Crit in My Butthole a.k.a. Adventures in the Poop Chute

PART ONE: "The Ballad of Triple Crit Pass": an epic song by Torva
Please enjoy this jaunty drinking song about the latest adventure of your favorite heroes. While Torva is happy to do a live performance, she has left the lyrics here for easy reference. For those who want the full drinking song experience, Torva admits she has shamelessly stolen the tune (and a couple of the opening lines) from another silly drinking song (which can be viewed here), if you want to hum along as you read. (The stanzas in normal text are to the tune of the verses, while those in italics are to the tune of the refrain.) Or just drink and make up your own tune!

Listen, my friends, as I tale you a tale

About an adventure I had with an ale

So gather ye round, and raise up your glass

For this is the ballad of Triple Crit Pass

Oh, we went to the mountains on that fateful day

To conquer the castle where th’goblins held sway

But as we were climbing, my comrades and me

We found ourselves met by a terrible SCREEEEEE!

''It was a bird! (A BIRD!)''

A big scary bird!

It was ugly as sin

And it smelled like a turd.

But lucky for us, that great SCREEE was its last,

In this, the great battle of Triple Crit Pass.

So we fought it with brav’ry, my comrades and me

Determined to kill the great bird that went SCREE

And though it did gas us from its many holes

It wasn’t a match for our fabulous rolls.

''But then there were two! (YES, TWO!)''

Then there were two!

One more Scree Bird appeared,

Oh, what were we to do?

But never you fear, for our brav’ry was vast,

In this, the great battle of Triple Crit Pass.

And you can imagine how this battle goes—

How we blasted and stabbed and insulted our foes.

And just when it looked like we all would be killed,

Brave Alton stepped up to show off his fine skill.

''It was a crit! (A CRIT!)''

A big shiny crit!

He blasted that SCREE Bird

With one mighty hit.

But as you can guess that crit was not the last

In this, the great battle of Triple Crit Pass.

Now the SCREE Birds were angry (well, one was now dead,

But the other was righteously pissed, as I said),

Then Tartarus came forth, his rapier in hand,

And friends, he did shove it into No Man’s Land.

''It was a crit! (A CRIT!)''

A marvelous crit!

He found that bird’s butthole

And poked it a bit

Then he sent a shockwave right through that bird’s ass

In this, the great battle of Triple Crit Pass.

The SCREE Bird was having no more of our shit

So it tried to flee (but we wouldn’t let it)

And that’s when we all turned to brave Radavel—

He swung his great sword and the mighty beast fell.

''It was a crit! (A CRIT!)''

A beautiful crit!

He chopped of its wing

In a violent fit

And thus the vile SCREE Birds were conquered at last

In this, the great battle of Triple Crit Pass.

After the battle, our vict’ry secured

We went on our way and we left those dead birds

But then we heard cries—a small chorus of screeees!

Turns out there were nests and a bunch of babies.

''We ran away! (AWAY!)''

We ran away!

We left those scree babies

For some other day

(But turns out that choice in the end saved our ass—

For they ate the goblins who came through the pass.)

And so, my dear friends, my story is through

This tale of adventure was totally true

Let’s toast the adventurers; raise up your glass—

Let’s drink to the heroes of Triple Crit Pass.

PART TWO: "Deep in the Poop Chute": an epic prose tale of grand adventure by Torva
When our brave adventurers reached the peaks overlooking the castle, we got our first good look at the goblins’ stronghold. (It was clear to Tartarus, however, that the castle and its defenses are not of goblin make – most goblins would not be organized enough to build and man ballistas.)

We noticed several things from our vantage point:


 * a number of ballistas on the castle towers (marked with arrows on the map)
 * Several dozen goblins (some in the circle of tents at the center of the courtyard, some going in and out of the buildings, some leading narwolves on leashes, some manning the ballistas)
 * One goblin in fancy purple robes with a scepter topped with a yellow stone (came from and returned to tower on NE corner)
 * 3-6 big creatures (as tall as 3 goblins) milling about

We also spotted a pipe outside the castle walls, opening just outside the NE tower. Naturally, we thought this might be our way inside.

