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

He does still have all his clothes, including the breeches.

You see, he turned into a female, then went back in time to play strip euchre. His female version got the clothes, then turned back into a male, while the male version got the cloak of gender swapping and went back in time to play strip euchre. See what I’m saying?

Meanwhile, a different, future version of himself had to play strip euchre again (from Ploothka’s point of view) after which he will probably be sent back to get the rock and worm, bringing them to all the points in time where they show up. Or something like that. Its organic, as long as it follows its own rules.

BAND NAME!

did i get that right?

There is a chance. For me to answer that properly, I have to understand what you’re saying.

I don’t.

That would be a pretty long name for a band.

Anyway.

Dirk ran and caught up with Ploothka, who was walking down the dark path that was quickly becoming a dark and storming path. It as as if the dark and stormy stuff was a foreboding warning to all travelers coming that way, like a message that said “Hey, don’t go this way! You’ll regret your actions if you do!” And there was the ominous music as well, all dark and scary and oooh and everything! It was bad, surely this was the darkest point of their journey.

Ploothka squinted and saw a sign. “Dirk, can you see that?” Of course she was still angry with him because of his attempted ruse, but they were in the middle of an adventure and she was perfectly willing to tuck that anger away for a moment and then spring it back up on him when it was most needed, like if she had to stab an evil duplicate of him, or if she really needed to punch him to complete the quest, or if her mother was coming over for a visit and he was whining about it or something.

Dirk squinted at the sign as well and read out loud “Caverns… of Deep… Fondue. Mmmm, sounds good!”

“No, it looks like it says Caverns of Deep Dudue,” Ploothka corrected. “That sounds very ominous.”

“Yeah,” Dirk agreed. “Totally scary.”

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Probably, but how am I going to get the Cloak of Gender Swapping and the Phoenix Gate so I can go back in time and have sex with myself?”

Ploothka rolled her eyes and just assumed he was mumbling something silly. “It looks awfully dark in there.”

“Yeah,” Dirk nodded. “Too dark.”

Ploothka was about to slug him in the shoulder for making such an inane comment but then she looked deeper into the cavern and realized he was right after all. It was Preternaturally dark in the Caverns of Deep Dudue as if some sort of supernatural force or entity was keeping light from penetrating this velvety dark grotto. Light just stopped when it entered. I know it sounds weird, but that’s totally what it’s like.

“You’re right,” she agreed. “It’s as if the light can’t get in there.”

“Well we gotta go through, right?” The adventurer pulled a box of matches out his ruck and proceeded to light one. I know the matches weren’t mentioned before, but Dirk definitely carries matches around with him just in case he has to light torches or what have you. It really is one of the three things an adventurer must carry at all times, the other two being a nice towel and a Tamagotchi electronic pet.

The match flared to life and Dirk stepped closed to the cavern entrance. Closer. He peered into the opening, trying to make out anything in there. He stepped closer.

The tension mounts.

He steps closer.

Ploothka follows behind him and the tension mounts some more.

The tension gets even more tenser.

It’s really tense tension.

Dirk takes a step into the opening of the cavern, his match flickering in the gentle breeze.

The legendary Caverns of Deep Dudue! Once the source of dwarven wealth when they dug out a rich vein of guano, formed millions of years ago when dinosaurs ruled the earth and pooped out truly prodigious amounts of dung. But alas, they delved too deeply, for where there’s guano there’s methane; and as Dirk brought the open flame past the entrance there was an eruption worthy of Vulcan himself. The concussion echoed back and forth across the landscape as flame and smoke fountained like a fountain of flame and smoke.

From within the fountain of smoke and flame could be seen a dark shape, writhing and twisting in a grotesque rhythm. As the smoke cleared, a massive 20 foot tall creature was revealed.

“Aiiie!” cried Dirk, “A Bawlrug is come!”

[For that quick set of recognition skills, he can thank his grandmother, who would show him pictures of creatures from the Upper Lower Middle Earth Monster Manual when he was but a wee tyke.]

The Bawlrug, essentially a large slab of Wal Mart quality deep plush, stumbled forth, tears issuing from what passed for its face (3 huge black buttons).

“Will you be my fwiend?” it inquired sobbingly.

Dirk’s horror slowly turned to pity as it beheld the wrinkled wet visage of the creature as it stood there, slowly wobbling back and forth as it continued to weep.

Agh! Come on! Do I have to delete this?

The explosive explosion exploded explosively, exploding with immeasurable explosiveness.

Dirk heard Ploothka scream, or possibly yell, and he thought he might have detected some elocutionary syntax in there, just vaguely beyond the comprehension of what he will soon realize are bleeding ears. Suddenly there was absolutely silence, darkness pervaded even the [insert term for name of light thingies in your eyes from dust]…

Presently, Dirk awoke, in such a condition that he could not tell if he was now blind and deaf, or if the Caverns were simply too consuming. Dirk, too scared to speak, slowly and gently examined his body, and discovered that he was gravely injured; fatally pierced through the left leg by a rock shard, while the other was crushed by rubble.

Otherwise, he had severe bruising, torn clothing, blood everywhere, and had lost his hat. This meant that the magic that had formerly disguised him would no longer operate.

