Dungeon Master: Ahead -- it's a walled town at the edge of the plateau! Adventurers are relieved. At last they have reached it! It looks this way.
Pilchard: Wow! Amazing Dungeon Master artistry!
Plummet: Wait, what? Did we locate a wreckaged road, and I forgot? Also, did we pass a town of Bi'chen and Monen?
Grolka: Definitely not.
Helsa: I checked notes.
Dungeon Master: 100 experience points for artistry compliments! 100 experience points for remembering where an adventure party expected to go! 100 experience points for remembering unfulfillment of that expectedness! 100 experience points for checking notes!
Pilchard: Nice! We're raking it in right off the bat.
Plummet: I scribe down this experience for sure, but still feel confusish.
Dungeon Master: Time for Dungeon Masterly confession. All week, I worked so hard on a picture. Finally ... success! Possibly, though, it's a picture with too much success. A Dungeon Master becomes impatient to show it off. Solution seems obvious -- we skip travel along a wreckaged road and happenings in Bi'chen and Monen. Is this cheatery? An inexperienced Dungeon Master blames her inexperience. "Oh no!" she says if it's cheating. "So sorry to cheat! I didn't know."
Pilchard: No cheating or cheatery involved. Many Dungeon Masters just say, "Time to fast-forward, due to a wreckaged road being uneventful and characters deciding to attend the advicing of Guidry Guidestar to sidestep the complaining town of Bi'chen and Monen."
Dungeon Master: Educational! 50 experience points!
Pilchard: Thanks!
Dungeon Master: No, these are Dungeon Master experience points. Second-level Dungeon Mastering soon!
Luce: I am new to Dungeon and Dragoning, but my opinion is, already you are much more than second level in Dungeon Mastering skill.
Dungeon Master: Exceptional flattery! 100 experience points!
Grolka: I feel wistfulness, though. I looked forward to finding out what would happen in that town. There's disappointment to find out the answer is, "Nothing."
Dungeon Master: Don't fear so quickly! The Dungeon Master will create appointment for you. I appoint Bingly to explain the eventlessness of several days on Bi'chen road.
Bingly: Toads ate everything along the way.
Dungeon Master: Yes! 100 experience points! I appoint Rouge to explain what happened in the town with a complaining reputation.
Rouge: We had to leave quickly before they could complain about thousands of gold pieces Rouge Hornytail stole!
Dungeon Master: Yes, but a revelation followed -- large piles of fake gold were left to tempt thieves, so that later thieves would have much to complain about. Try again!
Rouge: Fine. While carrying heavy heaps of fraudster gold, Rouge complained of sore-footedness so much, the group found a boat and took it down the river to quiet her. Some complained, "No, Rouge, we must not steal a boat!" But Rouge produced large amounts of apparent gold and said, "We'll leave this to pay for it."
Dungeon Master: Better! 100 experience points.
Rouge: But the boat had devious leakages. Wet feet! Much complaining by all adventurers. The boat had buckets for bailing, but these had leakages also. Eventually such a boat had to be abandoned.
Dungeon Master: Good! Now adventurers see in a westerly distance the plateau edge. Dusty and dry plateau lands stretch to this precipice -- beyond, there's green. Even more beyond, a sea!
Plummet: Braddlebrick Bay!
Dungeon Master: Could be. Too far for you to see any city signposts. Or even a city. or even a bay. There's just some blue, so you think, "Most likely a sea."
Pilchard: What about this city that we do see?
Plummet: Also, why are we seeing it from so high up? Is another roc going to elevate us fearfully?
Dungeon Master: Your dungeon master is very slow with artisting. It's too much to draw a picture of seeing a city in westerly distance, then also a map to show streets and buildings for exploring. So I made a map-ish picture.
Helsa: Talented and efficient. Your approach deserves voluminous praise.
Plummet: (That's what she said!)
Rouge: Always this joke with you! I would complain, except after last session ending in toad punnery from the player of Bingly, "That's what she said" becomes comedy genius.
Dungeon Master: Minus 10 experience points for reminding your Dungeon Master of being tricked into pun participation.
Rouge: What! Bingly reminded us of toad encounterings and received bonus points!
