing the ring on her finger. Quinn grabbed for it and Oskar pounced and bit her. I asked if he wanted the ring and he barked at me, once I'd grabbed it her nodded at Quinn, so I put it on her. After he shifted he said that the rings would give them control over their animal instincts.

       Even though Quinn was hella fucked up, with a gaping hole in her chest, she was a trooper, and she didn't want to hold us up while she rested more. We decided to take the moving closet- or elevator, as the map called it- down to the armory, since it looked like it was just off the exit to the closet. I fiddled with the controls for a minute before I figured them out, and since we couldn't all fit in that thing, the boys went down first. I gave them one of my talkie stones so they could let us know when it was clear for us to come down, and sent them down.

       Oskar and Jak were attacked instantly by face huggers when they stepped out of the elevator- but they killed them instantly. 

       After Quinn, Bumbersnoot, and I got down there, the boys gave me a case for that gun thingy I've been fiddling with, I hoped there were schematics inside so I could figure it out. That was the only thing in the entire armory too, which was a little disappointing.

       Before we stepped into the hall, Oskar activated his spirit guardians again, to help keep the spider-scorpions away from us. We heard screams in the distance as they met their ends from his spell. We reached what the map called the cargo bay, and getting that door open was a bigger bitch than usual, as if someone had done something to prevent us from opening it. The second the doors opened, all of our active spells ended, even Bumbersnoot's energy core flickered a little bit.

       Spider-scorpions came flying at Jak, and they all missed. Oskar got his guardians up again and screams echoed around us. I tried to put my shield of faith on Bumbersnoot, but the spell wouldn't go off. Maybe Oskar's only worked because of Moradin, it would make sense, though it's hella annoying. Two of the dragon thingys came at us, slashing and- thankfully- missing. Quinn vanished. Jak started beating the hell out of it, and Oskar attempted to give him a restorative spell, but it didn't work. I was able to get my shield back on Bumbersnoot, and then I missed it with my crossbow. This would be so much easier if my alchemical formulas worked on these fuckers.

       Another dragon thingy popped out of a nearby vent and went right for Oskar, so Bumbersnoot bit it. Then a bigger dragon thingy popped out of another vent and went for Bumbersnoot, missing, thankfully, but then it whipped Oskar with its tail. Jak began beating on the dragon thingys, as Quinn reappeared- I think she was using a blink spell, but she didn't do anything before vanishing again. Oskar's spiritual weapon appeared and killed one of the dragon thingys. Bumbersnoot bit into one of the dragon thingys, and I missed horribly. It's been a while since I've actually had to use my crossbow, my formulas are much more efficient- and they look way cooler.

       Then a weird clicking noise rang out and a bunch of steam poured from the vents, which was followed by a shift in gravity; we were suddenly standing on the wall instead of the floor, poor Bumbersnoot couldn't keep his footing and got knocked over, but the dragon thingys were still where they'd been standing. Jerks.

       One of the dragon things grabbed Jak and began dragging him away; the minotaur squirmed and tried to beat on it, but he didn't seem to do much to it. I could hear screeching coming from deeper inside the room, but we couldn't see anything through that damn fog. A spider-scorpion went after Jak, but he managed to fend it off. Quinn began attempting to manipulate the fog, but she didn't seem to be actually doing anything to it. Oskar's spirit weapon scored a hit on one of the ones on Jak. Poor Bumbersnoot couldn't move much from the prone position he was in, so I decided to try out that gun I'd been tinkering with. It went off, but I missed the dragon thingy with it.

       I heard that clicking noise again, and we were all shunted to the ceiling... and Bumbersnoot fell again. My poor puppy was not doing well in this crappy room. Somehow the dragon thing that had been holding on to Jak moved to strike him and killed itself instead... what the Hells? This place is hella weird. Oskar's spiritual guardians polished off another dragon thing, and the one closest to him tried to flee, but he threw his hammer at it. A roar rang out through the room, accompanied by skittering and dripping noises- it almost sounded like it was raining. Jak dropped a flask of alchemist's fire on the spider-scorpions that were near him, and Quinn zotted one of the bigger dragon thingys. Oskar speared it with his spirit weapon, and Bumbersnoot jumped to try to get me a better shot at it... instead he landed on his back. I really need to make him something that'll let him stick to walls or fly or something. He needs to be better equipped for other terrains. I guess I know what my next project will be. Being squished by my pup distracted me, so when I fired off my shot at the dragon thing it instead went into a feedback that tingled up my arm. It stung, like getting zapped by lighting.