Dirk knew he had to heal his injuries, so he crawled over to his bag, and followed the instructions all adventurers memorized by heart when they needed to prepare for explorering (yes, you read that correctly):

(player name)/open bag
(player name)/use towel
(player name)/tie towel
(player name)/ towel [tourniquet]
(player name)/apply tourniquet [(player name)]

This healed Dirk’s legs, but it only applied to large injuries. He still bled profusely, and had many bruises.

Dirk’s eyes finally adjusted to the light, and he saw a purpley, like not bright purpeley, but evil purpley, with blood red mixed in glow in the distance. As he stumbled toward it, he heard the voice of Yawai-Gesso, “no, no! Dirk, don’t leave us here! These Caverns are evil, not just any evil, but evil! It might cause the -8 of my helpfulness to kick in!” His argument echoed from the glow, and as he carried on the argument, the glow coalesced into a tiny worm.

In the glare from the still unnamed worm, Dirk finally got a good look at himself. His cuts were more minor than he thought, and the blood was primarily from a gash on his cheek, which had already begun to congeal. His largest concern was his badly singed clothing, little more than rags that failed to hide his strangely undamaged bunny underbreeches.

The luminescent creature also revealed that Dirk had come to a four-way intersection…

“Before you ask,” began the flashlight freak, “the rock ran down that right path there,” gesturing with its tail, "blabbering about being a danger to you, despite being his greatest desire to hurt you, and said that down that middle path is Lake Feesees, where the vital clue is hidden. To get to the bottom of the lake, you will need to turn that bag you are holding into a Sack of Air, not that you or I know how.

“Fortunately, Ploothka shouted the instructions to create one before she got trapped outside by your explosive stripping. Unfortunately, you didn’t hear, and will need to recreate that memory in order to acquire them. She spoke in Cecilism, a language only intelligent people such as her and myself can understand, which uses short sounds to transmit vast amounts of data. She might have said something else we might need to know. Behind you is the pile of rubble that was the entrance to Dudue, which you can try to dig through, and to your left will lead you to find a drug that can recreate that memory for you and get the instructions.”

GM: Too much exposition! I demand you end this now. Hope the other guys get where your going.

Quickly! Dirk is considering which path to take when he hears a growling coming from all around him, and he darts in the the tunnel–

I’m so, so, sorry I didn’t delete the above post. I forgot about the time limit. I’m not sure why John’s post didn’t appear for me. Should we disregard my above post, or what? GM? IG? JDF?

Player: Wait, now I’m confused. There was an explosion and Bawlrug appeared?

GM: Yes.

Player: And I’m also severely injured and had to put a tourniquet on my leg?

GM: Yes.

Player: And I have another decision to make for which path I want to take?

GM: Of course.

Player: While I’m still injured and have a 20 foot tall carpet looming over me?

GM: Yep.

Player: What’s with you and all these intersections?

GM: Nothing.

Player: Seriously. Dirk’s reached how many of these now? There’s no way there’s be so many of them out there. I mean, come on.

GM: Why wouldn’t there be? People have to travel to different towns and stuff. Sometimes there’s just a fork in the road or whatev.

Player: Yeah, but I keep reaching them. Don’t you have some other way to present me with a decision? Doesn’t a carefully planned campaign typically feature a more diverse set of options for the adventurer to encounter? Where are the towns or taverns or castles?

GM: Well you’re in a cavern. What about that?

Player: Yeah but there’s a crossroads in the cavern!

GM: Just make your decision!

Bubla the Dwarf and Kismi his elf friend were trudging down the canyon in search of magic mushrooms (which in the world of Upper Lower Middle Earth have 1,001 uses).

“Ohh Bub! Look! A Nichtonic Alabaster! Hooray!”

“Yeah yeah, it’s the 57th one we’ve picked already. If you can find us an Immaculate Zirconia or a Mordredian Jelaphoat, then we’re talkin’”

“Hey, what in the name of Labelas Enoreth is THAT!?”

Ahead of them on the trail, towards the crossroads ahead, they saw the strangest sight. It seemed like the trail was all twisted into a pretzel, all tangled around itself in this surrealistic pastiche of a bunch of twisted images. In one, there was the puzzled face of a male human traveler, half of his face aglow with an eerie light. In the other, an exasperated human female. Over to the left, the saddest face they’ve ever seen, 3 dark and dampened circles on what appeared to be a rough and haggard visage, drops of tears hanging motionless in the air below. Other much stranger and incomprehensible shapes were frozen in the air as well.

“Now, that is definitely a sight,” said Bubla deadpanningly.

“Isn’t that one of those reality snarls, Bub?”

“So it would appear-nasty business, that.”

“We can’t just leave them trapped in there, can we?”

“Sure we can-why not?”

“Now you know what leaving them behind will do to our alignments, Bub.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t remind me (he mutters something vaguely blasphemous underneath his breath about the Elder Gods). Hey-didn’t we find a Umläutian Denäbra awhile back?”

“Why yes we did! You mean the toadstool which has 1,001 uses?”

“Yeah. Hand it over.”