Dungeon Master: Bingly made a toad joke much better than that toad pun of last time. Therefore, points. Appropriate toad jokes are welcome. Pun reminders, less so.
Rouge: Fine. I guess it's only 10 points.
Luce: How distant is this town? Will we arrive before night-time?
Dungeon Master: Someone name a time of day.
Pilchard: 3:42 p.m.
Dungeon Master: Excellent. Now, for randomness, and because I am from Japan, I will have Google tell me that time in Tokyo. 5:42 a.m.! Too early, so I will say you observe the city and plateau edge at sunrise after camping. Quickly, someone explain why you did not see it at sunset!
Plummet: Something was chasing us at sunset! We ran and ran, even into night-time. Then we used darkness to ambush it into defeat.
Dungeon Master: More excellence! Now, what chased you? Two people name page numbers in the Manual of Monstrosities.
Grolka: 18.
Rouge: 243.
Dungeon Master: 18 plus 243 is 261, which is ... Roc!
Plummet: Oh no!
Rouge: Again?
Bingly: And here we all thought we weren't going to be seeing the city from elevation.
Pilchard: How did we run away from so giant a bird for so long?
Helsa: Of more prominent importance, how did we defeat one?
Dungeon Master: Who has the best idea?
Pilchard: This poor roc -- its wing was broken. So, it could only chase us on the ground.
Dungeon Master: Good, but no. The Manual says, a roc can only speed at 20 feet each movement. Characters are faster than this, so they would escape it with ease.
Bingly: This roc was gluttonly! Recently it ate too many giant toads and became ill from such a meal. If it flew too fast, it became airsick, then had to land and walk for a while before flying again.
Dungeon Master: Good, but why is a roc full of toads so hungry to eat adventurers? I think we need superior explanation.
Plummet: Maybe it's too young and small to pick up adventurers. So, it keeps attacking us, then flies away when we pain it too much with damage. Finally, we ambush it enough to kill it.
Dungeon Master: Acceptable! Each character receives 300 experience points for defeat of this youngster roc. Bonus 50 experience for clever but insufficient explaining by Bingly and Pilchard, bonus 100 experience for successful reasoning by Plummet.
Pilchard: So much experience without actually doing anything ... it's a first, I think.
Plummet: We should encourage our Dungeon Master to do more artisting!
Helsa: I agree, but because she is so talented, not because it deducts exertion for achieving higher levels.
Dungeon Master: So! Dawn occurs east of your camp. Revealed are dark birds of scavengery that circle overhead of a corpsed roc. What do you do?
Pilchard: Which direction is the blowing of wind?
Rouge: Why does this matter?
Pilchard: I have more motivation to quickly leave our camping spot if downwind of a huge rotting roc.
Plummet: Ew. Me too!
Grolka: Such weakling civilization types! Barbarians shrug at such deathly stenches.
Dungeon Master: Probably it's too soon for much decay, if the roc died just last night. But currently, the wind blows from a north-ish direction.
Pilchard: I'm okay eating a breakfast of leisure before leaving, then.
Plummet: Plummet also.
Grolka: Is it allowed to fast-forward through breakfasting as we did through actual adventuring?
Dungeon Master: Yes. A road runs beside the river. You take that. Somewhat east of the walled city, a large sign can be seen between road and river.
Helsa: I read it. What does it say?
Dungeon Master: "Warning! Cliffs! Boaters park at piers ahead or it's smashing and drowning for you!" A few minutes later, another sign says, "It's serious, boaters! Use piers or waterfall catastrophe awaits!"
Pilchard: I'm glad we are not seeing these signs from inside a leaky boat that is hard to paddle while bailing.
Plummet: I'm glad I'm not having to paddle or bail.
Dungeon Master: Soon, a third sign stands next to piers. "These are the piers we told you about! All boats should stop!" At this spot, the road widens near the pier, then turns away from its river-following at an angle that points at the city gate.
Luce: Question. Have any boats been seen this entire time besides our leakaged one?
Dungeon Master: Only a few traveling between smaller villages and the town of Bi'chen and Monen, plus some doing fishing activities.
Bingly: Should we explore this pier, since it is here?
Luce: Unnecessary exploring could lead to plesiosauring.
Plummet: Ooh! Are you two doing a rhyme battle?
