An Adventurer is You, Part II in 3D (Game)

The Game Room
1

Once upon a time, John DiFool started a thread called An Adventurer Is You & The GM Hates Your Guts (game). I’ll just quote his first post so you can see what it was all about.

I was just thinking about this and realized that it was just over a year ago that we did it. Isn’t it about time to start a new one? Wasn’t that last one so much fun? Shouldn’t we do it again? What to read and/ or participate?

The answers to the above questions are I guess, yeah I suppose, I just said yeah, and well OK I guess. So without much more ado, I present:

**
An Adventurer is You and the GM Hates Your Guts, Part II in 3D**
Dirk the Adventurer is walking down the trail and spies a fork in the road. Right at the split, he sees a sign post with one arrow pointing to the left and another to the right. On the left-pointing arrow is the word Dullsville, and to the right is Adventureton. Dirk looks at the two signs, scratches his chin in facsimile of deep, deep thought and finally decides to head to…

2

Dirk scratches his chin thoughtfully (as in what passes for thoughts in his particular case), eventually asking, out loud, “I wonder which way he went?”

The tree which stands at the exact center of the fork then speaks to him.

“A QUESTION! Long have I stood here waiting for someone to come along and ask me a question!”

Dirk, having past experience with quirky talking trees, isn’t quite as taken aback as you might ordinarily think, but taken aback he is anyway. After a few moments of bewilderment, he responds,

“How long, then?”

“Oh, only about a day or so.”

“And who was it?”

“That you might very well be interested in, my good man! It was none other than the one you have been pursuing relentlessly!! (Well, in between bouts of absent-mindedness and distraction in the typical form of pretty flowers and butterflies, of course, but in your case that goes without saying)”

“You mean…?”

“Yes! The very one!”

“That dirty low-down bastard hobbit thief Drogo Toadspittle?”

“Aye aye!”

“Which way did he go, then?”

“Sorry! You have already used up your allotted number of four questions for this particular tree oracle.”

The tree folds its limbs and goes silent and motionless.

“But I must find him! You see, he stole…”

3

“Stole your what?” came a gloomy growl from the shadows of a nearby tree.

“Uh… stole my stole,” answered Dirk as he squinted into the darkness. “It’s a Pithorian mink stole and, uh, a gift for my girlfriend.”

A dour wolf glumly leapt from the shadows and morosely landed in front of Dirk. “I do not care,” it growled. “I am hungry and you look like you will do. You can run, but I wish you wouldn’t as it will end more quickly if you don’t.”

Thinking quickly, Dirk pulled his nutsack out and prepared to hit the wolf with it. The +2 sack of nut holding was filled with Igthornian walnuts and Orwelian Brazil nuts and, as well as being fairly useful in knocking out would-be attackers, has the added benefit of cracking the nuts when used so you can have a tasty snack after your fight.

Dirk swung the sack over his head and brought it down on the creature…

4

Only to have the wolf open his jaws at the last instant and swallow the bag whole. “And now-” the wolf began; then a strange expression passed across the wolf’s face, quickly replaced by a grimace of pain, and then the wolf started convulsing in agony. Apparently swallowing unshelled nuts is rather hard on the digestive track. Dirk cried out “My nuts! You ate my nuts!” but the wolf was too preoccupied to care.

Turning back to the signposts, Dirk was still faced with the dilemma of which way Drogo Toadspittle might have gone. Suddenly, he had an inspiration…

5

“I’m not going to go down either road!” Dirk declared to nobody in particular. “I’m going to go straight between them!”

And so, our hapless adventurer drudged forward, in between the two offshooting roads, onwards, ahead, and then immediately bumped right into the talking tree.

“Hey! Watch it, you joik!” it growled at him.

“Oops, sorry,” he shrugged back sheepishly, walked around the tree, stumbled over a silent, grapefruit-sized rock, then marched into the woods.

Dirk marched for hours, or perhaps it was only 20 minutes, Dirk wasn’t certain. He was very proud of himself. He thought he made the right decision plus he had only walked through two or three spider webs. But then his attentions quickly turned to a rumbling, crashing sound off in the distance. A rumbling, crashing sound that seemed to be getting louder, as if the cause of the rumbling, crashing sound was coming straight towards him.

