Jyger’s Journeys Through Dungeons & Dragons – The Dark Pyramid of Sorcerer’s Isle (WARNING – SPOILERS FOR ADVENTURERS LEAGUE)

So, for a long time, I talked about wanting to get into Dungeons & Dragons. Well, late last year, I finally managed to do just that. My local comic shop, Heroes’ Beacon, had a guy coming in to set up D&D games for beginners (5th Edition, btw), so I joined up and have been playing ever since. And I wanna take a minute to thank Noah Antwiler, AKA The Spoony One, for inspiring me to get into D&D with his show, Counter Monkey. And I know, he hears that a lot, and wonders why that is, when a lot of his stories are of disastrously bad games or events in games… … …Well, after playing D&D for the better part of a year, I can tell you, that happens a lot. XD

Speaking of Counter Monkey, though, I’ve been contemplating the idea of blogging about some of these insanely bizarre, stupid, and even occasionally badass moments that I’ve been present for, and after asking the gang if they’d be okay with that, it was just a matter of deciding which one to go with…Luckily, I didn’t have to wait long, because my God, one of the weirdest freaking things I’ve ever been present to in a game happened over the course of the past few nights that we’ve played. It’s called the Dark Pyramid of Sorcerer’s Isle, and if you haven’t played that adventure and don’t want to be spoiled, stop reading RIGHT NOW.

…Okay, so our party had to travel from the town of Phlan to a place called Sorcerer’s Isle, where there was a pyramid. Apparently, there were these mutations happening to anything near the island, and the range away from the island that it was happening within was getting larger. So, we had to take a boat… … …Now, as someone who watches Counter Monkey, one lesson I’ve learned when it comes to D&D is to never get on the boat. Sure enough, we’re on that boat, and while we managed to make it pretty far, within visual range of our destination (by which time, we’d seen some weird shit, like trees that essentially seemed to be growing upside down), we were attacked by giant squids. I just pointed to each and every person at the table and yelled “I told you, I told you, I told you, and I ESPECIALLY told you!” Oh, and not just giant squids, but giant squids that, when they died, exploded into swarms of piranha. Luckily, we have a druid in our party that could likewise turn into a giant squid and helped to even the odds a bit. In fact, he got one of the enemy squids restrained to the point where our tiefling paladin, who is usually the silver-tongued goofball of the team, ran a spear straight through all of its tentacles at once, which left it SUPER easy prey. Suffice to say, though, the boat was pretty badly damaged, and the captain almost died. Fortunate for him, my character’s bonds says that he will not leave others to die, so I saved his ass from falling in the water where the swarms of man-eating piranha were waiting for him.

So, we leave the boat and get to land, and right from the get-go, as soon as we’re in the pyramid, bodies everywhere just past the entrance. If I’d known what was waiting for us in that pyramid, I wouldn’t have been nearly as scared to get on the boat. In fact, if anything, I would’ve wanted to stay with the boat while everyone else went in. Ghosts, re-arranging passageways leading us in circles, dead bodies, spider webs, lizard men, giant frog monsters, clouds of poisonous gas, it was one death trap after the next in that Goddamn pyramid. I won’t go over the whole thing (technically, I can’t, because I had to miss one night we were there), but suffice to say, it was weird…though nothing could prepare me for what was waiting at the end.

After taking down a small pack of giant mutant frog monsters, we made it to a chamber where there was, as near as our wizard could figure, a tear in the fabric of reality leading to a realm of pure chaos. And flowing from said tear? Rainbow-coloured chemicals of chaos that mutated anyone and anything they came in contact with in a randomized way. Apparently, that was also the cause of everything weird going on in the pyramid. So, okay, we found the chamber that was the source of the problem, so we could shut it down, right? Well…see, like I said, our paladin is a bit of a goof off. And, unfortunately, he was not the only person who decided to experiment with these chemicals. So, whereas a sane party would go ahead and dispel magic on the runes keeping the rip open, ours decided to experiment with the chemicals a bit. Now, I personally called it quits with experimenting with it when I dipped my short sword into it and got back a sword made of bubble gum. Unfortunately, our sorcerer, who is insane, decided to literally jump, tuck, and roll straight through the stuff, inadvertently drinking some of it on his way. Within a few seconds, his toes sprouted new eyes, and within a few minutes, he was a giant mass of nothing but eyes, meaning he was technically brain dead for a few minutes, as he HAD NO BRAIN. Other mutations included a lizard woman having a wing, our monk having her legs transformed into one made of crystal and one coated in feathers, our paladin having his arm turned to steam, his other hand being turned into an egg, and his tail straight up disappearing, our druid being turned into some kind of blue horned monstrosity, and our orc barbarian having his legs replaced with THE SUN, which somehow didn’t melt us. I am convinced that somewhere, on some plane of existence, H. P. Lovecraft was looking down on us and the bizarre mutants we were becoming and going “What the fuck?!” I never wanna go anywhere near anything that is remotely associated with the realm of chaos ever again after that bullshit.

Anyway, that’s all for the first story I wanted to share with everyone. Lemme know if you’d like to hear more, or if you’ve got a funny story of your own in D&D. Ja né!