       The fucking gravity shifted again. This place is just fanfuckingtastic. Now I want to take it apart just to spite it, instead of in the name of technological advancement. With the position Bumbersnoot and I were in, he couldn't even try to orient us, and we just fell against the stupid wall. Jak killed a bunch of the spider-scorpions, and I saw Oskar beating on the dragon thing with both his spiritual and physical weapons. I missed again with that gun I found, right before the clicking returned...

       Bumbersnoot and I tumbled so badly that we ended up in another room, and he was crushing me. Before I could attempt to right us, I felt a spider-scorpion's tail curl around my throat. I felt a burst of holy energy knitting my flesh back together and I began to lose consciousness.

       What was probably only a few seconds later, I came to, minus the spider-scorpion. I groggily healed myself and we took a moment to collect ourselves before we began moving deeper into the dark, foggy room. This place sucks.

       As we moved forward, Oskar was keeping the spider-scorpions at bay with his spirit guardians again. When we finally saw more spider-scorpions, Jak began chucking darts at them. They scattered in fear, and I could just make out a large form in the gloom up ahead. Two dragon things appeared on either side of us and began beating on Jak. Then a tail and some prongs lashed out from the mists, with the rest of the form following... It was a huge dragon thingy with massive claws that swiped at Jak, knocking him out before grabbing him and yanking him back into the mist. The dragon things went for Oskar next, and they began wrapping him in a cocoon- though he busted himself out pretty much instantly. A trident came out of the gloom to impale me- I heard myself cry out from the sheer agony of that stab... it was the trident that Quinn had lost, Wave.

       Then it started raining fucking acid and the stupid gravity shifted again. Oskar got caught in an acid web by the dragon things that looked more like spiders- these things were hella weird. Oskar and Quinn were grappled by the huge dragon thing, and Quinn found herself stabbed with Wave. Wave apologized to Quinn as he stabbed her, and Quinn attempted to convince the trident to turn against the xenomorph queen to aid her instead. Then one of the spidery dragon things hit Quinn with a web and she slumped over. I felt white-hot pain lance throughout me as a tail speared me.

      Winry fell unconscious from the tail stab, and was lifted into the air, with Bumbersnoot dangling under her. Oskar was able to send out a healing burst to revive the party, since everyone was down except for him. I came to in the air, with the dragon thing gripping me. I shot the tail with my gun and finally hit something with it! I missed with my quickrazor though, and Bumbersnoot couldn't wiggle to attack the tail to aid me. The tail stuck me to the wall. Literally. I saw the big one grab Quinn out of the web just before it vanished. Oskar had banished it!

       One of the damn spider-scorpions overpowered me and grabbed onto my face... Winry fell unconscious from the face hugger, which was then squished as the gravity shifted again. Bumbersnoot yanked the dead face hugger off of his mistress' face and slammed it down, killing a second one. He nosed at Winry, but she didn't wake. The pup activated the vinegar in the jug within him, and sprayed a small mist of it in Winry's face. 

       I returned to consciousness by the sharp scent of vinegar assaulting my nostrils. It was still a better scent than the dragon things produced, and I was awake; Bumbersnoot is such a good puppy. I in turn revived Jak; I couldn't get to Quinn yet, she was stuck to the wall with a spider-scorpion attached to her. Jak and Oskar began beating on the spider-scorpions around them, while Bumbersnoot and I hurried to Quinn. Bumbersnoot yanked the spider-scorpion off of Quinn and I revived her.

       There were two dragon things left- one of which was a spidery one. Jak stunned one of them while Critical Bumbersnoot hit it right in the face with his steam breath, killing it! The spidery one tried to bolt but Oskar was able to stop it long enough for Jak to catch it in a stasis ball. Quinn caught the dragon thing that Bumbersnoot had just dropped. Oskar called out to us that we only had a few more seconds before the huge dragon thing was back, so we needed to hurry; he also tried to put one of the eggs in a ball, but missed completely.

