Everybody was max-level, freshly equipped, and incapable of enjoying five quiet minutes in New Phlan.

Previously...

"So, what now?" Aldren asked, his head down as he examined his new magical sword.

"I feel like we're always trying to decide that," Mara said. One of the nails on her right hand had chipped, which apparently bothered her more than any of the outstanding threats to New Phlan. She frowned and picked at it.

"Well, that asshole Cadorna is on the loose. We could track his ass down," Merrick said.

"And don't forget we still have a cave filled with a kobold king and his minions," Lucian added. "That particular problem remains unresolved."

Aldren stopped admiring the Long Sword +5 and shivered. He really did not want to go back into those caves. They were in a better position than they had been before, sure, but that didn't change the fact that the place had murdered them repeatedly. And violently.

"Lucy's got a point," Merrick said.

Lucian visibly cringed at being called Lucy but said nothing. That ship had sailed, caught fire, sunk, and was currently somewhere on the bottom of the Moonsea.

"I just don't think we can win," Aldren said.

"Maybe we try anyway," Mara replied. "After all, if we lose, we'll just come back."

"Maybe," Lucian said. "We still don't know the cause of our resurrection after we all die. There is no reason to assume it is a permanent phenomenon."

"Twenty-one times," Merrick said.

Lucian looked at him. "What's that?"

"We've died and come back twenty-one times. Well, twenty-two for me. I'm special. Also, twenty-two is my favorite number. It's the master builder number, you know."

"What is up with you now?" Mara asked.

"The question is, 'What's up with the youth?'" Merrick said matter-of-factly.

For a moment, nobody said anything. Around them, New Phlan was settling into that busy late-afternoon period where merchants shouted, carts rattled over the streets, and normal people went about their normal lives without repeatedly dying in kobold caves.

Finally, Aldren slid the sword back into its sheath. "Alright. Let's do it."

Mara looked up from her chipped nail. "Do what?"

"Go back. We're killing the kobold king."

Merrick grinned. Mara shrugged. Lucian sighed.

That seemed unanimous enough.

All four of them would probably die. This would probably be a boring-ass, predictable episode that you all were going to fucking hate.

First things first, though, they needed to get ready.

Mara decided to change up her spell selection a little. She memorized Protection from Evil, which would improve a target's Armor Class against evil attackers by 2, along with Cure Light Wounds. She kept Hold Person and added Prayer as her third-level spell, which had a sixty-foot radius and would help the party with saving throws.

Lucian, meanwhile, stuck with the classics: Sleep, Stinking Cloud, and Fireball.

Once everybody was equipped and rested, the party headed back toward the kobold caves. They were daring to dream.

I was not particularly confident in their dream.

Before they even made it inside, a large kobold horde ambushed them. Lucian responded the way Lucian tends to respond to large groups of enemies and launched a Fireball directly into them. The explosion tore through most of the attacking force and the surviving kobolds immediately surrendered.

Lucian's preferred form of crowd control remained: remove the crowd.

Not a bad start.

Then they entered the cave and Aldren fell into a pool of water.

There was a tremendous metallic splash and, for a second, only the top of his head was visible above the surface. Merrick walked to the edge and looked down at him.

"Good news."

Aldren wiped water from his face. "What?"

"The traps work again."

Mara leaned over the edge. "Pull him out before all that armor drags him under."

"Strictly speaking," Lucian said, crouching beside Merrick, "the armor is likely why he fell so rapidly."

Aldren stared up at him. "Could we discuss the physics after I'm out of the fucking water?"

They dragged him back onto dry land.

Aldren squished past him.

A few moments later they reached the throne room and came face-to-face, once again, with their mortal enemy.

Some old-ass kobold dude.

And all of his friends.

The party breached the throne room for a second time and Lucian immediately decided that subtlety was overrated. He blasted the center of the room with Fireball, wiping out a huge chunk of the kobold force and badly hurting everything else unlucky enough to be standing nearby.

Nothing says we learned from last time quite like opening negotiations with a Fireball.

Unfortunately, there were still four reasonably healthy trolls coming toward them.

Merrick drew his Short Sword +2 and slashed one of them for seven damage while Mara cast Hold Person on several of the kobolds trying to close around the party. Aldren charged the injured troll and drove the Long Sword +5 deep through its chest. The creature dropped, and before the next one could get around Mara, Aldren came at it from the side and opened it up with another heavy swing. Two trolls down.

