The Island of Misfit Monsters (TIMM) 9: Aggressive Deep Sea Fishing For Fun and Profit
Updated: Aug 3
As it turns out, hunting sharks is a bit of a process.
Step 1: Acquire bait. And yes, size does matter! The bigger the lure the bigger the draw.
In this instance the bait presented itself in the form of another giant octopus. We're not sure, but its possible it was related to the first. Perhaps a son. Or it may have been suicidal. The truth is, we'll never know. Yoric preempted the normal pre-combat question and answer session the moment it was sighted with two little words.
"Throw me!"
Step 2: Release some blood into the ocean
The Half-Ogre complied, scooping up and hurling the skeleton at the eight tentacled creature in one smooth motion. His aim was true. Yoric dug the claw of his left hand into the nearest tentacle, a motion that turned his straight trajectory into a spiral around said appendage. Then it was hackity slash slash time for the Skeleton.
The octopus grappled him; it did not help matters. Jimmy charged into the water (still riding his floating disc) to make sure nothing happened to skeletor, mainly because skeletons are notoriously bad at swim checks. The rest of the group was relegated to cheer-leading.
Not that they were really needed. A couple of rounds later and they had appropriated a new, rather large piece of bait. And wouldn't you know it, there was a megladon swimming their way. Which leads to step 3; Profit!
Actually, Step 3 is: maneuver the boat in a path between the oncoming shark and its lure. THEN profit!
The shark gave no real attention to the boat. Boats didn't have anything that could hurt him and they tasted like wood. Then again, most boats don't have a half Ogre Samurai on them. As it swam past it was shanked and punched repeatedly as if on the conveyor of a meat packing plant. The first of which being a critical hit. There wasn't much left of him after that flurry of insanity.
The others helped as well. By the time Jimmy and Yoric were aware there was a problem it was dealt with.
Of course, Nelzask wasn't about to let all that fresh sushi go to waste. He took his 294 foot rope ( formerly known as the 297ft rope that was formerly known as the 300ft rope) out and lassoed the creature. He then went back to manning the oars. The boat carried on at a slightly reduced speed. It was surprisingly smooth sailing, but that's what happens when you've got a ridiculously strong half ogre.
The smooth sailing ended as soon as the group reached the beach, in more ways than one. In fact it led to yet another TV MA moment.
Warning, no life guard on duty. Read at your own risk!
Killgore made a rather insulting comment directed at Hermin of the maximized sexuality. Hermin responded (as I'm sure we all would have) by slapping the bugbear with his massively oversized penis. 2D6 bludgeoning and 1D4 Emotional Damage!
Not that such humiliation was enough. The bard didn't just cock slap the slayer . . . he critically cock slapped it. It was the Dick Slap of Doom!
While Killgore resisted the urge to live up to his name, Jimmy and Yoric decided they'd had enough for the day and walked off into the wood in search of the forge. Nelzask, Hermin, and their new paladin, Aria, headed off to the cottage. Killgore remained behind to take his frustrations out on the massive shark carcass they'd dragged onto the beach.
The Duo of Undead had no problems finding the forge, and settled in for a few ours of peace and quiet. The trio had no trouble finding the inn, though there was some commotion afterwards.
Hermin started things off with a simple 'what the fuck?' followed by examination of exhibit A. This led to an interrogation of the Lamia that had originally given him the potion, and ended with it and three of the women retiring inside to . . . deal with the problem. Nelzask followed, but to a different room. He may be an Ogre but he does have standards.
Aria spent the time squaring off with Duke. Nothing more than dirty looks were actually exchanged between the two.
The tides have receded and the life guard is back on duty. It is safe.
The next morning they collected the group at the forge and decided what to do next. Yoric immediately made a motion to deal with the demon in the basement. Aria perked up at this, to everyone's utter expectation. A paladin wanting to kill a demon? No way!
Strangely the most vocal opponent of the idea was the mouth breathing Nelzask. That is, until Killgore pointed out that Victoria (the woman he'd been shacking up with at the cottage) was a gift for the demon. At that point all caution was thrown to the wind.
The group headed quickly to the secret door that allowed entrance closest to the stairwell (that being the one Killgore had so expertly tripped down in the last chapter) leading to the basement and headed down. At the base Yoric motioned for everyone to hide and set about stalking the demon.
As it turned out, the bottom level was a fairly standard dungeon. There was a large torture room, centrally located for the ease of hearing for all prisoners. This was surrounded by a square hallway with cell doors dotting its outer perimeter.
And apparently the demon (which the group still has not been able to identify) was simply walking a beat around the hallway. Yoric snuck up behind him, using the open cells for cover.
Sadly, my dice were a little miffed at me. I'm not sure what I did wrong, or how to fix it. All I know is that they'd decided to conspire against me as if I were a character in a book written by Machiavelli.
Ironically, despite the malignant designs of my rolling devices, Yoric made it almost all the way around the track back to where his allies were hiding before the demon sensed his presence. But sense his presence it did.
Realizing he'd been made, the skeleton darted into the nearest of the open cells and tried to pretend to be just another corpse hanging from the chains set in the walls. Considering my rolls it was probably not his best option.
The demon had no trouble determining which of those things was not like the other, and attacked. Yoric yelled for help, and the group came running. Nelzask managed to squeeze through the torture room and come out on the demon's other side creating a flank.
Yoric failed miserably at a dodge roll out of the cell, earning a rather nasty AOO for his trouble.
On top of everything else, it appeared that the demon had some racist issues against skeletons, a much maligned race really. The worst are the constant muttering of white privilege that always seem to get leveled at their bony, bleached, feet.
Or perhaps the demon simply took his poor attempt at fooling it as an insult against its intelligence. We'll probably never know. What is obvious is that it knocked him down to a third of his health in short order. Jimmy did what he could to keep the skeleton up, but he just couldn't keep up with that kind of damage.
Not that the demon was looking so hot. It was pretty clear that it was in a bad way. The group was just starting to think that they might manage to get out of this fight without losing their token skeleton when the demon summoned a duplicate of itself, flanking Yoric, Jimmy, and Aria.
Will the Duo of the Deathless be able to survive this latest twist? Will Killgore seek revenge for the cock slapping of the century? And will Aria finally find true love? Tune in next week to find out. (Honestly, who could say where we'll go at this point?)