Dirk pondered this for a while, trying to think what could be making that sound, then he started thinking about how interesting it was that sounds get louder as objects get nearer. What an interesting phenomenom it was! Dirk wondered if this had a name and wondered if he should name it.

Suddenly a huge beast crashed through the woods. It was all gray with rough, textured skin, and sitting atop it’s long snout was a singular, rough and pointy horn.

“A Rhinosaurus!” Dirk yelped in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

The rhinosaurus replied with a snort, a grunt, and then charged straight at the hero.

Dirk nimbly dove out of the way, then unnimbly crashed through some bushes, another spider web, stumbled over a rock, then rolled down a small hill. The rhino, meanwhile, was making a long arc, aiming to come back and splat him for sure.

Thinking quickly, Dirk pulled his Triple A traveler’s guidebook out of his ruck and started thumbing through the Rs. Every year, The Atlantean Adventurers Association publishes a great travelbook filled with information and knowledge that anyone who wanted to travel the many kingdoms could not do without. Dirk hoped he would never see the day when he would get his annual book.

“Let’s see, Rummy, rhubarb, rice wine, ah! Rhinosaurus!”

Dirk quickly read that the rhinosaurus possesses great straight-line speed, but is pretty terrible at turns, so if you are ever attacked by one, try to lure it into a labyrinth. Once it’s trapped in there, it will seek out its natural enemy (which is just about everyone, but in this particular case, a minotaur).

“Interesting,” Dirk said to himself as the Rhinosaurus came crashing towards him again and he wondered if there were any convenient labyrinths nearby.

6

Dirk reached into hammerspace and-

GM: “Wait a second; hammerspace?”

Player: “Yeah, you know, how cartoon characters can always pull out a mallet or a stick of dynamite or-”

GM: “This isn’t a cartoon”.

Player: “Well, how about first person shooters where you can carry twelve different weapons?”

GM: “This isn’t a videogame either. It’s a RPG adventure, and you have nothing on you that isn’t specified in your inventory.”

Player: “Ok, Dirk opens his Bag of Holding and-”

GM: “You don’t HAVE a Bag of Holding!”

Player: “But I could pull it out of my Bag of Holding, because my Bag of Holding could be holding itself.”

GM: “Or maybe, YOU JUST DON’T HAVE ONE!!!”

Player: “Hmm… Ok, how about this: I pray for a miracle.”

GM: “To whom exactly?”

Player: “To anyone who might be listening.”

GM (suddenly has evil leer on his face): “Anyone who might be listening, huh?” (Consults manuals; rolls dice a couple of times; “Ok, roll 2D10”

Player rolls… double zero.

7

Player: Uh, that’s good, right?

8

A sudden puff of pink smoke billows sensuously in front of our hero. After a few moments, some feminine-ish coughing and hacking emanates from the now dissipating cloud, eventually revealing our fair heroine Ploothka.

“<cough> <gasp>…I HATE it when they do that! I loathe theatrics…”

“Anyway, hi honey.”

She walks up to Dirk and gives him a hearty yet tender and loving hug.

“You just HAD to go walking through yet another magical portal without me, a Portal of Forgetfulness in point of fact…”, she sighs. “So, what’s up?”

9

“Portal of Forgetfulness?” Dirk looked confused.

“Another Portal of Forgetfulness,” Ploothka corrected. “How many times are you going to fall through one of those things?”

“Er,” Dirk tried to remember, but there seemed to be some dark cloudy spot in the middle of his memories. The last thing he did remember was chasing after hobbit thief Drogo Toadspittle and wondering if it was hobbit thief Drogo Toadspittle or hobbit thief Drogo Toadspittle, he also remembered thinking that seeing a three legged platypus really isn’t that uncommon, then something about a large creature bearing down on him. What was that thing again? Hippopotamoose? No. Ginger Bear? Nope. Rhinosaurus? Eureka!

“Rhinosaurus!” Dirk yelled while pointing at the charging beast.