With nobody immediately trying to tear him apart, Merrick backed off, switched to his Sling of Seeking +2, and fired at another troll.

He missed horribly.

The kobold leader, meanwhile, continued raining arrows down on the party. Then, somewhere in the chaos, kobolds began throwing down their weapons and surrendering.

One kobold leader bravely managed the battle from behind a wall. Middle management survives everywhere.

Aldren took advantage of the confusion and went after the remaining trolls. He hacked into one hard enough to put it on the ground, then turned on the last one and carved that bastard apart too. All four trolls were finally down.

Then the kobold king fired his secret weapon.

The giant ballista tore into the party and did an absolutely obscene amount of damage.

Before anyone really had time to recover, the second wave came pouring into the throne room.

Mara grabbed Aldren and cast Protection from Evil on him. "There. Try not to die."

"I'll do my best."

Lucian stepped forward and launched his second Fireball into the new horde. Once again, a large portion of the kobold army stopped being a problem immediately, but several giant boars survived and charged.

The second wave introduced giant boars, because obviously the first wave wasn't stupid enough.

Aldren dropped the first one, although by this point he was badly hurt and desperately needed healing. Lucian pulled out his Wand of Magic Missiles and blasted another boar down, while Merrick finally managed to contribute something useful with his sling and killed one of his own. Aldren took out another, and the final boar came charging straight at Mara.

She met it with the Hammer +3.

One well-placed swing later, the boar hit the floor.

With the immediate threat gone, Aldren ripped out a healing potion and drank it while Lucian cast Sleep over the remaining kobolds. Eight of them collapsed where they stood, giving the party a few precious moments to catch their breath and reposition.

Then more kobolds surrendered.

Aldren looked around at the bloodied and exhausted party. "Heal up if you can!"

Because everybody knew what was coming next.

The third wave attacked.

Aldren hit one of the incoming trolls for sixteen damage while Lucian dropped a Stinking Cloud over two of them. The creatures staggered inside the poisonous haze, but one of the giant boars got around the fighting and slammed directly into Aldren.

By Wave Three, the battlefield had mostly become poisonous gas and angry livestock.

His hit points dropped.

And kept dropping.

Until they stopped at 1 HP.

This was starting to feel very familiar.

"Aldren!" Mara shouted.

"I'm fine!"

"No, you're fucking not!"

Lucian was already casting again. Another Stinking Cloud rolled across an envoy, a boar, and a kobold, swallowing all three of them. Aldren, somehow still upright, laid one of the trolls out while Lucian pulled a scroll and used yet another Stinking Cloud to capture four more kobolds.

Merrick stayed back and started firing stones toward one of the spellcasting envoys. Then Lucian did something genuinely awesome. He pulled out the Wand of Paralyzation, aimed it at the other envoy, and stopped the bastard dead in his tracks.

Lucian discovered the ancient tactical doctrine of holding an asshole still so Merrick could hit him with a rock.

Merrick saw his opportunity.

"Oh, fuck yeah, you saucy mage! Here we go!"

He loaded another stone, let it fly, and dropped the helpless envoy with one shot.

Mara cast Hold Person on the last three kobolds, freezing them where they stood. Merrick then turned his sling on the other held envoy and killed him too.

And then...

Nothing.

No trolls. No boars. No spells. No arrows. No additional fucking wave.

Aldren was standing in the middle of the throne room with one hit point left, but he was still standing. Mara was alive. Lucian was alive. Merrick was alive.

All four of my assholes had survived.

They had fucking done it.

I waited with bated breath to see what happened next.

One hit point, three waves, and somehow the only casualty was my fucking sense of closure.

THE KING ESCAPED.

Seriously?

The king escaped?

You're fucking joking.

Three entire waves of trolls, giant boars, spellcasters, and what felt like half the kobold population of Faerûn, and the little cunt just ran away.

But you know what?

Fuck it.

Let's concentrate on the positive.

I DID IT.

I killed three entire waves of assholes with my party of four.

Huzzah!

For a few seconds, none of them moved.

Merrick slowly lowered his sling. "Did we just win?"

"Technically," Lucian replied.

"Why did you say technically?"

"Because the king escaped."

Merrick stared at him. "Don't ruin this for me, Lucy."

Mara looked Aldren over. There was blood running down one side of his armor and he looked like a stiff breeze might finish the job.

"You look like a bag of assholes. Like, with blood. And wide open. So, a bag of bleeding, gaping assholes."

