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Archive for ‘Prose’

Dungeons and Dragons Online Vignette — D.U.H.

Posted by Allan in Games, Prose on August 10, 2011 7:14 am

Did you know that a Divine Union of Hirelings exists? Apparently so! In the last union meeting, countless speaker cards were filled out in order to address the issue of hireling maltreatment and abuse, with many hireling clerics speaking out against doing contract work for a Drow Wizard named ElTechno De La Biblioteca.

Yes, they spoke out against me and they made me sit through the whole thing. One cleric recounted the time when I cast Expeditious Retreat and Invisibility on myself and left her to run after me through mobs of hostile soldiers and scorpions. “I came back to pick up your soulstone!” I exclaimed. Another spoke of a time when I went for a swim through an underwater cave and left him to fight trolls and rust monsters alone. while someone else testified that I had locked them out to face Whisperdoom alone.  Yet another recalled a time I watched her get electrocuted to death by a trap I had jumped over. “That’s because most people would step away from the trap BEFORE healing themselves!” A few others spoke of being tactlessly commanded to use runes, open doors, heal others not specifically named in the contract, having to heal spiders and miscellaneous pets, and being injured numerous times by a summoned arcane skeleton mage. “You command Drow Scorpions as pets! Consider yourselves fortunate that Vulkoor has not manifested his wrath upon you!” I yelled in exasperation.

After a bit of gavel pounding, the whole episode ended with me being limited to non-union contracts over at House Kundarak. I wasn’t too worried since I knew a lot of the union clerics secretly moonlighted as bodyguards in House K. However, until the excitement that my name invoked wound down, I decided it was best to hit the realm’s Looking-For-Group Bulletin Board again for a while. Good thing, too, because I had found a group running the “Diplomatic Impunity” quest which in turn led to my being accepted into a guild.

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Dungeons and Dragons Online Vignette — The Depths Chain

Posted by Allan in Games, Prose on June 20, 2011 7:20 pm

“It’s a bit like Craigslist for looters and grave robbers,” he thought as he reluctantly asked to be invited into a group running the “Depths” chain for House Deneith.  The quest required more work in the sewers which sent his former hireling packing in a fit of rage, grumbling as he left about a dry-cleaning bill.  Not wanting to go solo, ElTechno had to resort to becoming more sociable in the hopes of having a group to go questing with.

At the group leader’s approval, ElTechno was in and on his way to the sewer entrance.  He gave a brief and almost-sociable “hello” to the other members.  As he looked over everyone in the party, he assessed each of them in his head.  There was a swordsman and an axe swinger as cannon fodder, a sneaky rogue to disarm traps, a spell caster like him, and a cleric to heal everyone’s ills in case of a pneumonia outbreak.

Spells and incantations that empowered party members were cast at the dungeon entrance as was the custom.  ElTechno cast his one mass-effect spell of Protection from Evil as well as Bull’s Strength for the cannon fodder.  He then summoned his skeleton mage and a giant spider to assist.  He turned to his side to find that someone had summoned a Drow scorpion as a pet.  It was the cleric.

“I find it a bit offensive that you would take a Drow scorpion as a pet.”  The Drow scorpion, a Drow Elf with a scorpion body, was revered by the Drow as elves that had transcended into a higher union with their scorpion god.  The cleric dismissed the anthropology lesson and said “gets the job done.”

The quest had gone quite well until the rogue took a wrong turn and gathered more blades to his torso than his health cared to handle.  With the rogue’s demise, ElTechno silently appointed himself the new trapmonkey.  After inspecting a suspicious apparatus in one particular hallway, he quickly yelled “trap!”  He leapt above a ledge to disarm the trap and others in the group tried to follow.  One fell off and was immediately cut down by giant rotating blades that had been cleverly hidden within the walls.  It was the cleric.

“Gets the job done,” ElTechno thought.  “Keeps one of my people as a pet,” he thought.  “Stupid enough not to heed my warning,” he thought.  With a sigh, he took the cleric’s soulstone and dutifully brought it with him to the resurrection shrine around the corner.  That is what any good party member would have done.

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Dungeons and Dragons Online Vignette — Waterworks

Posted by Allan in Games, Prose on June 7, 2011 7:09 am

There was an unpleasant stench. Ankle-deep sewage flowed downstream like the hopes and dreams of the young Drow elf who reluctantly navigated the sewer system in search of a man named Atlas or Argos or Arlo Guthrie or something. He motioned to his hired healer who rolled his eyes and reminded him that the man they sought was named Arlos.

Even though he made more platinum than most hirelings, the unpleasant sewer smell nor the sociopathic nature of his Drow employer made the healer believe that the trip was not worth twice the money he was offered. Triple, maybe, but only if one factors in the dry-cleaning bill for the +1 to healing plate mail he was sporting.

