#out here looking for gundren (round 2)

[plinchy]

It's a Goyls Sandwich

Sia found a pit fall trap

Daran jumped first

Sia went after, misjudging the distance

Noel jumps behind smirking, before falling

Thunder falls after seeing Noel fall

the original :

I made a small animation on how the goyls fell

[ungarmax]

Today, for @duck-days, I decided to post a few WIPs from my writing folder for you.  I'm trying things with prose that I'm honestly not very good at, but maybe I'll finish it one day.  Neither is very long, so I’ll just put them both in here.

Initially, I had a pretty negative description for this post, but after the reception I got for my abandoned art pieces I posted yesterday, I decided that maybe I should give myself some credit.  It's not perfect, and it's probably not even the best I can do, but it's something, and that's not nothing.

WIP #1 is an au where Lucretia didn’t erase Lup’s memory, and so when Taako gets tempted by the chalice, he chooses to go back to a time before Lup left.  I have a direction for this story but never figured out a good ending, so it got left in limbo.

WIP #2 is a story about Lucretia going to Phandalin after the THB first join the BOB.  I got caught up with trying to figure out how Lucretia had organized the THB’s interactions with Gundren and never finished.

#1

Taako wakes up in his room on the Starblaster.

There are a few things wrong with this:  he has no idea what the Starblaster is, or why he is so sure that that is where he is, for instance.  He doesn't even recognize the room he is in, although he is certain it is his.  The items in the room are strewn haphazardly across the floor and desk and dresser in a way that he might have strewn them, and they are things can can see himself owning.  He is certain that they are his as much as he is sure he's never seen them before.

His head aches fiercely, a burning pulse of heat between his eyes and deep within his skull.  He's lying on his back, grasping his Relic firmly to his chest.  (Funny, he thinks his all the while realizing it's not his at all.)  His fingers hurt from the intensity of his grasp.

He remembers this.  He remembers why he is here.

Someone is moving in the hall outside his room.

(How does he know there's a hall out there?)

Lup.

He pulls himself off of the mattress.  (It used to be hard as a brick; he transmuted it to be softer ages ago.  He knows this, but he doesn't remember.) He wraps the item in the disheveled top sheet of the bed and shoves it in a bag to carry with him.  Then he heads out to the hall he knows but doesn't know is out there.

There's a flash of red at the end of the hall.  He follows.  His feet are bare, and he's wearing nothing but boxers and an oversized t-shirt.  His head is pounding, and his lips are wet.

He rounds the corner, into the galley.  Lup is there.  His sister is there.  She's dressed to go out, long red robes underneath her red jacket, her hair tied back.  Her pack is open on the counter.  She's stealing the chicken salad he had made yesterday.

She's leaving.

“I'm going with you,” he says, from the doorway.

She whirls around, and he looks at his sister for the first time in twelve years.  It's dark in the galley; she had been trying to leave without alerting anyone.  They don't need the light to see.

It washes out the colors, though, and he looks at a monochromatic vision of his sister.  It's like a mirror in some ways.  The slope of her jaw, the shape of her eyes, her cupid's bow lip.  But she carries herself taller, wears her hair differently.  She wears heavier make up on her eyes, and she bites her nails and he doesn't.

She is the most beautiful thing Taako has ever seen, and he is filled to overflowing with emotion.  He presses his hand against his face.

“Taako? What -- ”

She's next to him in a moment, a cloth in hand.  “You're bleeding.  What happened?”

She presses the cloth to his face, his nose.  It comes back bloody.  Hard to see in the dark, but somehow, red always stands out.

He ignores her question.  He's afraid she isn't real.  He's afraid to touch her and then realize she isn't there.  He had made the deal, signed the proverbial contract, but everything is so fuzzy and his head hurts so much. He weaves on his feet.

Her hands are on his arms, warm and strong, and he only feels relief as she makes him sit down in one of the galley's chairs.

“Taako. What happened?  Are you sick, babe?  Did you have a nightmare?”