Aldren gave her a weak smile. "But I'm still standing."

Merrick nodded approvingly. "Damn straight, Dragonslayer. And you look sexy doing it!"

"Sit down," Mara said, "before a slight cave breeze topples you."

So Aldren sat.

The party made camp right there in the throne room. Honestly, fuck it. They had basically obliterated everything around them anyway.

Once everybody was healed and rested, they set to work searching the surrounding area. Eventually Merrick discovered a secret door hidden behind the throne, which opened into an entirely different-looking section of the cave system.

And just when I thought the fighting might finally be over, they reached the King's Secret Quarters.

Complete with more kobolds.

More boars.

And more fucking trolls.

Lucian looked into the room. "Fireball?"

Aldren nodded. "Fireball."

Fireball time, baby.

King's Secret Quarters was kobold for: we kept some extra assholes back here.

The blast tore into the king's personal guards and the rest of the party charged in behind it. Unfortunately, one of the trolls decided Mara would look better inside out. It got on top of her and beat the absolute shit out of her until she went down.

The rest of the party kept fighting. Aldren hacked his way through the front line while Merrick attacked from a safer distance and Lucian continued dumping magic into anything that moved. Eventually, despite Mara currently being unconscious and therefore contributing fuck-all, they managed to dismantle the rest of the king's personal guard.

Then they made camp.

Again.

At this point, the kobold caves were becoming less of an enemy stronghold and more a collection of places where my party slept between massacres.

Once everyone was back on their feet, they pushed deeper into the secret chambers and, in the next room, they finally found the kobold king.

He was dead.

Impaled on one of his own spike traps.

After all that, the kobold king defeated himself. I would've appreciated this information several deaths ago.

Merrick slowly lowered his sling. "Godsdamnit."

Aldren looked at him. "What?"

"I was looking forward to killing that old fuck."

Mara nudged the king's corpse with one boot. "Looks like he saved us the trouble."

"Maybe we can take him back to town, bring him back, and we can kill him again."

Lucian crouched near the trap and examined it. "Considering the amount of effort his defenses expended attempting to kill us, there is something rather appropriate about this."

Merrick frowned at the corpse. "I still would've preferred shooting him."

Aldren rested one hand on the hilt of his sword. "At least it's over."

Mara looked at him.

Aldren thought about that for a second. "Okay. It's probably over."

They searched the rooms beyond and soon found a bunch of treasure.

Well, calling it treasure was a bit of a stretch. Most of it was crap, although Lucian found two mage scrolls worth taking. Then we found an item listed as:

25 Dust Covered Bootss

Bootss.

With two S's.

Behold the royal treasury: bones, bracelets, scrolls, and twenty-five bootss.

I have to wonder if the developers were feeling the time crunch around this part of the game.

Merrick stared at the pile for a moment.

"Hey, Aldren."

"Yeah?"

"What's a 'bootss?'"

Aldren looked over. "A what?"

"A BOOTSS."

Mara sighed. "Merrick, what the everloving fuck are you talking about?"

"Nevermind."

They left most of the junk where it was.

A few moments later, Merrick stopped beside something wedged into the wall.

"Hey guys. Isn't that the bottle the dumb dragon wanted?"

Lucian walked over to examine it. "I do believe this might be the very same—"

Merrick yanked it out of the wall.

Then he dropped it.

The top came off and the room filled with smoke and flame. An enormous entity emerged from the bottle and introduced himself as Efreeti Samir Ahwahl.

The silver bottle contained an efreet. This was still less dangerous than letting Merrick speak.

"You are not my master. Are you, perchance, vampires?"

Merrick's eyes lit up. "Tell it we're vampires! I always wanted to be a dark soldier of the night!"

Decision Die time.

Three members of the party wanted to tell the truth. Merrick wanted to lie and claim they were vampires. Nobody wanted to attack the enormous magical fire creature, so at least we had developed some common sense somewhere along the way.

A roll of 1 meant we were vampires.

Anything else meant we told the truth.

Roll them bones!

4.

Aldren stepped forward. "No, great Efreeti Sam... erm... Sumor... um..."

Mara sighed. "We're just four assholes."

The efreeti cursed them for disturbing him and disappeared back into the bottle.

"Fools! Summon me when there are vampires!"

The room went quiet again.

Aldren gave everyone a sheepish grin. "Well, that went well."

Mara picked up the bottle. "I liked him."

