Tree of Life, Part 1

Nyridius continues to complain about relentless cluster headaches, right up until he shrieks in terror and falls unconscious.  Undeterred, the party drags his dead weight right up to the Big Ass Tree.  Surrounding them, they see a peaceful and serene village of animal life; bunnies hop pleasantly through the grove while urban bears lounge in hammocks.  At the center of it all is the Big Ass Tree, which has a giant face and speaks in a kind, soothing voice.  “Hello travelers.  I believe you’ve come here for assistance in defeating Windsor.  To do so, you’ll have to crawl up my butthole.”  Hand Banana faints.

The Big Ass Tree explains that there is a giant green crystal inside of him, and that the party is welcome to take it if might help them.  The tree warns, though, that his innards contain animal life that has been driven crazy by being in proximity to the crystal.  It advises them to take one of his bear minions, Thug Money, with them; his brain has already been rendered soft by marijuana abuse and overexposure to bass-heavy music.  Thug Money offers to carry one of their unconscious friends into the tree with them.  The party choses Hand Banana, leaving Nyridius in the peaceful grove.  The Big Ass Tree spreads his tree root butt cheeks, and the party hops in.

After sliding down an earthen slope, the team finds themselves in a dark, dank, musty pit.  The air is foul and filled with mold spores.  Little Rock equips an enviro-mask and avoids the ill effects.  However, he bogarts the mask, and Tao Ren, Fitzgerald, and Drizzle all begin to take necrotic damage each turn.

The party is quickly approached by a flying disembodied head, which is shrieking wildly.  Tao Ren shoots it down easily, but the other native fauna quickly mount an attack.  The team is accosted by spiders, flying heads, and turtle-cockroach hybrids. 

While Fitzgerald, Little Rock, and Drizzle engage the first wave of enemies, a bodyless head flies up to Tao Ren, giving him a light kiss.  His ears begin to flap like wings, and his head separates from his body.  Although he tries to reattach it himself, he can’t manage to line it up correctly.  All the while, most of the party is being quickly poisoned by the air they breathe.

Drizzle provides cover from a nearby spider, allowing Fitzgerald runs over to Tao Ren and reassembles him.  Little Rock, unaffected by the poison, stands his ground and fights the critters.  In doing so, he receives a savage beating from the turtle-cockroaches’ heavy mallets. 

Deciding that discretion is the better part of valor, the party makes a hasty move toward the exit.  Enemies give chase, but Little Rock fends them off with his last bit of strength.  The party climbs up a circular staircase inside of the Big Ass Tree, moving high up into its body.

Stay of Execution, Part 4

Nyridius’ splitting headaches continue.  Through the pain, he has a vision: he is inside Windsor’s body, looking through his eyes.  Surrounding him, he sees the ruins of the Collective.  Destroyed robots litter the area.  Windsor feels confident that the only organized, disciplined group that could threaten his power is vanquished.  He begins to head south.  Nyridius snaps back to reality.

The party nears the Big Ass Tree, but first, they must cross the river.  A helpful elderly couple advises them to take caution, as they may get confused and disoriented.  When they approach the river crossing, they see a woman made of rocks, who calls out to Little Rock.  Little Rock immediately senses something is wrong.  The woman knows his name, and tells him that she transformed herself into rocks so that they could be together forever.  She suggests that they kill his fleshy friends and start their new lives together.  That’s when Little Rock realizes that the woman is Azkadelia, who apparently survived the explosion but went cray-cray.

Tao Ren initiates combat on his behalf by firing his shuriken-gun at Azkadelia’s main enforcer, a hulking gargoyle.  The party moves into position, but Azkadelia makes things difficult by completely re-arranging the local map.  Clearly, she’s gone off the deep end, and her gravity-manipulating powers allow her to disassemble and reassemble the local environment as she pleases.  Even worse, she’s making a face at Little Rock that resembles “Over Attached Girlfriend.” 

