The first Critjuice via the Saving Throw Show on the Twitch Channel, where the characters and players are continue 5th Edition.

Drinking God Rules:

  • Every time a player forgets to use their character voice, they must take 3 drinks in their character voice. (Abyssal Melody)

Characters:

Locations in this episode:

Jokes introduced:

Play-By-Play

Continuing on from 103…

Sollen has chosen to ignore all of Roofer’s instructions. Roofer looks around and sees that the rope monster is about ten feet below him. Using acrobatics Roofer attempts to fall from the roof in a barrel roll towards the rope monster. A wicked gainer ensues as he windmills and aerials on top of it. He pulls his spar free and tries to swirl the ropes and pennants into a tangle. In so doing he destroys the rope monster and falls, entangled in the mass of rope and rags. Sollen feels the pull of the wood elf now attached to the same ropes wrapped around him and flexes into the wall and prevents Roofer from hitting the garden below. Roofer is pulled up short and swings to bump gently into the wall of the palace. Sollen’s treant, Froot, climbs onto his shoulder.

Zorticus hurls a bolt of fire at the Terracotta monster critically hammering it in the chest. “I’m feeling hot tonight!” Zorticus exclaims and Hot Stuff Baby starts orchestrally playing somewhere, somehow.

Crit Card: Lucas Bowyer - a strange wooden stick on the ground carries a symbol of a rabbit on it written in chalk. Words, whispered in Zorticus’ mind “Make it count…” Zorticus gains the power to “make it count” and also gets +10 to bluff for the remainder of the encounter.

The citadel is slowly drifting away. Duke Draymore has finished vomiting and while wiping his mouth Zorticus turns to him and says “oh. We should have killed you already.”

Duke Draymore’s face goes ashen before he says “oh, yes, you’re crazy. I can’t trust what you’re saying.”

Zorticus gives Draymore a look that says how disgusted he is that Draymore did nothing during the entire fight. Draymore splutters and responds “I was… vomiting at the stench of your fart! And then…”

He is cut off by Zorticus who hisses “Shut up, Shut your mouth. You did nothing! You didn’t even try to save the Princess when I was trying to make a trade. You acted scared! So you’re going to listen to me. NOW! And you’re going to listen to us and stop calling us degenerates, because we actually took care of your ass. So. You’re going to tell us everything you know and if you’re not on the straight and narrow I’m going to fuckin’ gut you.” He glares so menacingly at Duke Draymore that the Duke splutters for a moment as though language has failed him utterly.

“Okay, okay. I get it. I’m surrounded by madmen, murderers and lunatics. And maybe I’m a little bit crazy too.

“Also, Adventurers!” chimes in Roofer. “And… uh, roofers” adds in Draymore. “Oh. Actually I x’ed that out.” Rejoinders Roofer, explaining, “and also father of imp.”
“Oh.” Says Draymore dejectedly “Good! He’s an adventurer now.” He laughs at the state of the world and mutters “Yes! Nothing matters! The Princess is probably dead. The lich took her and my only hope is madmen!” With a crazed look in his eyes he turns to Zorticus and imperiously beckons him with a wave of his arm. “Lead on! I’ll follow you. Yeess…. What do you we do now? The flying citadel is getting away, geniuses!”

Mack pipes up “Is there a way for him to cool down his servitudeness, ‘cause it’s getting creepy!” Sollen climbs up to the roof again.

“Listen to me… Duke.” Zorticus steps up to Draymore so their noses are almost touching. “You’re going to be what I like to call ‘Human Shield.’” His comrades chuckle and Draymore initially looks like he wants to object; but, realizing that Zorticus is the sort of man who would kill him for that. “Okay…” he replies.
“Do you know anything about this citadel? Do you have any weapons or anything that can help us, or are you just a Donald Sutherland looking motherfucker?” Zorticus questions him.

“I don’t know who this Donald Su..” Draymore replies uncertainly only to be cut off by Zorticus “Keifer’s dad! He’s a charm! He’s a fucking American treasure.”
“Yes, I have a son named Keifer, but I don’t see how that applies here.” Draymore responds drily. He sighs dramatically. “No, I mean. Keifer Draymore! It’s a good, proper name! But anyway, how did you know my first name was Donald? Yes, I have a weapon. Look the citadel is drifting away! We don’t have time to…”

The citadel drifts, slowly moving away from the palace. “If you want to be in charge, fine. Tell me, Donald Draymore, what to do. And I will absolutely do it, if you can get the Princess back. Whatever you want.”