Bingly: Maybe! Would there be experience from this kind of battle?
Dungeon Master: Only if rhyming attracts monsters for the other kind of battle.
Bingly: Bingly is more interested in coolness than in battling. Probably we should continue to this city of stairs and mystery a gnomish guide described.
Luce: Agreed.
Grolka: What do we see in our approach of the city? A barbaric orc will peer suspiciously.
Helsa: A ranger as well.
Dungeon Master: Roll your Perceivings!
Grolka: 15.
Helsa: 10.
Dungeon Master: You both Perceive that the gate at the end of the road is unclosed. Also, Grolka Perceives that no figures are noticed moving within.
Plummet: Wait, so Helsa Perceives that figures are moving within?
Dungeon Master: Helsa looks very squintingly, but it's, "Are there figures? Are they moving? Can't really tell either way."
Plummet: Oh, I see.
Helsa: But I do not. Someday I must roll better.
Grolka: My announcement is, "Looks empty and boring. We should go around and find stairs to go quickly to Braddlebrick Bay."
Rouge: I ask Grolka if her barbaric eyes are so good, they see from here the treasurelessness of this empty city.
Grolka: The city is old, yes? And gates are open, so it must be easy to go in to get treasure. Or if there's treasure, it is so hard to get that no one has been able to. So either it's no treasure inside, or extremely hard-to-get treasure inside.
Rouge: Or gates only opened last night.
Grolka: I scoff at this idea of coincidence.
Rouge: Still, it's possible! Also, we are brave adventurers. Our job is exploration of such places.
Grolka: Will you bravely volunteer to go first?
Rouge: Yes, whenever we find a treasure room.
Helsa: I am unpersuaded that avoiding the city is logical. However, since the city may have dangers, probably some scouting of stairs might be useful in case we need to flee speedily.
Rouge: But I have impatience to look for treasure.
Luce: What if all the city's treasure is hidden under stairs?
Rouge: Hmm.
Pilchard: One Plume mage votes to scout stair-wise before entering the city.
Plummet: Another Plume mage also!
Bingly: An empty city seems so cool, though. And I could have my bat fly in to look around.
Luce: One thieveling tiefling also votes for the scouting.
Dungeon Master: Seems like Rouge is minority-ish. Does she continue arguing?
Rouge: Yes, but only grumpily, while we walk toward stairs.
Bingly: While walking, I send my bat to spy. "Look on top of the wall, bat!" Also, if a tower is less than 100 feet tall, "Look on top of that tower, bat!" In windows also.
Dungeon Master: Only emptiness for a bat to see. No one on walls or towers or in windows.
Plummet: What conditions do we see for the walls and towers? Since I am sagely, it's curious to know. Oh! Also, I am very Historical in skill! I try to remember if such a stair-top city appears in history books.
Dungeon Master: They are sturdy walls without cracks or missing stones. Probably a little dirty from years and years of plateau winds blowing dirt on them. You may roll your Historical skill.
Plummet: Natural 20! It becomes 28 with my skill!
Luce: 8 for a skill! My highest is only 5.
Helsa: 5 is better than 4.
Luce: Sorry about that.
Grolka: A barbaric orc scoffs at your civilized skillings. "Skills of 3 or less are fine when your axe is large."
Luce: I withdraw my complaint about a top skill of 5.
Dungeon Master: With such a roll, Plummet recalls stories of a stair-top city on a cliff of plateau. Most involve guesswork by sages of speculating tendencies. Who can suggest a speculated tale of this sort?
Bingly: The city was built by giants!
Grolka: Seems unlikely even to an orc of barbarism. Does anything of this city have a look of oversized?
Dungeon Master: No. Rocks and gates and windows look pretty normal.
Bingly: It's because giants built the city for their children to play in.
Dungeon Master: Clever! Worth 50 experience points. But Plummet suspects it's a tale with poor sagely reputation. Who else?
Rouge: A land of riches and wealth built this city! Rich, but miserly. For hoarding, gold and gems were spread over the whole ground inside the walls before laying of foundations and paving of streets. Then ages passed and people of the city forgot, so all this gold remains under buildings and roadways.
Grolka: Who told the sages who wrote down such a story, then?
Helsa: And if this is known, why are any stones left unturned?
