Try to keep up, ’cause brother, we’ve got some ground to cover.

So remember how first there were four guys but then one of them quit so that was three left but then another guy moved to China like dude common seriously so anyway we found someone else and now there’s three guys again.

First guy is this human ranger called Maven, yeah, who’s kind of the cautious type, right, he’s a bit quiet and always looking this way and that and checking his corners. And he’s got a bow because he’s an archer and he’s crazy good with it, like crazy good, like he’ll nail your sack to your chair before you can even whip your di… euhm, your dagger out.

Second is a druid by name of Taronn, he’s a half-elf who’s human mommy did the horizontal tango with his elven daddy and of course the other elves made fun of him so he grew up to be a bit of an ass who doesn’t really care as much about other living things like a good druid should. So he’s not a very good druid, he’s not even a very good dude altogether, and he’s not even the worst of the bunch.

Third guy’s the worst, okay, not even funny bad, he’s out of his mind on orc-testosterone. I’m not even kidding, we’re talking about an actual Orc going to a particularly bad patch of puberty, taking it out on anything and everything he can hit with his massive double-bladed double-sided war axe he carries around. Also his name is Arcus.

So anyway it’s these three now and whatever happened before just didn’t happen. It’s one of those deus-ex-machina things from movies or soap operas where it turns out it was all just a dream or an alternate reality or whatever only this time there’s not even an explanation it’s the actual GOD – that’s me, by the way, the game master, or GM – just straight up deciding that all of the previous didn’t count.

And now I’m really gonna speed up, okay? You ready? No seriously, you ready? Okay here we go!

So we’re in a city called Daemodox and basically it’s this massive central hub of all the different magical planes and these three fuckwits all did something stupid to piss off their respective bosses, which in this case are the head priests of whatever temple district each of them falls under and now they have to go out of the city into one of the other planes to check on something that none of the people actually responsible for this sort of thing want to check out themselves. They get sent to the temple of Diadite, that’s the Goddess of Flora (plants and flowers and all that), and the priestess there explains they have to get something called an Elemental Stone because they think something bad is going on and they need that thing to examine and investigate and if they have any more questions they can ask this guy called the Guide once they’re through this portal that’s opened for them to take them to the Plane of Diadite .

Maven and Taronn just go ‘what evs’ and hop through the portal, but Orc-man Arcus isn’t really prone to listening like a good boy so he starts questioning this older lady that’s just standing there but she doesn’t answer, she just kinda smirks and nods to the portal. So yeah of course Arcus swings his big axe at her but it turns out grandma packs a punch because she blocks his strike with one end of her staff and cracks him over the head with the other and sends him after the others with a big bump on his thick skull.

So he comes out the other side of the portal as well, right, and Maven’s already up in a tree somewhere to check out the lay of the land and whatnot while Taronn is trying to keep his big dumb bird under control.

Oh yeah, you didn’t know that yet: Taronn, the druid, has this big ass bird with blood red feathers that’s literally taller than he is and he’s not even small so we’re talking a BIG ASS BIRD. And this thing is just fucking hyped to be in this Plane of Nature, man. He is almost out of control but not just yet like some kid high on X who only needs one more beer to totally lose his shit, right?

Anyway Arcus sees Maven in the tree and calls him gay so Maven shows off by somersaulting down to the ground only to have Arcus call him gay again and for like a second you think ‘Oh bad move he is dead’ but then Maven just walks off without another word to look for a trail of this Elemental thing they’re supposed to find. And he’s a pretty good hunter so he finds it pretty quick and they start following these tracks but then Taronn’s bird-brain bird sees some other huge birds and just takes off so now they’re following the big bird toward the other big birds. The big birds fly to some big nest in some damn tall trees and Taronn’s pet, whose name is Toroxo, by the way, is about halfway up that tree but the other birds who are still way fucking bigger than he is, these things are gigantic, like elephants but not elephants ’cause they’re birds.

And Toroxo, he doesn’t want to come down, so Maven tries to climb up with this climbing gear he’s got but then the really big birds get aggressive when he starts nearing their nest, right? Then Taronn has another idea, and he uses his fire spell to make like a ball of flames in his hand and he checks with Toroxo if that would be a good move and of course it’s not, what the fuck are you doing lighting a fire in the realm of Nature itself you moron. But Toroxo does come down eventually because the bigger birds won’t let him come up and yeah sure he’s just a dumb bird but he’s not retarded.