“Heard you get up,” he says, finally.  “I knew you were leaving.  I won't let you go alone.  Ch'boy can help you out, Lulu.  Just trust me.”

“You're acting like you got into Merle's funny stash and you've got a bloody nose,” she points out.

(Merle? Why the fuck is Merle here?)

He touches his nose.  It's stopped bleeding by now.

“I don't know why,” he says.  “I got a headache.  I don't...just don't leave, okay?”

“I'm not going anywhere when you're acting like this.”  She is frowning. “And even if I was leaving, I wouldn't be gone long.  I'd come back soon.”

He winces at the words, recoiling as though he had been struck.

“Taako? What is it?”  Her fingers tighten on his shoulders.

“You won't.  You won't come back if you go now,” he says, looking up at her.  “Don't do it alone.  You can trust me.  We -- we do everything together, Lulu.  I can help you with this.  Don't leave me behind this time.”

#2

Lucretia goes to Phandalin.

She waits, of course, until the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet is drained of its power and safely locked away, and her trio of wayward family members are moved into their new dorms.  She waits until things have settled a little, and then she leaves the moon base.  Personal business, she explains to Avi, who simply nods and aims the canon as she directs him.  Won't be gone long.

Phandalin is gone, mostly.  The buildings at the edge of the perfect circle of black glass are burnt and empty.  There's still the stink of burned flesh in the air.  Her boots make quiet plink sounds on the surface as she walks across.

She remembers, unwillingly, the first time they had encountered something like this.  She remembers the dawning horror in Lup's eyes as she realized what had happened, what her relic was capable of. That horror had never gone away.  Instead, it had grown, building upon itself with every new town or army leveled by the gauntlet, every new circle of black glass that had appeared.  It had grown, until Lup could no longer stand it and had gone.

Here, Lucretia thinks.

She crosses through the center of the destroyed town.  The horror has dulled for her after a long while, but that is her burden to bear. No one else has to feel it, not anymore.

(She refuses to think about how badly this could have ended for Magnus and Merle and Taako, whom she had orchestrated to arrive here.  It could have been so much worse, but it wasn't.)

It isn't hard to retrace Gundren's steps, backwards from the town.  The telltale swath of scorched vegetation stretches for miles out of town.  She summons a phantom steed and she follows.

The Phoenix Fire Gauntlet had gone dormant before Lucretia had taken away their memories.

Whatever Lup had done, wherever she had gone, it had worked, up until now.

[rogue-rook]

many highlights from The Eleventh Hour from a first-time TAZ listener

featuring bits from Lunar Interlude III: Rest and Relaxation

oh god is this lunar interlude a goddamn ASMR experience

are carey fangbattle and killian dating?

i’m almost 100% sure griffin said “fisticups” instead of “fisticuffs”

griffin: “okay, you spend the next few weeks learning from carey” oh, okay griffin, i see, we’re taking the LAZINESS route on this campaign now. maybe there were some good snorlaxes to catch on that route or something, but now we’ll never know!

a semi-incomplete list of words that griffin has made up during TAZ: “cruft, geezers creezers, and scrumbled” except scrumbled was stolen from justin

my first thought when i realized taako and sweet ango were going to be spending this interlude together was “oh no taako is about to just bully the goddamn earwax out of sweet ango”

I JUST REALIZED ANGUS MACDONALD IS 10 GODDAMN YEARS OLD. where are his parents??? he had a grandpa who died, right? who’s taking care of him? did lucretia kidnap him to illegally “employ” THIS LITERAL CHILD at the bureau of balance??