       Quinn was in such bad shape she could barely walk, so I shrunk her so she could fit on Bumbersnoot with me, and we bolted- as did Oskar and Jak. As we ran the big dragon reappeared and hit Oskar hard enough to drop him. I smacked him with healing to revive him as Bumbersnoot ran past him, and Quinn shot the dragon thing as we bolted toward the elevator. Jak had already gotten to the closet, and upon seeing Oskar wasn't behind us, he went back. Quinn and I hurried back up to the room, sending the elevator back down for the boys. I wanted to wait, but we couldn't all fit in it together, so it made the most sense for us to go up while Jak got Oskar out of there.

       I started looking around for something that would help us defend against the big dragon thing, when we discovered that the desk the body was slumped over was actually a control panel. Jak, trying to help, started randomly pushing buttons- activating the self destruct sequence. Fanfuckingtastic. I was trying to figure out how to undo that when Quinn noticed that the room we were in was a life raft. With that tip, I was able to activate the raft, and whispered a quick prayer to Garl Glittergold, hoping we'd make it.

       Seats popped out of the walls with straps in them, and I discovered straps on the bed. I got Bumbersnoot strapped in and got myself strapped into the seat at the console just as everything began rumbling. Everything was whirling as the room was blown out of the way, tumbling back down the mountain. When we finally stopped moving, we had landed upside down.

       We could see a light coming from the doorway, and Oskar opened it to look out, with Quinn right on his heels. He told her there was a rod on the ground, and she found it by stepping on it and impaling herself... it was fucking Wave. Oskar stabilized her and had a rather entertaining argument with the trident. We'd ended up about halfway down the mountain, which was now steaming- our explosion had caused at least a minor eruption.

       As we gathered ourselves, the red dragon found us. In the chaos I'd forgotten about him. He demanded his treasure, but wasn't interested in our life raft room- he obviously didn't understand how incredible that little room was. Quinn told him there wasn't much coin to be had in the mountain- which was only kinda true. I gave him a few random things we'd found in the mountain that we didn't want. The dragon was peeved and told us to go back in there and get him his treasure. The moment he flew off we piled back into the room and passed out.

       After our rest we were up and stumbling around, getting ready to have some food, when Quinn, Jak, and I began to feel sick. I puked my guts out- not literally- and with the contents of my stomach was one of the snake thingys, like the one that had burst from Quinn's chest yesterday. There was a silvery gleam in there too, like what I'd noticed in the gun. Before I could process this, I had to shit out another one of the snake things... I guess that's what made me feel sick earlier. And I swallowed it. What. The. Fuck.

       Oskar cast a restoration spell on me, then cast it on Quinn, and she puked one of the snake things up. Jak, seeing what Quinn and I had expelled, stuck his fingers down his throat and made himself puke the one inside him up. Quinn began crying, and I sent her back to bed. She needed more sleep after everything she'd been through in the last 24 hours.

Map from "Tales from the Yawning Portal" by Wizards of the Coast

Tales from Toril- The Adventures of Critical Bumbersnoot: the Odd Company: A Yawning Portal Novella, Chapter Three

Facehugging Spider-Scorpions

Dramatis Personae:

Winry Steamgear, the Rock Gnome Alchemist Artificer

Bumbersnoot, Winry's Dachshund Mechanimal Construct

Mara Quinn, the Water Genasi Sea Sorceress

Steve, Quinn's Octopus familiar

Oskar Heartforge, the Shield Dwarf Werewolf Priest of Moradin

Jak Foostus, the Minotaur Monk

NOTE: Things will be mostly from Winry's perspective, anything in italics is from a third party view, since the artificer can't be everywhere at once. 

***** Tarsakh 16, 1489 DR (The Year of the Warrior Princess), White Plume Mountain

       I was checking out the odd panels in the room, with my trusty screwdriver and wrench in hand, when Jak found what appeared to be a door, and it was jammed or something. I spent a few minutes going over that door, trying to figure out how to make it open- and it was beyond my knowledge. Now I really need to take this place apart- I need to understand everything about it.

       There was a hole above the door that was just big enough for us to fit through, so I sent Quinn up with my lift so Bumbersnoot and I could get up. Once up there I collected my lift and Bumbersnoot squeezed us through the opening with surprising ease... I was so preoccupied with the treasure I'd stumbled upon that I forgot Oskar hadn't come up yet. The dwarf had to jump up, and he didn't seem to have any trouble getting up there.

