The Land Beyond The NIGHT of ADVENTURE!

Sometimes imagination is a wonderful thing.

It can paint unseen vistas, conjure up exotic worlds ripe for exploration, and weave intricate, deeply-moving stories that speak to the core of the human condition.

This is not one of those times.

No, this is a time for A NIGHT of ADVENTURE!

• After a short recap of our epic battle, the party spends 10 minutes looking for a plot hook.
• We can find a secret slaver outpost, an island with a giant mechanical Barry Goldwater, and an ancient cache of hidden treasure, but we can't find a plot hook.
• It's probably that pointy thing attached to the end of the Clue Bat. We flail around for a while, hoping to get whacked.
• Unfortunately, the DM seems content to let us flail.
• In the process of flailing around looking for a plot hook the party:
  1. Sets sail for home.
  2. Drinks seawater.
  3. Smokes a carton of cigarettes.
  4. Licks a jellyfish.
• If the DM won't try to kill us, we're more than happy to do it ourselves.
• Home safe and sound, the party sets about doing two things: Setting up a meeting with the mayor, and throwing ourselves one RIP-ROARING "WELCOME BACK" party.
• We are, after all, successful adventurers newly-flush with copious amounts of jewels and cash.
• The group then spends a good 40 minutes debating whether to spend their entire reward on ale and whores.
• To be more specific, the group spends most of those 40 minutes debating WHAT TYPE of ale and whores we are going to spend our entire reward on.
• Actual quotes from this conversation:
  • "I have a 20 Charisma, I don't need to pay for whores."
  • "We try to invite some girls we can trust. You know, the kind of girls who are slutty enough to hook up with you that night, but not slutty enough to go telling everyone about it the next day."
  • "You know a bunch of artists and musicians, THEY know those kind of girls. THAT hasn't changed in a thousand years."
• To be honest, most of the ensuing conversation and events can't, in the interests of good taste and the reputation of all parties involved, be repeated here.
• Needless to say, if you are successful adventurers newly-flush with copious amounts of jewels and cash, you have NO PROBLEM throwing yourselves a rip-roaring "WELCOME BACK" party.
• Where you DO have a problem, is the next morning at 10am when the mayor shows up.
• Turns out, when the mayor shows up for a meeting, he expects you to be wearing a shirt.
• And pants.
• And not to be standing in a puddle of your own sick.
• This mayor guy clearly is NOT a successful adventurer, newly-flush with copious amounts of jewels and cash.
• To be fair, we're no longer that flush with jewels and cash ourselves.
• But we did meet some very nice ladies with deep, meaningful inner lives and richly-detailed personalities who were not at all interested in engaging in a sordid, fleeting night of debauchery in exchange for access to unspeakable amounts of money and booze. No, instead we bonded in the kind of calm, yet electrifying way that only happens when you split a nice cabernet and discover that, somewhere amid the candlelight and soft conversation, you have finally, after a lifetime of empty trysts and failed affairs, met your Venus, your Nefertiti, your soulmate. We're all thinking of settling down, hanging up our adventuring cloaks, and starting a family.
• But then we'd have nothing to blog about.
• So we politely listen to details of a barely-failed assassination attempt against the mayor while we try to find a clean pair of pants, mop up some of our own sick with our shirt, and assure the mayor that the noises our two goblin companions are making upstairs are just a normal part of their morning workout routine.
• At least, we THINK it's the goblins. At this point in the festivities, it's hard to be sure.
• I don't know if this is a D&D game or a live-action re-enactment of Eyes Wide Shut.
• Unless Nicole Kidman is a bald, brown-eyed guy wearing a hooded sweatshirt and baggy pants showing a lot of hairy ass-crack, I think it's probably just a D&D game.
• Plus, if that's Nicole Kidman, she needs to sue her plastic surgeon for gross negligence and malpractice.
• Speaking of gross negligence, the mayor thanks us for our promise to track down the assassins, wipes his boots on the one clean corner of the couch, and advises us to keep those goblins on a leash if we decide to take them out in public.
• Juvenile impulses sated and having been duly impaled on the plot hook (the Clue Bat is a harsh mistress), we begin our mission of tracking down the mayor's assassin - a fiendish fellow named Jean-Paul LaFontaine.
• D&D shorthand: French = evil.
• After a false start where we INTIMIDATE THE CRAP out of some poor warehouse worker who just so happens to have the same name as our fiendish French villain, we locate the real Jean-Paul LaFontaine.
• Well, we don't locate him as much as we happen to run into him as he is crossing the street with a couple cups of coffee and a box of donuts.
• If I had a Honda right now, I'd floor it.
• I'd also end up tied-up in the basement of a dingy pawn shop with two hillbillies and a gimp, but I'm pretty sure it would all work out.
• Unfortunately, I do not have a Honda. I just have a couple throwing stars and a magical berry.
• The evil French dude drops his coffee and runs for the nearest pawn shop. I calculate the odds of quickly getting my hands on a used Honda or a samurai sword. Unfortunately, no one wants to trade me for my berry.
• We burst into the evil French pawn shop, throwing stars and magical berries a-blazing. The place is filled with the evil French invisible dude, his evil French invisible assassin buddy, and a very large, non-French, non-invisible minotaur.
• I don't know if this is a D&D game, or a live-action re-enactment of Labyrinth.
• Unless David Bowie has the same plastic surgeon as Nicole Kidman, I think it's probably just a D&D game.
• As combat begins, I realize I haven't rolled for the extra hit points I get from sleeping in my magical sleeping bag.
• Then I remember that, given the events of the previous night, I probably didn't sleep in my magical sleeping bag.
• I need to buy some magical bathroom tile that gives you extra hit points when you sleep on it. Either that or some magical hookers.
• Although, when it comes down to it, all hookers are magical, aren't they?
• I mean, hypothetically. Hey! I have an 18 Charisma! I don't need any magical hookers!
• ...unless they give you extra hit points.
• Unfortunately this isn't Grand Theft Auto.
• Although sometimes it feels like it.
• Back to our battle of Quentin Tarantino vs. The Cast of Labyrinth: Evil French David Bowie and his invisible assassin buddy unleash a barrage of glam-pop attacks on us (AKA "glam-age") while the gimp/minotaur proceeds to get 60 hit points of medieval on our ass (AKA "goddam-age").
• The paladin hits the minotaur with his maul (AKA "slam-age"), the warden charges him ("ram-age") and my thief attempts to distract him with some slickly-presented offers for phony life insurance ("flim-flam-age").
• None of this works.
• The French, it seems, are tenacious.
• Tenacious, and unusually resistant to puns.
• Our doom may be at hand.
• Pun-proof David Bowie is so tough, in fact, that we are forced to do something UNPRECEDENTED: We parley.
• Parley? REALLY!? PARLEY!?! What kind of ADVENTURE is it when the two opposing parties have to resort to TALKING TO EACH OTHER!?! Furthermore, WHAT do you talk about?!
• Well, for starters: Last night, we had this really awesome party...

-Tom, who's going to go lay down on the bathroom tile for a bit. Please don't pee in the sink.