WAIT IS LUCRETIA HIS MOM?

taako just called sweet ango “agnes”

THE UMBRA STAFF JUST TOOK CONTROL AND BLASTED “LUP” INTO THE WALL AND IM LIKE LUP!!!! ITS LUP!!!

the Hole-Thrower is a goddamn genius object but i wish it wasn’t just for “non-magical, non-living” things bc i wanna see taako throw a hole into an enemy

magnus: “i want a black mastiff” griffin: “but you know, theres’s no dogs on the moon!”

the grubby grifters went over budget at the fantasy costco and griffin's voice like animorph-style changed into garfield the deals asshole‘s voice and im like. uncomfortable

travis: “i’m now a level 8 fighter and a level 2 rogue” “which i think makes sense for magnus bc you’re a protecting guardian but you’re also kinda a nasty boy on that battlefield”

the grubby grifters are the only bureau employees not to be super choked up about boyland’s death and im like “hey maybe you assholes shouldn’t have tried to desecrate his crystalized corpse”

WIVES AND HUSBANDS AND STUFF

if the voidfish is either nice or neutral, then it singing to magus is adorable

if the voidfish turns out to be evil, then it singing to magnus is super super ominous

the director: “avi had to miss boyland’s rites of remembrance” merle: “i didn’t know that was an option"

names suggested for the woven gulch before griffin decided that: dry bones, gucci gulch, the taint, the devil’s taint, ravine, gulch, the blasted lands, the not-blasted lands, the flavor-blasted lands, the grandd canyon (not a typo), the taco bell grande canyon, the arid waste, tattoine

all the grubby grifters: “SUMMER LOOKS! SUMMER LOOKS! SUMMER LOOKS!”

taako: "thanks garfield, can we leave now?" "I WISH YOU WOULD"

sweet ango has to launch the grubby grifters down to the woven gulch and he’s so terrified and im like ango, they should be more nervous, they’re yOUR BULLIES!!

magnus: “we don’t have to mean EVERY time!” okay, magnus, that’s rich coming from you, seeing as you’ve been the worst to angus

travis: “you as the DM didn't remind your players” griffin: “oh i didn't know this was a baby game for CHILDREN”

magnus: “what it we just didn't attack them this round and just saw what they did?” merle: “WHO ARE YOU??”

griffin: “it's kind of rustic” magnus: “FINALLY, MY RUSTIC FOLK HERO THING WILL WORK AND PEOPLE WILL LIKE ME!!!”

“by their sacrifice, our home is made safe” WHAT THE FUCK!

griffin: “where the robe it, it has been stained or oxidized, turning it a bright crimson red" "oh.....like...the bad guys...” YALL THAT’S SO. THAT’S SOME SHIT. THAT’S SOME MYSTERIOUS SHIT

taako: “okay, cool, I’m not into labels either” yooooooo 

i googled the map griffin made for the town of Refuge and hot damn, that’s a well made map

magnus: “i rolled a 10 [on a perception check]” griffin: “you're in a prison cell with bars on it” merle: “i rolled a 1″ griffin: “you are in a cube shaped place”

griffin: “and then all three of you, have died” WHAT IN THE FUCK????? WHAT THE HELL??? WHAT????

THE SET UP OF THIS ARC IS BOMB AS HELLLLLLLLLLLLL

the fact that paloma sounds like bjork tells me that griffin is just straight up running out of different accents

[merle continues to sing to the tune of book of mormon] travis: “clinton. you just got clocked by a shovel”

justin: “i’m gonna delete the video i was making about how to do an infinite diamond glitch in the adventure zone”

griffin: “there are many rocks piled up” justin: “mini rocks are actually called pebbles, griffin”

griffy set up this quarry locker room tripwire puzzle exactly like a fucking game of hangman! the most deadly game of hangman ever

griffin: “lemme just say that diamonds are the currency of this town. you wouldn’t go to the US treasury to get dollars fresh from the printing press” justin: “what, you want me to get a part time job??” griffin: “i wouldn't hate it”

griffin: “i just agreed to what dad said without really processing what it was that he said, and what he said was the name "bjork" as bork” clint: “you gotta watch that shit, griffin” griffin: “i was almost an accomplice to that heinous act”

the grubby grifters just unquestioningly trust paloma the bjork witch without any sort of investigation checks or ANYTHING and im like what if she’s evil, my dudes. what if she’s leading you astray

griffin: “the human spell library, clint mcelroy”

griffin: “if you can just instantly bring back any dead person to life, it may reduce the narrative stakes of the adventure zone podcast A BIT!” AH SHIT SON!!