Rouge: A mystery. Other sages mocked this tale-writer, maybe. He is widely unbelieved.
Plummet: Probably I won't relate that tale then, since it has no sagely credit.
Rouge: Unfair!
Dungeon Master: No experience for this unrealistic and greedy story.
Rouge: Even less fair!
Dungeon Master: Sometimes a Dungeon Master must be harsh. But Plummet remembers other things. The stairs exceed the age of the city! No one knows who built them. They are wide and strong and durable against all weather. Ancient people of the plateau and the lands below and westerly used the stairs to trade. Armies marched up and down them to make war, so a fortress was built to claim it for the plateau folk. Kingdoms rose and fell, changing the hands that held the fortress. The fortress became a city! The city was burned and destroyed by war. Again the city was built! And so on and so on. Then, 100 years ago, all people in the city disappeared. Travelers arrived to find it empty. Spooky! The gates stay always wide and open since that time. Brave types go through them to explore and seek treasure. Sagely types take expeditions to solve the mystery. But in each case outcomes remain identical: No one who returns from the city talks about it -- not even if captured by cruel rulers who torture them for secrets!
Pilchard: Must be some very embarrassing things that happen to people who go in.
Plummet: Ooh! But that means if an adventurer goofs up inside, the others are unable to tease them later!
Grolka: Assuming the goof-up is not fatal for all in the party.
Dungeon Master: The corner of the city wall is now reached.
Pilchard: Someone should peek around it, in case of lurking perils.
Grolka: Barbaric orcs have no time for this kind of cowardish behavior. I step around the corner and examine what's there.
Dungeon Master: Though it's obvious on the map, from such an angle you have a difficulty of spotting whether these gates also are open.
Plummet: But my sagely readings explained them to be.
Grolka: Yes, but among your sagely readings were unrealistic and sage-mocked ones believable only by the foolish.
Rouge: Hey!
Dungeon Master: Also, just knowing gates might be open is not the same as seeing gates open in truth.
Pilchard: Aha, though! Usually, it's sunrise in the southish part of the east. On our map-drawing, the gate of this side opens to the westish north. This means, morning sunlight may shine through the open gate and reveal its openness.
Dungeon Master: 50 experience points for this reasoning so epic! You do see sunlight shining through the open gate, onto the stairs before it.
Grolka: I stride large barbaric strides stair-ward.
Helsa: I follow.
Bingly: I send my bat ahead to examine stairs as we approach them.
Dungeon Master: The bat sees that stairs are cut into the plateau in a path of downward and westishward curve. Bridges of stone have been left across these stairs, here and here.
Bingly: Probably such archings of stone would be tempting for a bat to hang from. I allow my bat to indulge if it wishes.
Dungeon Master: The bat flies down toward this bridge of nearest. But ... bonk! A surface of invisible sort blocks it at exactly level with the plateau ground.
Bingly: Oh no, my bat! It's not hurt, is it?
Dungeon Master: Only confused.
Bingly: I call it back.
Luce: Hmm. So ... maybe not as easy to go down stairs as expected?
Plummet: Could be it's just bat-proof, right?
Grolka: I go trompingly to the stairs and try to step on the top one.
Dungeon Master: Your foot won't proceed down to it! The surface invisible denies you.
Pilchard: I have a staff. I will go along the edge of the stair-gully and poke with it to see whether this invisible surface covers the whole thing.
Dungeon Master: That distance would be long, you know. Other maps might have a note saying, "Not to scale," but your Dungeon Master neglected to add such. It's hundreds of feet to check it all.
Pilchard: I am less curious than that. Probably I don't go farther than where the fall to the stairs would be injurious.
Plummet: Ooh! If we can't stair our way down, I can Feather Fall us again!
Rouge: Not before searching this city for its treasures!
Luce: I also enjoy treasures, but seems like if Penny Plume knows many people have been in there since the mystery began, if they found treasures, soon there would be adventuresome crowds searching out all the treasures of the city.
Pilchard: No, because they couldn't tell anyone where they got the treasures. Remember that no one who goes in ever talks about it after coming out.
Grolka: Then how do we know anyone ever went in? Suspicious, if you ask me.
Helsa: Possibly someone watched them go in from outside.