Unfortunately, only three of us (myself, Egg, and Alton) were small enough to fit in the pipe, so we made the brave but necessary decision to split the party (one might be thinking that splitting the party under any circumstances is very likely a bad idea; one will soon learn that, in this particular adventure, one is absolutely correct).

But I am not one to dwell on mistakes, and in this case I would like to point out the sheer bravery of the three of us who dared to venture into the dark, unknown depths of the pipe. Egg, Alton, and myself tied ourselves together with a bit of rope and lowered ourselves into the unknown.

Now, I had done the hospitable thing and offered my companions a swig of some fine liquor before our descent, but sadly, neither of them took me up on my offer—to their own detriment, it turned out, since upon lowering ourselves into the tunnel we discovered that it was, in fact, a poop chute. My mild inebriation protected me from the worst of the foul stench, and though the others managed, I suspect they would have benefitted from the sensory-dulling effects of some brandy.

Anywho. We made our way carefully along the poop chute, eventually coming to a place where another pipe extended vertically above our heads. As far as we could tell, it went about 30ft upwards before turning (but we could see a hint of light, suggesting it ended nearby). By our best guess, it would have come out within the tower at the northeast corner of the castle, but as we couldn’t scale the slick sides, we couldn’t confirm this assumption.

Instead, we continued forward on our original path, trudging through sludge, until we came to what appeared to be a dead end.

Until—

Suddenly, light appeared right above our heads. We quickly jumped out of the way as a series of turds rained down from above. We were standing right beneath a latrine! When the pooper moved away, we saw our chance. I, being at the front of the line, naturally volunteered to do the sneaking.

Carefully, I lifted the lid of the latrine and peered out. I was staring out at the castle’s inner courtyard, and the latrine was not far from the circle of tents where the goblins camped.

Unfortunately, I was not as sneaky-sneak as I thought, and one goblin was peering suspiciously in my direction. I quickly lowered the lid again, but alas, the stupid beast came over to investigate. My companions and I did what we had to do: when the goblin lifted the lid and peered down into the latrine, we grabbed him and pulled him down into the pipe. (It took a couple of tries, but so do most things worth doing.) When he was in the pipe, we quickly hogtied him and poured some of Alton’s sedative brew drown his throat.

We were quite excited to have procured a prisoner – think of the information we could have gleaned! Unfortunately, our victory was short-lived. Upon emerging from the pipe back where we’d left the rest of our party, we were dismayed to discover that our friends were no longer there. Instead, we were met by a small band of goblins.

As you can imagine, we saw at once that our situation was bleak. We decided to abandon our prisoner and run for the mountains (which, presumably, was what the rest of our party had done). However, the goblins closed in fast. I (being ever resourceful), decided to destroy as many goblins as possible with some righteous thunder. Unfortunately, my successive Thunderwaves caught the attention of even more goblins. Egg went down multiple times during the fight, and after Alton brought her up again he ran for the hills, leaving Egg and me to fend for ourselves.

And we were overwhelmed. Egg, thinking on her feet, used the power of disguise and the coin in her arm to convince the goblin captain attacking us that she was on their side, but unfortunately that didn’t stop the goblin from turning and knocking me unconscious. Thankfully, Egg was able to slip me a healing potion, secretly reviving me, before she was led away. I played dead until all of the footsteps retreated.

When I finally rose, Egg had been led away and I spotted a goblin heading toward the mountains in the direction that Alton (and, I presumed, the rest of our party) had gone. I decided to follow, planning to let the rest of our group know what had happened to Egg…and to keep the goblin from catching them unawares. (What happened to the goblin after that is lost to my memory forever—drunken rages will do that sometimes—but given that I ended up covered in blood, I believe I must have dispatched him quite thoroughly.)