So they go back to the trail they found and track it to a cave so they go inside because that’s what you do when you’re playing a fantasy game and you’re the would-be hero and you find a cave. Maven of course suggests to be careful and sneaky about it but Arcus calls him gay, which is becoming a bit of a habit, and storms inside. Maven face-palms and sneaks after him, followed by Taronn who’s pouting because he can’t bring his bird in because it’s bigger than the cave entrance.

It’s a pretty standard cave: some evil creatures, but nothing really dangerous except for the traps which Arcus triggers because he’s a big buffoon who just barges through every chamber and hall of the cave so of course he falls in the first half-covered hole in the ground and when the hole closes around him he’s as good as dead but luckily Taronn has some healing skills and he patches him up but only like barely like ‘don’t do dumb shit again or you dead’. Unfortunately he’s an Orc so two dark corridors later he triggers another trap and a whole chunk of ceiling comes down on him only this time Taronn manages to push him out from under it and save his sorry ass.

Meanwhile Maven, who in the first half of the cave did all of the creature-killing from the shadows while the other two basically served as live bait, runs into some minor trouble when a slimy ball with teeth falls on his face and scares the hell out of him but the others didn’t see it so he’s cool.

Then, in the last room of the cave, they find it, right. They find the Elemental. Only it doesn’t look to healthy. It doesn’t even see them at first. It just stands there, jerking and twitching and growling like a rabid dog, only it’s not a dog but a seven foot, four hundred pound mass of sentient tree.

Naturally, Maven sidesteps into the shadow and all but vanishes; Taronn curses himself for wasting a fire spell on a big spider two rooms before; and Arcus screams GAAAAY and charges the Elemental that’s only, what, half again his size and thrice his weight.

Things go like you would expect, right. Arcus gets slammed in the face with a tree trunk and goes down. Maven fires a couple of arrows but though luck ’cause the thing is made from wood and it’s angry as fuck so it doesn’t give half a shit.

Then Taronn gets his brain in gear and decides to use his remaining fire spell to set the thing on fire and he hits it too but it doesn’t catch fire. Man, it doesn’t even smoulder.

And then everything goes really fast, like it’s a fight to the death what did you think.

Arcus goes into full rage mode and starts swinging his axe like a lumberjack on speed and coke. Taronn draws his scimitar but he might as well not have because the only thing hitting the Elemental is his face and by that I mean he is getting absolutely trashed. Maven is the only one doing actual damage but only because he’s now using his fire arrows and man does the tree-thing not like that. In half a second it disappears into the ground, and everyone is like ‘What the fuck now what? Well at least it can’t touch us now either.’ but that’s not true because it’s a cave and the ground is earth but so are the walls so now the Elemental is in the walls and of course that means the wall behind Maven ’cause he’s the biggest pain in its wooden arse and when he comes out he sends the archer flying.

They’re in trouble now. Not funny trouble as in ‘haha you idiots messed up’ but trouble as in ‘haha you idiots are going to actually die’.

Arcus is already one foot in the grave. Blood is just pouring out of him and he’s still swinging his axe but he might not even be conscious anymore.

Taronn is out, lying flat on his back and wondering why his ribs and his face and his ego hurt so damn much.

Maven is literally their only hope at this point, but he’s in a world of pain just like the others, he can’t even stand up straight after the beating he just got. He knows he can get one more shot in, though. Just one more, so he doesn’t go for speed, he goes for accuracy. He’s a hunter, he’s seen death, and he knows this isn’t his. He takes his arrow, draws his bow, and takes a deep breath. And he can see it, see the opening, and the arrow flies.

It’s perfect, and not just because that’s how these things go when the main characters are in deep shit. The Elemental goes down and our merry friends slowly get up and heal their bruises and their pride as best they can. Arcus hasn’t even the strength left to call anyone or anything ‘gay’.

But here’s the kicker: after they take the stone they needed from the Elemental’s body, and after they limp out of the cave, they see two things.

One is the guy called the Guide and he’s just chilling in the grass cutting away at a piece of bone or something like he didn’t just send them on a suicide-mission.

The other thing they notice, is that Taronn’s bird is gone.