Luce: Then if the watchers watched them returning with treasures, suddenly again there are big rumors of a city full of treasures. Don't confuse my ideas, though -- I'm okay going in. I just think expectations of the low kind are advisable over the grand kind.
Pilchard: Also, there may be other sorts of treasures, like writings in ancient languages, or fanciful scribings of unusual texts. Not every treasure is exchangeable for coins.
Rouge: I do not understand your words.
Grolka: A barbaric orc does not understand why so many words are needed. We are here, city is there, gate is open, most adventurers say, "Let's go in." Why all this talking? I turn and stride barbarically to the open gate.
Helsa: I follow.
Rouge: Wait for me!
Bingly: Seems like we're all going in, then?
Luce: Yes.
Dungeon Master: Oops, though! When Grolka arrives at the open arch of gateway, it's another bonk! More unseeable barrier blocks your way. Roll a Saving Throw of the Dexterity kind to avoid falling from the bonk and the startlement.
Grolka: 19.
Dungeon Master: There's more embarrassment than falling, then.
Grolka: I conceal my embarrassment by growling, "Anyone who laughs receives a fist-smashing."
Rouge: I avoid laughter.
Bingly: Same.
Luce: Yes.
Pilchard: So. Do we climb over this enormous wall somehow, since invisible barriers impede us?
Plummet: How?
Grolka: Also, why? There remains another gate to try.
Plummet: Yes, but so far to walk there, especially only to find, it's an invisible orc-bonker too.
Grolka: No more bonking for me. I will approach the next gate with greater care. Stay here if walking around a city wall corner is too tiring for your magely legs.
Plummet: Well, this character actually is not so slothly as my Dragonbane one. I suppose walking's okay.
Dungeon Master: Soon, then -- the eastly gate draws near! What do you do?
Grolka: I locate a rock and throw it through the open gate.
Dungeon Master: It flies through and lands on the city street. Clatter!
Grolka: I use my spear and prod this gate's air where an invisible barrier might wait to bonk me.
Dungeon Master: The air does not bonk an orc's spear.
Plummet: Careful! Could be it only bonks creatures instead of objects.
Grolka: I will swish before me with one hand. It's not from fear of bonking, though. Only because I want to protect companions from a fist-smashing that might happen if an orc gets bonked again and there's laughing.
Dungeon Master: No bonking. Soon, an orc is definitely inside the gate.
Grolka: What is seeable from here?
Dungeon Master: First, definitely more buildings are here than on a map drawn by a slow-drawing Dungeon Master with not so infinite time. Pretend there are more on the map, but too boring to bother with. I drew only the buildings of interesting sorts.
Plummet: Wow! Are there plans for each of these many drawn buildings, then?
Dungeon Master: That is a Dungeon Masterly secret.
Rouge: Which interesting building looks most like a bank? This one, maybe? It's so almost adjacent to our gate and seems big.
Dungeon Master: Hmm. The architecture here ... so ancient? What details would these olden-times people put on a bank?
Rouge: I try Investigating. What seems clue-ish about this large, gate-adjacent building? My roll is ... boo. 5 only.
Dungeon Master: A clue is, it has columns.
Rouge: Some banks have columns! I Investigate my way closer to this building.
Dungeon Master: Do others accompany a tiefling?
Luce: They will have to accompany two tieflings, because I accompany Rouge.
Pilchard: Columns might be just as likely on a library as on a bank, so I favor this investigation.
Plummet: Ooh, a library might provide opportunities for sagely learning.
Grolka: Accompanying tieflings might require a decision. But Plume mages probably need barbaric protection.
Helsa: I go where others go.
Bingly: I send my bat ahead to see if it can fly inside and reveal the mystery of bank or library-ness.
Dungeon Master: Beyond this row of front columns, a bat finds windows of colored glass and a large door open to a welcoming degree. Above the door, it sees a great sculpture of marble.
Pilchard: Meaning a very large sculpture of marble, or a very excellent sculpture of marble?
Plummet: Also, meaning it's made of marble, or it's the shape of a marble?
Rouge: Obviously not the shape of a marble, since it's a bank. Why would marbles be sculpted above bank doors?
Pilchard: Could be this city used marbles in place of coins.