PART THREE: The Sluice Juice (Brought to you by Muk!)
While the more-petite members of our party were crawling up the poop chute, Rad, Tartarus and I (Muk!) took up a defensive position guarding said chute's entrance. What a smelly ordeal! Luckily (for our noses) a patrol of pesky goblins came along to distract us. We quickly dispatched these fiends, but not before one was able to call attention to our presence with a (very clever!) flare arrow. We tried to use one of these flares, filched off a goblin corpse, as a distraction, shooting it East toward Triple-Crit Pass and the baby screebirds, but the goblins did not fall for our ruse. A whole pack of them was barreling toward us in no time.

Reluctant as we were to leave our friends behind in the smelly pipe, we had no choice but to flee to safety. We made our way to the sluice entrance. Here, Rad dumped some screebird feathers into the churning waters, with the hopes of tricking the goblins into believing we swam downcurrent. Meanwhile, we banged up the grill blocking the sluice entrance and snuck into what can only be described as the fort's cellar. What a dank place! We could sense goblins milling about outside looking for us, but somehow we were temporarily safe.

And then, we heard a ruckus that could only have been produced by our noisy drunken pal Torva! We were in quite the pickle! Should we make our way toward our friends (who must need aid if resorting to making a thunderous racket in enemy territory) through the cellar and the bowels of the fortress, or go back out the sluice entrance and fight off the mob milling outside to return to the smelly poop chute? Rad was convinced that the latter strategy was superior, and so we made a foray back out the way we had entered. Another engagement with goblins and their ilk ensued. While the skirmish raged on, I could not spy our friends. However, we did spot a petite goblin, seemingly injured, being ushered away from battle by one of its larger kinsmen.

Suddenly, an explosion centered on that injured bugger ripped through the air, with fire and caustics sending goblin bodies into the air and others fleeing for cover! What a sight! What timing! And, best of all, it turns out that tiny runt of a goblin was our buddy Egg in disguise! Oh, what fortune! Our friend was alive after all! That gave me hope that Alton and Torva would be okay too. With our spirits boosted by this discovery, Rad, Tartarus and I quickly dispatched the remaining goblins, including a formidable missile-launching mage, and the wounded Egg (singed by his own blast and scarily weakend) was revived and whisked away.

We made a prompt escape back up the Eastern slopes to Triple-Crit Pass. Along the way, both Alton and Torva were discovered. What a relief!! Goodness! But, we were not in the clear. Goblins were chasing us yet again, this time a whole pack of 'em! Thankfully, the talented Torva was able to screech and sing to the precious avian monster babies that we fortuitously spared on our way to the fort earlier; this wonderful noise inspired the birdlings to rise from their nest and descend upon the (tasty?) goblin mob at our heels. The goblins stood no chance against the beaks and claws whirling at them. Afraid to meet a similar fate, we quickly fled the scene and made our way back to Haven.

Artificer's Abstract
Previous encounters with the goblins of Ithlacar have demonstrated deception to be an effective defensive technique. In the current encounter, I put those findings to the test.

At the end of Part Two, Alton made a courageous escape, after saving my life multiple times at the expense of his own safety, and Torva fell at the hands of a goblin. With many enemies surrounding and no sufficient offensive strategy, I utilized my Disguise Self capabilities, reinforced with the truth of the gold coin sewn into my flesh by a goblin on a prior encounter. Pretending to brutalize Torva to gain the goblin's favor, I slipped her a healing potion. The goblins then escorted me into The Keep.

At the end of Part Three, I saw Muk, Rad, and Tartarus 1000 engaged in battle, but I knew that, alas, they could not see me as Egg. Rather, they saw the visage of the goblin whose appearance I replicated for my spell. The goblin guiding me into The Keep attempted to steer me toward the tower. I knew I might never see my friends again. To give us one final chance of survival, I thrust my backpack, filled with vials of alchemist's fire and acid, into my captor's body. The two of us were caught in the blast. I fell. By the luck of very poor odds, I was revived by Muk's hand. I lost all of my possessions. Fortunately, friendship persists.