Two additional statues join the fray, shooting ebony beams of energy at the adventurers.  When hit, the beams partly transform the party into statues of themselves, paralyzing various limbs. 

Although they outnumber the enemies, no one on the team can manage to land any hits.  Hand Banana tries to make a timely escape by jumping in a nearby rowboat, but Azkadelia re-orients the map so the terrifying gargoyle is right next to him.  The gargoyle is swift for his size, and severely injures everyone on the team with powerful claw swipes.

Drizzle realizes that she can do more damage to stone enemies with her special ranged attack: a bubble pipe that blows acidic bubbles.  Using this, she defeats one of the statues.  Tao Ren smashes another to bits with a swift strike.  Even outnumbered 6-to-2, though, Azkadelia and the gargoyle make formidable enemies.    Frustrations abound; just as the players run up to an enemy, the earth shifts and they find themselves on the other end of the map.  The gargoyle beats Little Rock to a pulp and eviscerates Tao Ren (although Tao Ren does just fine thanks to a new mutation of redundant organs).  Nyridius and Fitzgerald try to assist, but whiff most of their attacks.

After a protracted slugfest, the team defeats the stone foes.  With the path now clear, the party approaches the Big Ass Tree.

Stay of Execution, Part 3

On their way to the tree, Nyridius begins to experience some powerful headaches.  He sees Windsor thrashing some unseen enemies, scrap metal flying in every direction.  He is snapped by to reality when he hears voices from the tree line.  Looking out, the party sees one of the thug bears up in a tree.  At the base of the tree is a group of mummies.  “HEY YOU MUTHAFUCKAS, HELP ME GET OUT OF THIS GAWDDAM TREE!” shouts the bear.  An elderly gentleman named Mandeep, however, urges the group to move along, assuring the group that his mummies need to kill the bear in order to save the world.  Little Rock and Hand Banana won’t hear any of it, and they immediately move to intercept the mummies.

Upon closer inspection, the team realizes that these mummies are the (very poorly) preserved remains of infamous teenage heartthrobs, such as Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus.  This is confirmed when the mummies begin singing annoyingly catchy pop songs and attacking with over-sexualized pelvic thrusts.  Drizzle, Fitzgerald, Little Rock, and Nyridius split up to engage the mummies, but their attacks don’t appear to do any damage.  While Tao Ren unsuccessfully attempts to bash the tree until the bear falls out, Hand Banana threatens Mandeep with rape, breaking his spirit.  Mandeep immediately gives up the mummies’ weakness: their self-esteem.

With these instructions, the party dishes out crippling insults.  Drizzle tells Miley that she has her father’s scraggly mullet, and Little Rock tells Bieber that Usher was just using him to stay relevant.  With their self-esteem crushed, the mummies become vulnerable.  The party uses this opportunity to unleash a barrage of ranged and melee attacks, severely injuring the mummies.  The team outnumbers the mummies, so things appear to be going well.  Unfortunately, though, two skeletal bodyguards appear to defend the mummified celebrities.

The skeletons brandish fearsome blades, but their true danger comes from their ranged attack: they shoot a flurry of angry bees out of their mouth.  Although there are only two of them, they quickly overwhelm the party.  Hand Banana is knocked unconscious from a critical bee strike.  Drizzle is also knocked out by a combination of bees and mummy thrusts.  Fitzgerald convinces the thug bear to come out of the tree and help, but the bear is immediately killed by the skeletons as well.

Finally, the party gets their shit together and busts out the powerful attacks.  Little Rock stomps and bashes his way through two mummies, and Fitzgerald uses his magnetic powers to throw enemies into each other.  After some solid attacks, the mummies are incapacitated.  As soon as the mummies are defeated, the skeletons lose their purpose in life and collapse harmlessly.

“You fools!” cries Mandeep.  “I was going to use those mummies to kill the bears and all their animal kin.  At the Big Ass Tree, they possess a crystal equal in power to Windsor’s!  All I needed to do was kill them, take their crystal, and then use it to stop Windsor!”