       On the other side of the door was a rather barren room, with some nets hanging down. Oskar said this was likely a transport craft of some sort, but it wasn't like any transport craft I'd ever seen. And how in the Hells did it merge with the mountain? This is hella weird. I need to learn its secrets. I found a panel in the room, but the screws were different than any I'd ever seen before, so I had to improvise to get the thing open. I expected gears or something to be on the other side of it, but all there was was some hella weird tubing and more of those weird screws.

       While I was tinkering with the panel, Oskar found the way into the next room- which was a workroom! There were tools and supplies everywhere and I gathered it all up. I found some odd cording that seemed surprisingly sturdy- I think it might be a weird ass rope. There were lots of tools I was familiar with, and they had these cute little cases! I also took a bunch of the weird things there, because you never know when you'll need some weird ass thing. I like to be prepared for any mechanical emergency at all times.

       When I finished raiding the workroom- it was totally abandoned, it's not stealing!- I saw Oskar and Jak had wandered into a new room, and Quinn had found a weird closet. Quinn and I went in the closet to check it out, and I found another panel. Under this one was a lever- and I figured it probably wasn't dangerous, because why would they have a dangerous closet in the workroom? So, thinking that Quinn, Bumbersnoot, and I would be perfectly safe, I pulled the lever.

       The door slammed shut and we started going down. It was like a closet version of my lift kinda. After a few seconds we stopped moving, and the lever moved back to its original position. The door wiggled a little bit, but wouldn't open. I found the lever that I thought should open the door, but it only opened a few inches, and we were greeted with some yucky goo. "It looks like something big sneezed in here," Quinn said, "let's shut the door." The problem was the snot goo wouldn't let us shut the door. I yanked on the lever to try to get the door shut, but nothing happened. I noticed a hatch on the ceiling of the moving closet, and had Quinn go up there to check it out.

       On top of the elevator, Quinn was hit by an unseen foe- a facehugger- and instantly fell unconscious. 

       I set up my lift system to try to force the door shut, and just as I was finishing some thing came at me from above and latched onto my face. Bumbersnoot bit at the thing, trying to free me, but he couldn't get it off me. I felt it pry my mouth open, and tumbled into the darkness of unconsciousness.

       Another facehugger dropped into the elevator, only to discover Bumbersnoot wasn't organic. The Mechanimal killed it instantly and turned to help his mistress. Bumbersnoot grabbed at the facehugger again... and pulled so hard on it that he broke Winry's neck. 

       Jak, looking for Winry and Quinn, jumped down the elevator shaft, landing completely on top of Quinn's unconscious body. Jak yanked the facehugger off of Quinn as Oskar jumped down the shaft to join him. Seeing that Jak was taking care of Quinn, Oskar jumped into the elevator to check on Winry, just as Bumbersnoot ripped the facehugger off of his fallen mistress; Oskar revived her. 

       Up above, Jak slapped Quinn awake, which made her react by trying to give him fleas- turns out he's a very well groomed bovine. 

       I came to to Oskar standing over me, I'm not sure what happened, but the thing that had attached to my face was dead- with teeth marks in it distinct to Bumbersnoot. Of course he killed it, he's such a good puppy. Now that I could see it, it looked like a spider-scorpion, it had six legs, with a scorpion-like tail, and its body seemed to be a kind of cross between the two. I don't know what that fucking thing is, but it's gross and hella creepy. Bumbersnoot's breath was hella nasty after biting two of the spider-scorpions, so I told him to clean his mouth... he flushed some water out through his mouth, and some of his teeth came out with it. Those things had hurt my baby!

       Oskar managed to get the door shut in the moving closet, so I pulled the lever again, and the closet moved a little before getting stuck. We were a little annoyed by this stupid thing now, so we decided to just climb out. Jak tossed his grappling hook up to the door we'd originally come through, and both he and Quinn climbed out. I had Oskar set up my lift to get Bumbersnoot and I out of the closet, and then I sent him up with it so he could set it up for us to get out of the... closet shaft?

       After the encounter with the spider-scorpions we were all in need of a rest- apparently the boys had fought a couple on their own while Quinn and I were playing in the moving closet. We retreated to the workroom, and I found a lever in there that shut the door, so we'd hopefully be safe from anymore spider-scorpions. Quinn used her mending spell to help me fix up poor Bumbersnoot's mouth. I really like that spell, I need to figure out how to cast it.