With barely a look, Ploothka loosed a bolt from her +5 Crossbow of Coolness. The projectile sang through the air straight towards the rapidly approaching creature and struck a nearby aluminum can right in its centermass with its trademarked crunching noise. The Rhinosaurus, either distracted or attracted to the noise, attempted to turn and see what it was, only to lose its footing, slip down a hill, shake off the tumble, then decide to go crashing through the woods in the other direction.

“You know, I was wondering where you went off to,” Ploothka said once the danger had passed. “We were riding the Fenris Wheel at the Savoir Faire and then all of a sudden you were gone. Where’d you go off to? Where are we now? What happened? Sweetie?”

“Uh, stuh- stole,” Dirk stammered his mind was beginning to clear up much like some sort of murky water clearing into somewhat less murky water. “Drogo Toadspittle stole your stole!”

10

[off the record, what is GM?]

Ploothka unequipped her +5 Crossbow of Coolness and remarked, “Well, if you want to talk to Drogo, you have to come to the Savoir Faire. He IS hosting this year, after all.”

Confused and forgetful, Dirk asked, “Where is the Faire? Why are we going? What is it? Is it wise to seek a plot template this early?”

“Inbetweentown, you, a celebration for the socially inept and/or inadequate, and what is ‘plot’ or ‘template’ or ‘seek?’”

As they begin marching, they continue talking, assuming the GM [whatever that is] will let me prioritize plot details through dialogue. “So what exactly happened that led up to me trying to find Drogo Tittlespoad and your mink stole?” requested Dirk.

“Toadspittle,” corrected Ploothka with such smugness, Dirk wished he could remember how to activate the -42 smugness enchantment on his +7 sword of humility (ironically, humility is a negative boost. The higher it is, the weaker you become as a character. For clarity, positive humility is negative smugness). “And, you see…”

11

“It’s complicated”, she continued.

“Isn’t it always?” Dirk sighed.

“Well, yes, but that is the point” she exposited vaguely.

“No, this is the point. OW!” Dirk proclaimed, tapping the appropriate part of his +7 sword of humility.

“We’re going to a wedding. Of sorts. But not at Savoir Fair. That just won’t do. It has to be Scarborough Fair.”

“The Scarborough Fair? Really? Do you think I’m a simple Simon”? Dirk asked.

“Of course not, dearie. You’re far too Art-ful for that. But we must hurry. The wedding must happen before the clock strikes noon” she exposited once again, because that is what she does.

“What clock? And who is getting married?” Dirk pondered aloud.

“It’s an elder scholar, dressed all in green, and his blushing bride named for a prickly flower. Now hurry along!” she implored.

“So we’re off to see a Parsley Sage, Rose, married in time?” Dirk deadpanned…

12

They walked across opun country, passing by Rapunzel’s tower, and crossed a small river in a punt under a punishing midday sun, until at last the very fabric of reality could stand no more and the film burned through. After the Cosmic Projectionist made some hasty repairs, the story continued as the pair arrived at the wedding.

13

Shortly, our adventurous duo Dirk and Ploothka came upon a cliff face with a raging river roaring beneath them.

“I don’t know how we’ll get past this,” Ploothka said while looking over the edge.

“Look, over there!” Dirk exclaimed. “There’s a bridge that goes over these troubled waters!”

The two rushed over to the bridge but before they could cross it, a repairman appeared from within a small shack and told them to hold on a minute.

“The suspension here on this bridge needs to be tightened.” He pulled out out a leverage bar and began tightening the ratchet of the suspension lines while whistling. Badly. Possibly the most annoying and off-key whistle ever produced by mortal man.

“Ugh, I prefer the sounds of silence,” Plootka muttered to Dirk.

“Well, there you go.” The mechanic pulled out his lever, flipped it in the air and then caught it in a happy job-well-done manner. “She’s as good as new.”

“So we can cross now?” asked Dirk. “Thank you.”

“Oh don’t thank me,” grinned the repairman. “This is just one of 50 ways to love your lever.”

14

Dirk placed one tentative footstep onto the first step of the bridge. He could see gaps in the half-rotten boards, and it definitely looked like it was a long way down.