“Why kill them?  Why not just ask them  nicely for it?” asks Nyridius. 

“Well, I suppose you could try that too.”  replies Mandeep.

Stay of Execution, Part 2

As Little Rock, Hand Banana, and Tao Ren flee the execution compound, they come across a familiar face:  Nyridius.  He appears to be imprisoned along with two other individuals on a flat-bed semi.  The semi isn’t moving, and they can see several guards milling about or tinkering with the engine.  Little Rock approaches the semi’s guards, and asks what they’re doing with the three prisoners.  The guards reveal that they, too, are part of Windsor’s flame cultists, and that they’re transporting prisoners to the execution site (the location that Little Rock and the others just escaped from).  Little Rock offers to take possession of the prisoners, but his lie is a critical failure, and the guards immediately recognize him as an enemy.  A fight erupts!

Immediately, Hand Banana attempts to leap over a pit, only to fall face-first to the bottom.

The enemies spread out; the unimaginative guards engage with melee attacks, while the flaming spellcaster shoots fireballs from afar.  In addition, a wild cultist by the name of “Crazy Jimmy” hacks and slashes at the team with the fury of a madman.  Little Rock and Tao Ren engage the lunatic.

Hand Banana crawls to the top of the pit, and promptly slips and falls back in.

Nyridius and the others realize that, when it comes to freeing them, they are on their own.  Nyridius utilizes his vines to free himself from an imprisoning force field, while the other two display their own powers.  Lieutenant T. Fitzgerald employs his magnetic powers to lower the force field, while Dr. Drizzle uses strange alien powers to disrupt the field.  They free themselves, but Nyridius is immediately knocked unconscious by a potent fireball from the spellcaster.   Fitzgerald and Drizzle spring into action by incapacitating one of the guards and stabilizing Nyridius.

Hand Banana manages to struggle to the top of the pit, only to be tackled back into it by “Crazy Jimmy.”  In a final shaming, he is knocked unconscious by powerful seismic stomp from Little Rock.

Despite their struggles, the adventurers defeat the cultists.  They introduce themselves to their new friends, and share what they know about the infamous Windsor.  Tao Ren convinces the party to travel south to the “Big-Ass Tree,” which throbs with a powerful life-force.

Stay of Execution, Part 1

Little Rock awakens.  He feels like he’s been asleep for months.  Although the physical trauma he took was great, his incredible durability allowed him to cling to life.  He finds himself in a makeshift morgue, lying on a slab.  None of his previous allies are around him.  Also in the morgue are two other men; Tao Ren, an agile martial artist, and Hand Banana.  They survey the room and find an ominous-looking metal gate separating their room from a deep, dark pit.  They also hear voices in an adjacent room speculating on when Little Rock’s execution will be held, and how Lord Windsor will carry out the sentence.

As they search for an escape, two tiny rats curiously approach them.  They try to pet the rats, but Hand Banana manages to critically fail and smacks one with a heavy book.  Both rats escape into the dark pit.

The ruckus alerts the guards and executioner in the adjacent room, and as they try to enter the room, the trio springs into action.  Tao Ren utilizes some nearby steak knives for a melee attack, and Little Rock smashes through the wall, Kool-Aid Man style.  They engage the executioners, demolishing the crew quarters in the process.

In the middle of the fight, the mother of all rats appears from the gated pit.  It eyes everyone angrily.  Little Rock attempts to get on its good side by showing affection for a tiny rat, but he ALSO fails critically and smashes it under his palm.  Infuriated, the enormous rat charges all humanoids, adventurers and executioners alike.

After beating on the guards for a bit, the trio decides to make a timely escape.  They note the front door, but decide to jump out the window instead.  On cue, they fail miserably.  Hand Banana fails to break through the glass, and Tao Ren breaks the glass but lands stomach-first on the broken glass.  As the berserk rat tears the executioners apart, the group pulls itself together and runs away from the execution site.