Roofer looks at all the cord, rope and pennants in his arms and beckons to his imp. “Hey, son, come here.” Roofer gives him the end of the rope and says “Hey son, you want to make your father proud? Here’s how you can do. Take up the family business: Adventurers! Let’s do science. Now at forty feet per six seconds, the citadel is moving away 10 feet per six seconds. SO you should be able to catch it. So you better going flying with that cord, like your dad does. And make your dad proud. Now go get it!”

“Imp Rooferson” flies up like a shot. Froot looks at Sollen, granny smith apples sprouting from his branches and cries out “faaatheerrrr, I am Froot” and places a small handful of seeds in Sollen’s hand. “I am Froot!” and he climbs away back down the wall to where he came from.

Sollen whispers in the mind of Tipsy “well, I’ve got my small familiar badge, for the stonescouts, so… check that off the list.” Tipsy, lucid and aware, gets Sollen’s message and consoles him that he at least has the apple.”

Sollen turns to the imp and mentally says “Making your dad proud up there.” The imp finishes tying the rope around a pillar on the citadel.

“I guess we’re going now… Byeeee” shouts Roofer as he grabs the rope. Duke Draymore looks for guidance from Zorticus who barks out “climb, climb, Duke!” so he grabs onto Roofer’s feet and is carried aloft. The group is pulled up into the air, free of the palace as the citadel drifts away.

They climb up, hand over hand, making their way to an outer level of the outer layers of the citadel. The group attempts to rest while climbing up the rope, but realize that it is not feasible. They pull their way into a cavern-like opening and find themselves deep within goblin warrens. Earthen corridors, carved into this giant mote of earth flying high in the sky.

“Try not to look back!” Duke Draymore gasps, as he himself is looking back at the palace dwindling in the distance. “Ohhh god, I’ve already vomited everything in my stomach, but that’s fine. That’s okay.”
They wander the corridors for a moment or two, down passages to the left and right and hear chittering and weird laughing, but they don’t see any goblins until they reach a large and ominous door.

The door is a twenty foot tall, basalt door of smoothly polished, sheer black rock. It is fashioned like a screaming monster with a lock in the middle of it. Once again they discuss spending thirty minutes to rest and recuperate in front of the door, Mack adds that he could perform a song of rest for the party. Duke Donald Draymore has other ideas though and he coldly says, “You want to spend 30 minutes here, huddled within the bowels of this lich’s evil keep! Okay, you’re crazy, and yes… Listen. We don’t have thirty minutes! If we spend 30 minutes who knows what’ll happen to the Princess. We’re here to save the Princess… Right?!”

Sollen agrees “Yes, you’re right. I hate him so much, but he is right.”

Zorticus also agrees, “That is correct.”

“You hate me because you can tell that I am superior.” Draymore says arrogantly.
“He’s going to murder you.” Sollen says flatly while pointing at Zorticus. “yeah… oh yeah.” Zorticus says quietly.

“I would expect no less from a shifty underhanded Drow, clever though you may be.” Draymore acknowledges.

“Thank you” Zorticus says happily.

“Oh, you’re welcome.” Draymore returns “So I say we press on. Look, that’s the door up ahead. There’s nothing between us and it.”

The group has travelled barely ten or twenty feet forward before getting to this door, and Roofer is very certain that this would be the only time for a brief respite. He is countermanded by Duke Draymore, the “Duke of Puke” as Zorticus named him.

“What exactly is your relationship to the Princess?” Zorticus inquires of Draymore.

“Princess Sophia’s parents perished. Rather tragically. She is the rightful ruler of Greyhaven and the surroundings. Until she comes of age of course, power defaults to me, the foremost aristocrat in the Kingdom.

“Oh, so you killed her parents?” Mack pipes up.

“How dare you! I would get really upset with you right now, if you didn’t have this collar on me! But I most certainly did not.”

“Oh, okay.” Quietly says Mack.

“I am concerned with keeping her safe. That has been my duty. Many have cast aspersions at me! That I have only sought to retain my own power. That is utterly untrue. I merely seek to preserve the power of the monarchy so that when the Princess takes it, all will be as it should.”

“And when does she come of age?” Zorticus inquires.

“In 30 minutes!” catcalls Sollen.

Duke Draymore ignores this “At 18.”

“And she is,… ten, eleven?” ponders Zorticus.