“Sure-here ya go!”

“Now, 1,002.”

Bubla the dwarf cleric tosses the mushroom towards the reality snarl, chanting in his native tongue, “Ove Tenebrae, Ove Tenebera…” as it tumbled slowly in the air towards its target…

Time slowed to a crawl as the toadstool arced through the air towards its destination. The reality snarl twisted and ebbed as stuff inside it contorted and pulsed. The dwarf and elf looked in awe as the mushroom hung in the air before slowly hitting the dimensional mishmash then bounced off and landed on the ground with a light thunk.

“Oooh, that’s a strong one,” said Bubla.

“Indeed,” agreed Kismi. “Should we try a portalbello? Maybe we can open a dimensional door on the reality snarl?”

“That sounds like it would cause too much trouble.”

“It was a thought,” Kismi shrugged. “If we had another Umläutian Denäbra we could try it and see two would get the job done.”

“Unfortunately we don’t,” Bubla shrugged. “Maybe we could still find one. Or maybe even an Adamantia Mute-a-ball. Tasty and useful for cross dimensional portal anchoring.”

“I think they’re out of season,” murmured Kismi.

“Unfortunate,” Bubla shook his head.

The dimensional snarl pulsed and gurgled. It seemed to grow and shrink at the same time while one side untwisted and another warped around itself like the proverbial pan-dimensional spaghetti. Piece by piece, the snarl seemed to resolve itself.

“Wow, it’s fixing itself!”

“You don’t see that every day.”

The snarl, unwrapped itself almost completely, then swelled up as if taking a deep breath and with an upchucking sound, heaved out a confused looking man, a frustrated looking woman, a shag carpet that was probably once very nice but now looked like it needed a good cleaning, a grapefruit sized rock, and anything else that was trapped in the snarl (and really, who knows what else could have been caught in that thing, those snarls can be nasty).

Everything landed on the ground with a thud. The male was the first to sit up with a moan.

“I think I need a drink,” Dirk said as he rubbed his head.

The blur in his vision retreated and he looked over to see a dwarf and an elf standing over him. Right behind the two looked to be some sort of tavern out in the woods.

Dirk stood up, stumbled past the two stunned mushroom hunters and walked into the bar.

Inside was dusty and dark, a ray of sunlight pierced the gloom and the old bartender winced up to see Dirk standing in the doorway.

“Well are ye in or out?” he growled. “Don’t just stand there all day!”

Dirk stepped into the tavern and hoisted himself onto a bar stool. The barkeep threw his bulk in front of his new customer and from beneath the bar, he pulled out a dusty mug, filled it with ale and placed it in front of the adventurer.

“Where did this place come from?” Dirk looked back at the door and then up at the immense barkeep in wonder.

“This is place where ye may not want to go but is the place that you need to be,” answered the lumbering man. A black spot in his mouth where a tooth used to occupy drew Dirk’s attention like some sort of magical magnet would pull something that is attracted to magical magnets. Like a metal eyeball or something, yeah that’ll work.

Dirk took a sip of his ale and felt a bit refreshed. Whatever it was that he was drinking heartened his belly, tingled his bladder, and tickled his nose. What sort of delicious drink was this?

“What sort of delicious drink is this?” asked Dirk after taking another hearty gulp.

“That drink may not be the drink that you want to drink, but it tis the drink that you need to drink,” came the reply from the large man behind the bar. He produced a grimy towel and wiped down the bar in front of Dirk, pushing the dusty occupants of the polished wood around and around.

“That’s nice.” Dirk smiled and nodded. “Got anything to eat here like some wings or fried mushrooms?”

“The food that I have here may not be the food that you want to eat, but 'tis the food you need to eat,” the bartender replied cryptically.

“Huh.”

“Listen brave adventurer,” spoke the bartender. “I know of your quest and I have important information about the dirty low-down bastard hobbit thief Drogo Toadspittle.”

“That’s nice,” agreed Dirk agreeably.

“Listen… Drogo is…”

“Dirk?”

Dirk spun his head around towards the familiar voice at the door. Silhouetted in the sunlight cascading through the doorway was the familiar shape of the love of his life and possible fiance Ploothka.

“Dirk?” she said his name again. “What are you doing?”

“Well I was just…” Dirk looked over at the barkeep only to see that he was gone.

----a long, long time later----

A disheveled and dusty Dirk roused himself from the table, as the strains of the chorus “Hotel California” issued from the scratchy and dirty jukebox, the song caught in a stuck needle loop (a cover by an undead death metal band named Emanations from the Unholy Fissure), the lines “…haven’t had that spirit here since nineteen…” repeating, over and over. Nobody bothered to fix the player.

“How long is it?” he inquired of the sleepy and bored bartender…

[Looks down] “Oh, about 3 inches right now… <yawn>”

“Oh, you mean how long have we been stuck in this time snarl? 366 days-I think. I lost exact count several months ago…”

The dwarf and the elf were over in the corner amusing themselves by playing a game of tic-tac-toe toss with some mushrooms.

Outside there was nothing but swirling blackness. Just then Dirk spotted, next to the smoky fireplace and under some copies of Playelf, a familiar-looking book