magnus: “im gonna....cut his arm off” griffin: “OH MY GOD!! YOU LOVE THIS SHIT! YOU’RE A PERVERT! YOU'RE EXPOSING EVERYONE TO YOUR FETISH!!”

istus is cool and awesome and she knits but all this shit she’s talking about it is just context-less gibberish

“you’re going to be amazing” AT WHAT, MOTHERFUCKER? YOU’RE COOL AND YOU HANDED OUT BOMB ASS GIFTS BUT WHAT THE SHIT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT??

hot damn yall. this time chalice is trying to PERSUADE the grubby grifters and my evil bullshit meter thinks this is SUPER HELLA SUSPENSEFUL

AW SHIT! BACKSTORIES!

damn this chalice is so tempting. i can’t even imagine

these backstories are heartbreaking. im blown away by the way the mcelroys have crafted this part of the story, and so so sad. especially about magnus

“its not what julia would want” travis stop making me feel these things

magnus: “noelle ended up with a new shiny robot body!” taako: “an unkillable robot! I'd call that an upgrade!”

oh no the chalice is forcing them to watch the destruction of phandolin, what an asshole

magnus: “i’m gonna throw a whole bunch of robot arms into him” griffin: “okay, so you just have a hefty bag full of roboid arms??” 

merle: “we owe a big one to penumbra" magnus: "paloma"

magnus: “we gotta jump” roswell: “this is a shitty shitty shit shit plan, i hope you know that” i love roswell’s instinctive reaction when presented with a dumb idea, which is to respond with pure immediate honesty and tell the grubby grifters that their ideas are dumb as hell

this worm fight is bizarre as fuck, what the fuck are they even DOING???

aw the weird worm just wanted to escape the bubble so it could get back to its babies! that’s...almost adorable. if it wasn’t a giant fucking worm

oh good. the red robe is back. cool cool cool cool cool

magnus: “you’re proud of us? what? you’re a red robe, you’re one of the bad guys?” the red robe: “who told you that?”

GRIFFIN JUST CALLED IT A LICH!!!!!

the red robe said “lup, they don’t trust me. lup i can’t do it anymore” and “the next time we meet, i’ll need you to trust me completely. the hunger is almost here, and all this could be lost” YALLL IM CONFUSED ASSSS FFFUCKKKK BUT IM SO EXCITED ABOUT WHOEVER THE FUCK THIS PARSELTONGUE MOTHERFUCKER IS!!

well taako got a prophecy saying he would one day get power from “the man wreathed in flames” so like im pretty goddamn sure the parseltongue motherfucker is barry bluejeans. there’s a lich around, barry got blasted to hell by gundren rockseeker, and the red robe wants the grubby grifters to trust him, so like 2+2+2 probably equals barry fucking bluejeans here

the fact that they got to watch over the town of refuge for 7 years was soooooo sweet!!!!

hot damn the red robe’s been protecting magnus this whole time???

travis asking istus why there’s long gaps in their memories like hey trav griffy doesn’t want you or me or anyone else to know yet, but good try!

magnus: “if you get bored, there's this half-moon thing in the sky, you can come hang out with us” taako: “yeah most birds can fly to the MOON!”

kravitz!!! anytime kravitz shows back up is a GOOD GODDAMN TIME!! because i love kravitz

the red robe in the statue in Refuse HAS MAGNUS’S FACE!!!

i have literal goddamn chills. that is so good

this was a very odd meandering arc and i didn’t know what the hell was going on half the time but it was super super super enjoyable and some of the plot shit got me HYPED AS HELL

