[meta] Things that go BUMP in the night
The Divas like to celebrate. It was Debbie”s birthday and we planned to celebrate! I made lemon cupcakes and Taj made brownies. Yum. I was also really looking forward to the game. I am so ready to mix it up with Tirel and try my hand at turning undead. The night didn”t go as planned.
With the treats and all, we didn”t settle into the game as quickly as usual. When we did, we had to decide how in the heck Elvis was supposed to find us. It was a glorious tale of chalk markings and blood….. Michelle was nice enough to buy it.
Then, what the hell?!! We”re rolling a listen check? I”m supposed to be sleeping. I have a whole new spellbook prepared! We didn”t know what was going on — I thought Tirel was making a getaway. Instead it”s a bunch of redshirts. No big deal. Dispatched.
And then, well, we were up, so why not get Elvis, who was sitting on the other shore. Deb had Cinder climb up and get the car underway. On the way back with Elvis aboard, damned if the thing didn”t break and fall into the water. What happened next was some of the most tense and difficult combat I have ever witnessed.
Remember last week when Sarah”s paladin sensed evil in the lake? Yeah. We know that evil by name now. We call her “Nessie.” Deb found herself doing repeated grapple checks against this huge sea monster. Most of us were stuck on shore, helpless. Cinder kept on taking damage and then the monster moved to the very edge of the map with Cinder in tow. What the hell to do now? I think all of us thought Cinder would die.
There were times where I felt like I couldn”t breathe. As Debbie said later: “When Angel starts to worry, that”s when I really start to worry.” I love our team. We threw ourselves into saving Cinder, no questions. As we slowly got closer to the sea monster, all I could think about was healing Cinder. (Am I the only one who forgot about the healing potions Cinder looted?) I had so few spells because we hadn”t rested. I know Sarah and Taj were in the same boat.
The sea monster seemed unstoppable. We hit it with lots of spells and weapons and it kept on grappling. The longer the battle, the more I thought that maybe it wouldn”t just be Deb rolling a new character. I had a fleeting thought that Indira wouldn”t get to level 6 after all.
Then we got a few lucky breaks. A few bad rolls for Michelle (earlier I had offered to switch dice with her, to help those bad rolls along!), and a few good rolls for us. Suddenly things were looking up! After what seemed like hours (but Michelle told us was only one minute in game time), we were rowing back to shore, sea monster vanquished.
When it came time for XP, I was surprised — we barely got any at all! Sure, we had fought just a few things: red-shirt Alleybashers and a sea monster…… on paper the 350 or so in XP looked fine. But I felt like I”d been through that battle for real. At the end of the night I was spent, physically and emotionally spent.
But that”s the sign of a great game, I guess, when you are that invested. So what does “experience” matter compared to the real life experience of the night”s adventures?
Our Hen House
Compassionate Cook
I really want to thank everyone for helping me celebrate. I can’t think of better company in which to spend my birthday. Thank you for the wonderful card and those delicious goodies. Taj, I’ve been munching on those brownies all weekend!