“Are you sure this is safe?” inquired Ploothka to the repairman.

[hockspit went the repairman as he shot a loogie over the precipice]

“Sure dayum is, Ida reckon. They don’t build bridges like this here one anymore, no siree! I mean check out this solid construction!”

He gave one of the ropes a solid hearty shake; dust cascaded from the bridge, and one of the boards 30 feet in fell into the chasm.

“Umm honey I’m not so sure about this!” exclaimed Dirk.

“Just take it one step at a time, hold onto the ropes, and whatever you do, don’t look down!” Ploothka replied. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Not looking down while crossing a rickety bridge over a deep chasm-that’s kind of like not getting all hot and bothered when your sexy wife comes into the bedroom last Christmas Eve wearing nothing but a elf cap on her head. Mustn’t think of sex at a time like this, Dirk mused as he slowly placed one foot in front of the other and muttered, all is groovy, all is groovy, feelin’ groovy, over and over to himself…

Suddenly the two boards on which Dirk was positioned both broke simultaneously, and Dirk, his grip on the rotten ropes slipping instantly, plummeted through the bridge and…!

“Dirk!!!” exclaimed Ploothka to her seemingly doomed love…

15

Down, down Dirk plunged. The river came rushing up, water boiling as it rushed over rocks that looked hard as rock. Then Dirk remembered: in old time movie serials, when one episode ended on a cliffhanger when it seemed the hero was doomed, the next installment always cheated by showing something that definitely did NOT happen the first time around, giving the hero an out.

GM (Game Master): “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

Player: “Hey, you’re the one who introduced a ‘Cosmic Projectionist’! So this is a serial adventure movie. I say you have to give me a roll to determine if this took place at a cliffhanger.”

GM: “Fine. But you have to get a” (rolls 2d10) “… sonofa bitch!”

Fortunately, Dirk had grabbed one of the free parachutes at the head of the bridge. Pulling the ripcord, the parachute billows out and Dirk softly floats down to… the raging rapids.

16

The boiling water that had been rushing over rocks hard as rocks boiled hotter, and the rising heat caught Dirk’s billowing parachute. He floated far up, until his +6 Parachute of Non-death ran out of mana.

His fall was abruptly halted when the parachute caught on a tree. Not in the mood to recharge the the parachute (which, when empty, becomes a -9 object of deadweight) he abandoned it, setting out to march toward the setting sun.

Ploothka, meanwhile, had been freaking out. Annoyed that Dirk had gotten away again, she activated another +18 stone of finding stuff. It took the form of a grapefruit-sized rock. Fortunately, it was a deluxe edition, coming with bonus enchantments of +3 Wit, +4 Sarcasm, and ±8 Helpful ability to talk.

17

Dirk carried on, heading towards his destination (whichever that was at the moment, he really wasn’t taking notes and he kind of forgot where he was going, though he knew that he would surely find that rotten Drogo Toadspatzle once he got there). The dull roar of the river and the dull roar of his thoughts matched up and he dully marched on down the path until it was suddenly blocked by a puff of smoke and the cackling of what could only be wise, old wizard-type guy.

“Hah hahh hah, Adventurer Dirk!” the wizard chortled. “Are you traveling to your destiny at Scarborough Fair?”

“Yeah,” Dirk nodded dully. “I guess so.”

“You keep your thoughts close to you so as to never reveal your crafty plans, don’t you,” the wizard winked wickedly.

“Yeah,” Dirk nodded dully. “I guess so.”

The wizard chortled again. “Oh you are a clever man. But you must prove your cleverness in order to receive my prize. Be thee game, adventurer?”

“Yeah,” Dirk nodded obtusely. “I guess so.”

“The challenge is this riddle: What sort of creature walks on all fours in the morning, on two during the day, and on three at twilight?”

Dirk thought about the riddle for a moment until he was distracted by a turtle floating by on a log. He then thought about how turtle rhymes with hurdle and hurdle is another word for an obstacle that you have to overcome. Girdle also rhymes with turtle. Sometimes a platypus will walk on three legs, but that surely couldn’t be the answer.

“Can you repeat the riddle?” Dirk asked after a moment.