[xollos]

ooh time for taz speculation

ok ok ok so pretty much anyone can be a red robe in a person suit right

and with our boys’ death count theyre probably three of those

there were 7 red robes in total, but the one called lup died and was found in the cave in here there be gerblins

so we have 5 red robes accounted for, so there are 2 yet to be revealed

i propose: pringles is another red robe (which probably everyone else has already figured out but im not paying attention whats upppp)

my line of thinking is that the bob has no problem with straight up killing anyone who might turn rogue like they have an entire UNIT of people dedicated to taking them down, butttt lucretia worked it out with the boys after crystal kingdom when she wanted to know why they didn’t run from the lich

so just throwing pringles in jail didnt make sense like why didnt she either talk it out or kill him? because if hes a red robe she can’t let him go free and killing him just gives him free reign as a lich

pringles not having any idea whats up checks out since bbj says when ur in ur body u dont remember anything, and i guess it would have something to do with why he was just like wandering around in bob

nowwww im trying to figure out how lu and bob fit into the endgame showdown

i REALLY REALLY dont think the bob is evil; the relics are most definitely corruptive weapons of mass destruction and the red robes themselves were scared of him, mag was scared of the chalice and the relics are deffo being destroyed so thats good

(plus everyone at bob is lovable and perfect)

(also if theres this super powerful, corrosive bad thing ur scared of why are u gonna dump it off on 2 random strangers? it puts them in danger! what if they use it? why do that? i wanna find out)

with the new info we have im going back through the early episodes to remember what expo there was and lu initially described the red robes as rogue wizards who were experimenting and went too far, and if the bois found any, to bring them to the bob to get information lu said could be vital

but things changed! after the lich showed up, lu told the bois that if they saw it again, to run, just run. so why the change of heart? im still thinking about that. hang with me. 

obviously something changed there. lu learned new info on the red robes. maybe it was the fact that it was a lich that made her afraid? i cant help but think there’s more. there has to be, if im right about pringles.

i think its pretty surefire that there’s a second voidfish containing info on the interstellar war so no one knows about it. i was thinking that maybe, somehow, lu was inoculated, but on second thought probably not. lucretia’s a go-getter and would definitely do something about it. she’s done nothing to demonstrate that she’s aware of anything bigger picture than the relics

except pringles

but not the rest of that stuff. and she would do something about it. 

bbj said something about going to bob and getting answers, so i think its fair to say that she knows something he doesnt, even in lich form, orrrr she knows things that she shouldnt and bbj wants to know how.

so what does she know, and how does she know what she knows? 

also: is she aware of the bois’ status? and as long as they didnt know what was up they weren’t dangerous, and when robbie was wandering around that made him a threat but the bois are good? or was it something about pringles wandering around that alerted her that something was up?

i dont think shes evil. i really dont. shes been so concerned about the bois well being! and shes such a well-rounded character! and i would like to think that griffin would know better than to make this wonderful, three-dimensional, badass woc character be evil.

i was afraid that she was gonna be a puppet, but that line she has in the spa about not relying on anyone else is deffo not something a puppet would say. also i love her.

i deffo think were gonna see her in combat tho. shes so powerful she just tapped her staff a lil bit and instantly knocked out the bois for long enough to set up the trial of initiation. right now it looks like shes gonna fight the bois, but that doesnt mean they cant work things out. kravitz was a big antagonist for a while, remember. i bet shes gonna do some cool shit. i love her.

i think cam thinking well of her is also important in the context of the narrative, and not painting her as a bad person. i was fully prepared for cam to stab them in the back, tho

so back to how does lu know what she knows ok ok ok: lup had the umbra staff right

and there were a bunch of umbra wizards that made cool wands and staves and stuff

maybe the staff lu always has on her at all times is connected to that, dont u think? 

maybe she has ties with the red robes? maybe shes the final lich? maybe she somehow remembered some stuff, not everything but enough to be scared bc it seems like she wants to stay waaaaaaay away from the red robes, or at least wants the bois to hmmmmm im rlly scratching my head on this one “ive stopped relying on others” sounds like someone maybe could have broken from the red robe organization maybe??