They continued exploring the cave system and eventually found a barracks where somebody had drawn a map on the wall.

At last, an official map. Naturally it looked like an eighth grader drew it.

Merrick studied it.

"Well, that's vague."

He copied it into his journal anyway. A shitty map was still a map.

In the next room, they heard a struggle and rushed inside to find a woman in barbarian finery strangling a kobold.

She finished with the kobold, looked up at them, and introduced herself.

Princess Fatima: escaped prisoner, aspiring adventurer, and twelve seconds away from becoming Mara's newest problem.

"I am Princess Fatima."

Then she told them her entire life story.

Merrick and Mara kinda stopped listening.

“I am a princess of a tribe of nomads to the northwest. My father is an old fool. He wanted me to marry King Al Rasid to cement an alliance. I had more important things to do than be tied down to an aging monarch. When I marry, it shall be to someone who has the same taste of adventure and the same skill with a sword.

“Well, Father was insistent and his subjects supported him, so I left to seek my fortune. Kobolds had been raiding our tents upon occasion, so I headed this way. If I could end the threat, then I’d have more leverage with my tribe. However, two nights ago, I was ambushed by these worms — knocked out and bound up. I finally got myself untied a little while ago and was working my way out of these caves when you showed up.”

Merrick waited until she finished.

"So... you ran away from becoming a queen and got captured by kobolds?"

Fatima frowned. "I was ambushed."

"By kobolds."

Mara smiled.

It was the first positive reaction she'd had to anything Fatima said.

Aldren cleared his throat. "She did escape on her own."

"Eventually," Mara replied.

Lucian considered the story. "Her reasoning is at least internally consistent."

Mara turned toward him. "Don't encourage her."

Fatima then offered to join the party.

Decision time.

Mara fucking hated her.

Like, a lot.

Like so much that Mara's vote was now occupying two entire numbers on the Decision Die.

A roll of 1 or 2 meant Mara would try and murder her. A 3 was a firm no. Aldren, meanwhile, seemed pretty enthusiastic about adding another sword to the group—and if we're being completely honest, another woman—so a 4 meant Fatima joined.

Roll them bones!

3.

Aldren looked apologetically at the princess. "While we're flattered by the offer, I'm afraid my companion here looks like she might hate your guts."

Mara continued staring at Fatima.

"So... it's a no," Aldren finished.

Fatima left.

Merrick watched her go. "She had a sword and everything."

Mara looked at him. "Say another word."

"I was going to say she seemed nice."

"No you weren't."

Lucian nodded. "He was not."

Aldren watched Fatima disappear down the passage. "Maybe this was for the best."

"It was," Mara replied.

And that was that.

The party soon found another dark passageway on the other side of the cave system, still guarded by small groups of kobolds. At this point, the remaining kobolds were mostly an inconvenience.

They pushed through the passage, breached a door at the end, and tumbled down some stairs into an entirely new subsection of the caves. Inside they found a short sword and a magical scroll, but by then everyone had had enough.

"We should make our way back to Phlan," Aldren said.

For once, everyone agreed with Aldren.

They headed back to New Phlan.

The Kobold Cave, mapped by hand because I hate free time and love graph paper.

The town clerk was delighted to hear the kobold tribe had been wiped out and rewarded the party with a shit ton of gems and accolades for essentially committing genocide on behalf of local government.

She also had another stupid mission for them.

The Council needed the party to deliver a message to Zhentil Keep, somewhere to the west. There was just one small issue.

Cadorna might have tampered with the package before fleeing New Phlan.

...

Okay.

So.

You know Cadorna is a traitor.

You know Cadorna may have tampered with the package.

You are currently holding the package that Cadorna may have tampered with.

Wouldn't this be a fantastic time to, I don't know...

CHECK THE FUCKING PACKAGE?

Open it?

Replace it?

Have somebody inspect it?

Send another message?

No?

We're just going to hand the suspicious package to the four people who have already died twenty-one times and tell them to carry it west?

Fan-fucking-tastic! Sign me up! I'm excited to be a part of this stupidity!

Government work at its finest: known traitor, suspicious package, four expendable idiots.

Before leaving town, the party stopped at the shop and sold off some of the magical weapons they had collected. Two spare Two-Handed Swords +2 went across the counter, along with a Short Sword +1.

Aldren kept his own Two-Handed Sword +2. Nobody was taking that fucking thing away from him. He had also secretly named it 'Stacy.'

Afterward, he examined the silver bottle.