       Once we were well rested, Oskar and Jak took us to the room they'd been in when Quinn and I were in the closet, and Oskar mined- yes, mined- some of the snot goo that had gotten crusty off of a panel so I could tinker with it. The boys went to the next room while I looked over the unfamiliar equipment in front of me. I honestly couldn't make heads or tails of what was in front of me, but there was something on the inside of the panel that looked like it might be schematics or something. I sat down to sketch it out, since it wasn't put on any parchment that I could just take a charcoal copy of, and noticed a peculiar crystal sticking out of the panel.

       I tried to push it and nothing happened- I got the same result from pulling. Then I decided to twist it really hard... and twisted it too hard- it snapped off in my hand. I pleaded with Quinn to have her fix it for me, and of course she did- I really need to get my hands on that spell. After close examination of the crystal, once Quinn had fixed it for me, I came to the conclusion that it was a spell  stone... until Quinn cast shocking grasp into it and it exploded. Hopefully there's more of them here so I can study them- without Quinn breaking them this time, now that we know lightning = bad.

       The boys didn't find anything useful in the room they were in, and there didn't seem to be really anywhere else for us to go, so we returned to the moving closet. The boys went down first, and in the time it took me to get down there with my lift, and for Quinn to get herself down after grabbing my lift, they had gotten the snotty door open and had been attacked by more spider-scorpions. Those two just can't stay out of trouble.

      Once we'd regrouped we turned to investigate the hallway in front of us- and got jumped by two more of those fucking spider-scorpions and a slender, wingless, bipedal, black dragon thingy. I guess the stories Jackass had heard were true- and not something manufactured by Volo, as he'd suspected. The spider-scorpions were attacking the boys, and the dragon thing was attacking Quinn. I heard Quinn utter the command word for her chaotic bolt spell, but it hit the ceiling instead of the dragon thing. I sent an acid beetle at the dragon thing, but it dodged the beetle.

       The dragon thing made a sweeping attack with its tail, hitting both Quinn and I. Then another one of those fucking spider-scorpions hit me! I struggled with it until eventually I felt myself slip unconscious again.

       As Jak and Oskar struggled with the facehuggers, the xenomorph grabbed Quinn and ran off. Jak had ripped his facehugger to shreds, and struggled with the one on Winry; when he couldn't get it off of the gnome, he took off after Quinn instead. Oskar pried the facehugger off of  himself and set his spiritual weapon on the one attached to Winry. Bumbersnoot struggled to free his mistress, and was unsuccessful. Eventually Oskar freed Winry and revived her.

       The xenomorph rendered Quinn unconscious as it continued moving her. Jak, pursuing Quinn, found himself in a room filled with hatching eggs, and found himself surrounded. 

       I opened my eyes to Oskar standing over me- again- retracting his hand from the healing he had given me. Quinn and Jak were nowhere to be seen, apparently Quinn had been taken by the dragon thing and Jak went after her. I followed Oskar, since he seemed to know the way we needed to go. As we moved three more fucking spider-scorpions jumped out of the fucking vents at me!!! The fucking thing attached to my fucking face again and I was knocked out again. While I was out, Oskar killed all of the spider-scorpions.

       Oskar activated his spirit guardians before we continued on, and it took out the spider-scorpions before they could even reach us. Eventually we found Jak. We were searching desperately trying to find our missing friend, but she was nowhere to be found. During our search we can upon a room filled with eggs- I set it on fire. Fuck you spider-scorpions! Then we came to a point where Oskar's guardians couldn't get in, or something, he wasn't terribly clear on it, he just kinda muttered it. It was somewhat safe to assume that that was where we needed to look for Quinn.

       The door to the room his magic couldn't penetrate was closed, so I hurried to try to help him get it open. He mined some of the chitin, or as I call it dried snot, off of the wall about where the panel should be and I began working to open it. Jak decided to bait the spider-scorpions to get them into Oskar's protective radius to kill them. I think he was bored. I got the panel opened up pretty quickly, since I'd gotten used to prying them open by now, and found two levers. Oskar immediately began pumping one of them to try to open the door, and I grabbed the other one and pulled really hard.

       The door slammed open to reveal the dragon thing holding Wave- Quinn's trident- and Quinn was slumped over in the corner of the room, unconscious. I recognized the force field around them as the Cube of Force Wave had used to get us up here. Fanfuckingtastic. I really hope she's not dead- or at least not dead enough for Oskar to bring her back. Before we had time to react to the scene before us, three more of those fucking dragon things appeared and all went for Oskar.