oh yeah the solstice carnival! ppl are theorizing that everything is on a loop a la eleventh hour. gundren rockseeker said his dad was locked up with the gauntlet for ten years, and refuge was in a bubble for like 7 years, so it’s been longer than a year. im still pulling that the eclipse marked 1 year till endgame, since theyve been working at bob for over a year now. come on!! how dramatic!!! anyway there were definitely other plane shenanigans going on there

what are those little white things anyway i always picture them as the forest spirits from princess mononoke but like what are they there for

hmm also bbj was so miserable when they didnt trust him after refuge. why did he address his words to lup? whats the story there? 

hmm, and there’s still another relic out there. maybe justin was right and it was love all along.

im gonna add to this as i work back through the podcast but this is where im at rn

also i have memory problems so i probs forgot a lot of contradictory info

[boobtubedude]

The Tournament Of The Archomentals, Part 2

Notes for the last campaign session are here.

The latest session picks up moments after the last one ended. Garrick runs out to greet the heroes, but immediately behind him are fifty guards that quickly surround them on all sides. Garrick insists that the heroes must go talk to the tournaments architects about what just happened. The cleric Peter Dinklage was having none of it, and what ensued was a ten-minute argument that perplexed both Garrick and the DM. Turns out, Peter had forgotten all about the end of the last session in which the sky went black and the audience wheel started to glow and unholy bright red, and thought the architects were mad they had won the round, and didn’t he feel silly about all of this now.

The five heroes went inside and were greeted by Demora, whom the Halfling seamstress had transformed from a half-elf female Rogue into a male, Dragonborn beserker Barbarian named Stripe. The now finally-united team went before the architects in a grand hall underneath the arena. Gundren Rockseeker, as one intimately familiar with the heroics of the original four from their first adventure in Wave Echo Cave, thought perhaps the group had brought something back with them unwittingly from Barovia. Arzgarth denied those charges. Chad The Conquerer and Peter were then questioned, as two whom Vivienne has transformed. As a warlock, Chad’s new god might have been responsible, Artin Battlehammer suggested. Chad said that his god spoke to him through the stars, which everyone agreed was a little weird but whatever, we’re all inclusive here. Theren Amastacia thought Stripe’s mysterious absence in the last battle now felt fishy, but Stripe described her vomiting in great detail, perhaps too great, if we’re all being honest. Theren then directed her inquiries to the two newest members of the group, Danfielding and Kieran Lonesword. They too denied any wrongdoing.

The group noticed that the last architect, Kallista Orianna, was silent. The Tiefling caught Stripe’s gaze, and Stripe instantly had a vision of a bright blue scepter, almost impossibly large, with a huge tidal wave cresting behind it. As soon as the image was present, it was gone. Kallista broke contact with Stripe and immediately left the room. The architects agreed to let the heroes participate in the next round, but would need to take more precautions with the audience.

Garrick and Vivienne then escorted the group to their room for the evening. The names of the other teams were on doors as they walked down the hallway. The DM worked super hard on these names, but the heroes were clearly too tired from their battle to ask. After much prompting by the DM, the heroes finally indulged his hint and asked about the names of the other four remaining teams.

They were:

Wave Echo Cave Of Mutilation

Quoth The Raven, Neverwinter

Axis: Kobold As Love

The Archomaniacs

The DM awaited the glorious and hearty response. Three half-chuckled and the other three went to get another beer. The DM vowed to make the next round much harder than initially planned.

Overnight, a few of the heroes were awoken by the sound of rustling paper and footsteps outside their door. What they found was a mysterious grid laced with symbols. Peering outside the door, they could find no sign of who had left it for them, or what it meant. They did all agree that the artistry on it was top-notch and museum-worthy, however.