Further along the path, the Drow elf wizard’s conjured pet charged forward to confront a couple of Kobold warriors. The preoccupied wizard took a slight left turn to break open a few barrels and crates on the floor. He pocketed the scattered contents.

“Why would you do that? You don’t even own a bow!” the hireling inquired rhetorically.

“Masterwork arrows fetch a decent price at the vendors” said El Techno with a charismatic smile.

He then looked up and nonchalantly took a couple of steps back behind the hireling as fire potions rained down from a Kobold thrower ahead, bouncing against the cleric’s armor. He checked his robe for ashes and looked dismayed by the couple of spots he found.

“Well,” said El Techno, “get to work.”

As the cleric charged forward to fight alongside El Techno’s pet, a loud alarm gong rang followed by the appearance of a large ogre set on defending his territory.

“I guess I have to get my hands dirty,” sighed the wizard, pulling an eternal wand of acid splash from his backpack.

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Dinner at Milliways

Posted by Allan in Cultures, Prose on May 21, 2011 7:38 am

“That’s great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane…”
– REM, “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

Science makes predictions.  If I drop my mouse from my table, it should fall down.  I can test this prediction (and occasionally do — absolutely intentionally, of course) to satisfy my curiosity.  Knowledge of, nor faith in gravity is not a requirement for my mouse to fall.  This is not a Bugs Bunny cartoon.  My dedication to the continuous advancement of science often demands that I test this prediction constantly, and sometimes in the most inconvenient ways. Does an egg obey the law of gravity when I intentionally let it slip from my hand as I take the experimental mass from the fridge?  Does lip balm fall from my pocket as I take a pen out? Will a hard drive hover in mid-air after dropping it?  Unfortunately not.

Having said this, a religious organisation has made a prediction that the world would end today.  6pm on the hour, every hour as each time zone hits that time.  Earthquakes, zombies, the gullibles being beamed up into another dimension.  You know, the works.  The great thing about this is that the same group had predicted the same event back in the mid-90′s and they were wrong then.  From the newscast today, it looks like they’re wrong again.

I won’t go into the “problems and the hows and whys” of such thought and blind faith here, but instead present an odd sense of admiration for this religious organisation.  They had the courage and conviction to proclaim loudly — “This is what we believe, and this is important.  This is our testable prediction!”  Not too many religious groups out there doing that.

If we are to be consistent in this scientific study, we evaluate this theory using the observable experiment we have been presented.  If the prediction fails, the theory is incorrect.  We move on.  The world did not end, there are no zombies walking around, the gullibles are still here.  Will they re-evaluate their theory?  That is a psychological experiment…and I predict the answer is “no.”

At any rate, I’ve had the roast beef sandwich at the Cafe At The End Of The Universe, and it was good.

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Happy Mothra’s Day!

Posted by Allan in Cultures, Prose on May 8, 2011 12:01 am

The world is a vampire, sent to drain
secret destroyers, hold you up to the flames
and what do I get, for my pain
betrayed desires, and a piece of the game
– “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” (The Smashing Pumpkins)

Happy Mothra’s Day, everyone! I haven’t seen any of the Godzilla movies but I guess that particular subculture had gained enough influence to make Mothra’s Day a mainstream holiday. I was a bit puzzled at first by the gifts exchanged on Mothra’s Day but after realizing that the connection was so obvious, I almost feel ashamed to point it out here.  We exchange flowers and sweets because butterflies are naturally attracted to them. It is our way of honoring Mothra.

Some may say that I have the holiday confused with something they insist is called “Mothers’ Day” and I did give the notion some minor consideration. Looking at the Wikipedia entry for Mothra, I was able to see where the confusion came from.

Wikipedia states that Mothra “is almost always portrayed as a kind and benevolent creature, causing destruction only when acting as protector to her worshipers on Infant Island or to her egg, or as collateral damage while protecting Earth from a greater threat.”

Wikipedia also claims that “Mothra has proven a formidable adversary in combat: in larval form she may use her silken spray to wrap and immobilize an opponent, and has a knack for biting and clinging to foes’ tails. In imago form her powers vary widely from film to film, including very animalistic scratching and dragging, incorporating several bolt and beam weapons in the Heisei era, and often concluding with a poisonous yellow powder (or “scales”) -her last defense.

Mothra is one of the most powerful psychics in the Toho universe. She has had the ability to use this power benevolently, to communicate with humans, or aggressively, to destroy her enemies.” (From Wikipedia entry on Mothra)

Though it may be confusing, be assured that the holiday IS called Mothra’s Day. Any similarities between the formidably protective, poison-spewing, benevolent psychic female authority figure and Mothra are strictly coincidental.

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