Bingly: How would they play heads or tails to decide things?
Pilchard: Could be they weren't able to, and so the city met this fate of strangeness and emptied.
Dungeon Master: Answers! This sculpture has both size and excellence. Made of marble, not showing a marble. Instead, it shows a figure very beautiful, strong, and wise. The arms are wide, as though to encourage all to enter.
Grolka: Sounds deity-ish to me. Now a tiefling will be disappointed. Maybe two.
Rouge: Not if it's a deity of banking.
Luce: Should adventurers adventure inside?
Dungeon Master: Remember, only Bingly knows this yet. A bat is much faster than adventurers afoot.
Bingly: I send my bat inside. Hopefully an invisible barrier does not bonk it again.
Dungeon Master: It flies unbonked. Inside, rainbows of color shine through windows with tint in their glass. More columns hold up a very high roof. At the far end, an altar. Before that, benches for worship and religious-type singing. Definitely, it's a temple, Bingly thinks.
Bingly: Hmm. Is such a city large enough for multiple temples? Because this other building on a Dungeon Master's map of artistry looks temple-ish also.
Plummet: So temple-ish!
Rouge: Must mean the bat of Bingly is pranking him, and really it sees a bank.
Dungeon Master: These ponderings are all unusable by your characters, though. Remember, there are so many more buildings in this city than on the map. Really, you couldn't see that other temple-ish building yet, so there's no wondering about how many temples reside in this city.
Pilchard: This one looks like a temple, too:
Plummet: Shh! Our Dungeon Master said, no wonderings about buildings we haven't seen!
Rouge: Also, though, that one looks like possibly a palace. And it has a high pointy peak with goldish gleaming. When we see it, I may want to go there next. Especially if this temple is treasureless.
Luce: Well, we have to go in a temple to discover its treasurelessness.
Grolka: There's also reaching a temple before going in. Are we there yet?
Dungeon Master: Yes. Now all approach the wide open door beneath the deity-ish statue. Inside -- pillars, a roof so high, rainbow colors from windows of tint.
Rouge: I ask Bingly where the treasures are, since he sent a bat to look in here before us.
Bingly: Did my bat happen to see any treasures, Dungeon Master?
Dungeon Master: Let me look up a bat's Perceiving of the Passive sort. Hmm. No, there's no report of treasures from a bat.
Bingly: I tell Rouge I did not have my bat looking for treasures. Also, even if a bat found treasures, wouldn't a tiefling still have to search for any a bat might have missed?
Rouge: Fine. I begin searching near the door in case a box for donating of coins is there.
Dungeon Master: None to see immediately.
Pilchard: I will do some pew-Perceiving to see if any songbooks or literatures of a religious sort are there for worshippers to use.
Dungeon Master: The answer is ... etto ... what printing machinery is available in Dungeons and Dragons times?
Pilchard: Oh, probably none if scribing is an everyday profession. A Plume mage would have no expectings of such things, in fact.
Dungeon Master: Then no, no literatures or books of songs.
Pilchard: Maybe at the altar area? I'll investigate there instead.
Grolka: I am alert for dangers of an ancient mystery city sort.
Helsa: I remain in the doorway, observing the street for sneakish beings of an ancient mystery city who might behave sneakishly while we explore their temple.
Bingly: I will wait with our orc. My bat flaps around playfully.
Luce: I examine this temple interior for doors to other chambers.
Plummet: I'd accompany my brother, probably.
Dungeon Master: In this case, here are findings. Rouge, already we've said no donationing boxes. Luce sees two doors, each beside the altar area in the wall behind it. Pilchard and Plummet approach altar-wise, where they see a large golden goblet and some tome kind of object resting. No mysterious city anythings appear to Grolka and Helsa. Here is a map!
Pilchard: Uh-oh. Concerning that a Dungeon Master has such a combat-ish map ready ...
Plummet: Maybe a hard-working Dungeon Master has many combat-ish maps ready!
Bingly: Or maybe whatever first building a party went into was always to be a temple of this layout.
Dungeon Master: These maybes and concernings must remain mysterious for now. So ... what next actions do adventurers take?
(Readers, the answering of that question is a to-be-continued! Already this blog entry is long-ish, and there's more Dungeoning and Dragoning ahead!)