After gearing up for the next day’s events, Garrick led them down the same hallway as before to the arena: The first two archomentals were no longer lit, as the “Earth” portion of the tournament was over. Garrick explained this round would honor the “Air” archomentals, Yan-C-Bin and Chan. “In every moment, the winds of battle can change!” warned Garrick, who was still a bit sore at Peter about the misunderstanding the day before. “You don’t have to win so much as survive this time. You’ll see what I mean.” The portrait of Asmodeus lifted again, but this time, there was no light shining from above. As soon as the heroes got onto the circular platform, the door shut behind them, the room filled up with gas, and everyone passed out.

Well, everyone but Chad, who as a 10th level Warlock is apparently immune to everything, which really rankled the DM’s narrative and overall demeanor, especially because Chad’s the DM’s real-life brother and this brought up all sorts of feelings about how Mom liked him best. Chad watched two guards pick up the limp bodies of everyone else and drag them onto the new arena. The two guards assigned to Chad panicked a bit at seeing him not passed out and quickly ran into the platform and hightailed it out of there. So much for the romantic nature of mystery.

Chad saw the room go from pitch black to bright white in an instant, and the lighting change managed to wake everyone else up. While they had been in many dungeons between them over the years, the heroes never saw anything quite like this. The room wasn’t so much lit by torches as much as lit by sleek, glass-like panels. On the floor and walls were 15’x15’ panels, of which 24 total were on the floor, yielding a 60’x90’ floor space. There was a clear 2’’ gap between each square, segmenting them cleanly from one another. The panels ran up all of the walls as well, shooting 60’ high. In the dead center of the room, about 4’ in diameter, was an equally-glossy cylinder. In the four upper corners of the room were screens featuring the faces of the four Architects, looking sternly at all six of them. No crowds could be seen anywhere. Peter looked at the floor for any signs of the symbols on the map they had gotten the night before, but saw nothing.

The six tried to talk to each other, and realized quickly that they could hear some better than others. An investigation yielded that the 2’’ gap running north to south in the dead center of the room featured an invisible wall, separating the group of six into groups of three. Just as they realized that, the east and west walls raised up 15’, and out came two enormous gelatinous cubes from the space within, moving slowly towards them, in a scene no way inspired by the trash compactor sequence in “A New Hope.”

Different folks took different approaches. The bard Danfielding cast “Vicious Mockery,” in the hopes of I suppose making the jelly feel bad about itself. Peter used his lightning prowess to deal damage but also keep pushing the cube back lest it ingest them whole. The fighters Stripe and Kieran slashed away, the paladin Arzgarth made one cube his mortal enemy in order to deal extra damage, and Chad was chill because he was immune to cubes, probably.

At one point, the eastern-based cube was obliterated to the point of exploding over every clean, glossy surface, which led to the creation of the hashtag #cubelube, and there was much regret.

After defeating both cubes, the heroes heard several whooshing noises, and realized that while the north-south wall was gone, there was one running east-west horizontally between all six rows. Luckily, because of their movement in the previous battle, they were all now paired up. This was good because into these narrow corridors poured a pair of Air Mephits. The DM tried to describe them as Watto from “The Phantom Menace,” but not everyone in the group had seen “The Phantom Menace,” which initially made the DM mad but eventually jealous, because some people had not endured “The Phantom Menace.”

Chad summoned the Fire Elemental Efreeti with 200 HP to take care of his Mephits, because why the fuck not, I guess. The heroes didn’t have a particularly easy time with these creatures, as the Mephits successfully blinded most of them in the first round which required more healing and ingenuity than normally required by them. Even Efreeti had a hard time hitting the Mephits, which would be like Ted Williams having a hard time hitting a ball of a tee.

The heroes ultimately defeated the six beasts, at which point the walls all seemingly disappeared on the floor. To the north side, a single panel lifted up, out of which a djinn walk-floated into the arena. Looking at Efreeti, it smiled and conjured his own equally large air elemental. “This will teach them to not laugh at my team names,” the DM thought to himself.