       We could hear something banging around in the air ducts above us- probably more fucking spider-scorpions. Jak began beating one of the dragon things on Oskar, and I stepped in to help, by stabbing it. Bumbersnoot tried to bite it, but it was just a little too fast for my puppers and he ended up snapping at the empty air instead. Oskar's spirit hammer finished off that dragon thing, just as another one grabbed him; then two more of the fucking dragon things appeared. This entire area was swarming with them and it fucking sucked. I hope one of them knocks Jackass around a bit when he opens the stasis ball containing it; granted, we haven't caught one yet, but I think we will.

       It was a grueling battle for the four of us against these dragon things, made especially worse because we didn't have Quinn. There was a constant back and forth with them, which was getting increasingly difficult to fight as they whittled us down. One of the spider-scorpions managed to get Jak down, and the dragon thing started dragging him toward the vents, but we couldn't get to him, we had other dragon things in our faces. Bumbersnoot grabbed onto one that was attacking the two of us and tripped it, I stabbed it, and Oskar finished it off.

       There was nothing I could do to help Jak, Bumbersnoot and I can't climb around in the vents, and even if I somehow fit Bumbersnoot in the vent, there's no way in any of the Nine Hells it would be able to hold his massive 600 pounds. Since I couldn't help Jak, I went up to the cube to see if I could get to Quinn- and I was able to pass through it and revive my friend.

       Bumbersnoot alerted me that Oskar was in trouble with a tinny growl. We came around the corner to see three of the dragon things attacking him- and one was hella bigger than the others had been. Bumbersnoot charged the dragon thing that was holding Oskar, and tripped it, freeing Oskar. Oskar tossed his grappling hook up to the vents to go after Jak, while Bumbersnoot and I tried to keep the dragon things occupied. I slashed my scimitar at them and Bumbersnoot was snapping at them and trying to trip them. Getting them prone for even a moment could be hella beneficial to us. Unfortunately the dragon thing that Bumbersnoot had originally knocked down when we came to Oskar's aid was determined to capture the dwarf. It grabbed him again, and hurt him enough to knock him unconscious, dragging him away.

       I was not letting that thing take Oskar. Bumbersnoot ran to Oskar and I revived him as soon as I could reach him. Critical Bumbersnoot killed that one! He's such a good puppy. I noticed that Quinn was coherent enough to help- thank Glittergold- and she sent chaotic spell at two of them. At this point there were still two of the dragon things up. The big one took a swipe at me, thankfully missing me, and Bumbersnoot snapped his metal jaws at it, but it  moved and his jaws caught nothing but open air. I couldn't use my fire at such close range without risking hurting Bumbersnoot or myself, and my acid didn't seem to do anything to them, so I just used my quickrazor, which missed. Bumbersnoot bit it though and managed to knock it down again.

       Quinn doubled her chaotic dart spell and killed one of them, leaving only the big one that Bumbersnoot and I were dealing with. By now Oskar had secured his grapple and started climbing up to the vent to find Jak. The big dragon thing got off the ground and bolted right for Oskar, ignoring Bumbersnoot and I completely. It ran straight into Oskar, and he dropped it, then caught it in a stasis ball. He finished climbing into the vent, and Quinn and I attempted to follow him through the halls.

       We found the door that we were pretty sure led to Jak and Oskar, but unfortunately it was covered in that chitin- the hardened snot. Quinn tried the cleaning the spell on it, and it didn't work. I dug out my smithing hammer and chiseled it off- it was so gross! We were right about the location, the boys were on the other side of the door, and they were both still breathing.

       After that hell we needed to find a place to hunker down and rest. I found another moving closet, but decided not to start pulling levers this time. We looked around for a couple more minutes and found a door with broken wires beneath the panel. I had Quinn mend them, and the door began inching open- until a liquid sprayed. Oskar got tired of waiting and pried the door open.

       The room on the other side of the door was like a whole new world, compared to the snotty hallways we'd been traversing. There was a mummified corpse slumped over a desk, holding some odd device in his hand. I needed to play with it and figure it out while we rested. There was a large bed, and this was fairly comfortable living quarters that were untouched by the dragon things and the spider-scorpions. We found a secret panel in there that led to the moving closet Quinn and I had just found.

Map from "Tales from the Yawning Portal" by Wizards of the Coast