"Well, we might as well deliver this to the dragon."

Merrick immediately perked up. "Think there's a reward?"

"There better be," Mara said.

Lucian looked at both of them. "The last time we encountered this dragon, you were discussing murdering it."

Mara shrugged. "I said we'd revisit the issue."

"No. You said we'd revisit the issue. I explicitly said we would not."

Merrick pointed toward Aldren. "We've got an actual dragonslayer now."

"I killed a wyvern," Aldren said, smiling.

Lucian looked genuinely pleased. "Thank you."

"In two hits."

Lucian's expression immediately disappeared.

Merrick grinned. "See?"

So they traveled west into the mountains and returned to the cave of the silver dragon whose name I had completely forgotten.

The moment they stepped inside, the dragon appeared.

"I see you have recovered the silver bottle. I congratulate you. That bottle contains a powerful efreet who was summoned to kill vampires. He will be a valuable ally in Old Phlan. In Valhingen Graveyard—"

"Um, yeah," Merrick interrupted. "We already killed that fucker."

The dragon ignored him.

Diogenes!

That's his fucking name.

Now I remember.

Diogenes continued explaining how the bottle should be used against the vampire in Valhingen Graveyard.

The same vampire they had already killed several episodes ago.

Without the bottle.

Merrick tried to interrupt again, but the dragon just kept going until he'd finished explaining the entire thing. Then he more or less ushered them out of the cave.

Diogenes arrived with critical vampire-fighting information approximately one dead vampire too late.

Aldren stood outside looking confused. "So that's it?"

"I'm afraid so," Lucian said.

Merrick slowly turned toward the cave.

"That fucker."

Aldren looked at him. "What?"

"If I EVER see that fucking dragon again, Aldren is going to personally fuck its world up!"

"Yeah!" Aldren said.

He paused.

"Wait, what?"

And I'm not even going to lie here. I absolutely would have rolled the Decision Die to see whether the party went back inside and tried to fuck Diogenes up.

There was just one problem.

When I went back into the cave, it was empty.

So, there went that plan. And my utter enjoyment in seeing that plan succeed or fail.

Our little party of adventurers was now right back where they usually seem to end up: with too many unfinished jobs.

Cadorna was still somewhere out there. The missing heir to House Bivant was still missing. The silver bottle quest had finally been resolved several episodes too late to actually be useful.

And now they had a suspicious package that needed to be delivered somewhere to the west.

As it happens, while wandering around out there, I think I just found some kind of encampment.

What encampment?

No fucking clue.

That's for another episode.

I went west looking for answers and found pirates. Sure. Why the fuck not.

The Party So Far

The kobold tribe has finally been wiped out, the kobold king is dead, Princess Fatima escaped the caves (Mara could give two fucks where she went), and Diogenes has finally been informed that the party recovered his stupid silver bottle several episodes after they actually needed it.

Cadorna is still loose, the heir to House Bivant is still missing, and the Council has now handed the party a package that they openly admit might have been tampered with by a traitor.

Excellent.

Aldren Kestyr — Level 8 Fighter

Level-capped, wearing Plate Mail +2 and Gauntlets of Ogre Power, and favoring his Long Sword +5 and shield while keeping Stacy, his beloved Two-Handed Sword +2, close by. Survived the kobold king's final assault at 1 HP, carved through trolls and boars, and was volunteered by Merrick to eventually fight a silver dragon. Nobody asked Aldren.

Mara Threl — Level 6 Cleric

Still swinging Hammer +3 in a Ring of Protection +2 and Gauntlets of Ogre Power. Added Protection from Evil and Prayer, kept half the cave locked down with Hold Person, got beaten unconscious by one dedicated troll, and developed an immediate hatred of Princess Fatima.

Lucian Eldwyck — Level 6 Magic-User

Still wearing his Ring of Protection +3 and solving problems with Fireball, Stinking Cloud, Sleep, and whatever wand or scroll happens to be handy. Paralyzed an envoy, picked up two more mage scrolls, and remains trapped in a party that insists on calling him Lucy.

Merrick Sorne — Level 9 Thief

Still in Leather Armor +4 and his Cloak of Displacement, armed with the Short Sword +2 and Sling of Seeking +2. Killed several enemies with rocks, wanted to impersonate vampires for an efreet, copied a nearly useless map, and was personally offended that the kobold king died before he could shoot him. Also discovered the plural of boot: Bootss.

Next Time On...