“What sort of creature walks on all fours in the morning, on two during the day, and on three at twilight?”

“Hmmm. Can you give me a hint?”

“No.”

“Can you rephrase the riddle in the form of a question?”

“It is in the form of a question. You have but one more chance to answer correctly. What say thee?” the wizard cackled some more.

“Man, this is a tough riddle.”

The wizard’s cackling suddenly stopped when he heard Dirk say the word “Man.” His leering smile dropped to a look of seriousness.

“I can’t believe you got it,” the wizard gasped. You are a great adventurer indeed!"

“Yeah,” Dirk nodded dully. “I guess so.”

“Well a deal’s a deal,” said the wizard and from behind his back he produced a small sack, which appeared to contain about 5 pounds of something. From the smell of it, it could be five pounds of old coleslaw. “Use this wisely, good sir, but you will know when to use it when the opportunity presents itself!”

And with a flash of smoke and a puff of lighting, the wizard disappeared. Only his cackling echoing into nothing remained.

Dirk hefted the sack and pondered his next move.

18

Dirk had come to the conclusion that he would start punching trees, as he knew that it had helped a past adventurer stay not-dead in the face of oncoming night. Just he stepped forward to approach the first tree, he tripped on a grapefruit-sized rock.

Witty dialogue followed, but the author was too indisposed to write it down. Perhaps the rock imparted some helpful and meaningful knowledge amid his tirade, which Dirk might flashback to at convenient moments.

“Thank you for that potentially helpful and meaningful information,” said Dirk. “Perhaps I might think back on it later. Do you know what I am supposed to be doing?”

“Well,” began the rock, “first you can begin by naming me. Something powerful and awesome, like Bartimaeus or Remington. Here, I’ve activated by naming box, but you can only do it once per rock, so be careful.”

“Yeah,” nodded Dirk obediently, “I guess so.”

“And now,” said the recently named Yawai-Gesso, “You can consult your quest guide for the next objective. Press /open q/ and then set the tracker to the current objective.”

“Whoa whoa. Slow down. It says I can’t access the quest log in the presence of 5 pounds of Dark Magic. But there isn’t any…” Dirk trailed off, looking towards his recently dropped sack of stuff. Grubby worms crawled out, and began glowing purpley, like not bright purpeley, but evil purpley, with blood red mixed in.

GM: Wait, wait, hang on a sec. The last guy had a wizard and he said that it would be helpful and be used by the player when an opportunity presents itself.

Player: Let the next guy deal with it. Maybe Drogo Turdshittle sabotaged them or the sack had a +12 Aura o-

GM: And another thing, enough with the stupid enchantment numbers.

Player: Oh yeah? Come down here and say that to my face!

GM descends, and the Player stabs him with his ±π dagger of impunity. Its super effective. The GM is severely weakened by the hidden Get-out-my-room-mom! and the Shut-up enchantments, and gets locked out of the next <insert#>posts, which will be determined by the D20 roll of the next guy

19

Dirk decided to see what was in the sack. He opened the drawstring, and out spilled the glowworms (and the old coleslaw they were eating). Inside was a small note that read “these glowworms will light your way when you enter the caverns of Deep Dudue. But take care; once loosed you won’t be able to retrieve them.” Dirk stared at the now empty sack and the glowworms which were now scattered for several yards. “Oh well, I suppose when I’m in Deep Dudue I’ll find some light somewhere.”. He tossed away the note, not noticing that the message continued on the back: “You MUST NOT bring fire of any sort into the Deep because” but the rest was blurred by coleslaw stains.

(Oh, and the d20 roll was 4)

20

Dirk continued down the path when a huge, hungry drooldragon crawled out of the rocks behind him. The immense creature was about to spring on the hero until it was distracted by all of the glowworms on the ground, crawling about and smelling of coleslaw. The hungry behemoth snatched up all of the glowing creatures and, satisfied that it’s hunger was at least satiated, crawled back into it’s cave.

Dirk absentmindedly continued on his journey, oblivious to the horrific carnage that occurred right behind him an unaware that the glowworms that he may very much need up ahead were the very things that saved him from being a tasty snack.