“Eleven” agrees the Duke.

“Change the age of consent to ten!” Zorticus says gleefully.

“I don’t think I heard what you said…” the Duke remonstrates, having clearly heard Zorticus.

“Think about it!” Zorticus says in his creepy little kid voice “You have the power. Change… okay.”

“It’s true…” the Duke ponders briefly, “I could… wait, what am I saying!?”
Sollen breaks up the conversation with an “Eewww, let’s move on. Are we resting ?”
“No!” the Duke re-iterates. “we must press on! It was a short story and we must press on. We need to go through this door. We don’t have half an hour, let alone in the foul depths of this dungeon.”

“You lead the way, you dumb bitch” Zorticus says and kicks him.

“Ow! My ass” Duke Draymore cries out and Zorticus laughs.

Goblins emerge from nooks and crannies and narrow cracks that run through the earthen tunnels. Four come out, filthy, dirt-stained goblins. In addition there is a chubbier, fatter goblin who spits out “Nyeah! Gra Gra!” beckoning for the party to attack him. He is walking next to a chained, two-headed black furred hound. The heads bark a-synchronously. Spit of purple/black spittle flies from its mouth, their eyes just red-black pits in its face. The goblins swarm to attack.

Mack’s ears perk up, hearing the goblin laughter, sees them spring from their tunnels. They brandish rudimentary clubs, chipped swords and daggers. They are smeared with dirt and giggle hysterically. “No one will disturb the master!” They cry. Mack looks to see if he can determine how many of the goblins are male or female. He does so and then creates a minor illusion of a cat on the ledge staring at the hound taunting it. In attempting to distract it he critically fails:

Crit-Fail: @drinkingnewb – “Trumped - 20 foot high wall springs up between you and your enemy. Disadvantage on diplomacy checks for the rest of the session and the table finishes their drinks.”

A twenty foot wall of stone leaps up, blocking the party’s advance to the door they’re trying to get to, but also keeping the hell-hound and the leader of the goblins. Even the goblins look alarmed by this wall.

Zorticus looks around, thinking ‘wow, I’m having fun with this Duke of Puke’ and he shakes the Duke’s shoulders. He says “Let’s give everyone a fighting chance here.” He cups his hands and goes “Eee, ooh, eh, ee” and casts fairy fire over the goblins in front of the group, blinding them and causing them to suffer disadvantage on their attacks.

Roofer squeezes up next to Sollen to attack the goblin in front of him with his spar. “You can’t hit me!” the goblin cries. Roofer extends his hand and a rat runs down his arm, leaping off his hand with a flying kick like Master Splinter, exploding into the goblin’s face, killing him instantly. The goblin’s shocked head falls to the ground. Roofer moves into the now empty space.

It is at this point that someone named Jacobscreek followed the channel and David Crennan bestowed upon that person the right to a re-roll in a game of their choice. Just let their DM know if they have any issues to bring it up with David on Twitter.
Roofer attacks an additional goblin, lashing out with his spar, leaving the goblin barely hanging on to life.

A duel happens between the players at this point: Gary vs. Tom.
Tom – Prestidigitation
Gary – Prismatic Orb *
Tom – Magic Missile
Gary – Flaming Sphere
Tom – Minor Illusion
Gary – Mage Hand
Tom - …

Gary wins the battle and therefore takes all of Mack’s pants, has Mack sign them for some reason and that is the end of that battle. *(not a spell)

The goblins attack, but all of them are incapable of hitting any of the party. Meanwhile the western wall shudders and shakes and Duke Draymore cries out “Hoowa! It seems as though a siege weapon has fired a catapult boulder against the side of the citadel. The troops! They must have mustered! They are attacking!” Even as he says that, the passageway begins to crumble beneath their feet. Sollen and Mack and Tipsy’s passageway shudder violently and large chunks of hallway slides away in a landslide. They duck and dodge and succeed in diving forward as rocks come crashing down behind them, big cloud of dust comes billowing out as they climb heavily to their feet. Tipsy dances along the corridor, almost floating to escape.

They have the feeling that all too soon, with cracks running right through the ceiling even that the whole thing will come crashing down upon them all too soon. Sollen inspects the stone wall, ignoring the three goblins between him and it. He performs blur motion to pass the goblins unseen, their bodies shifting as he passes by on his way to the wall. “Where is he?!” One of them says. Sollen then performs a delusion upon one of the goblins. One of the goblins suddenly sees Sollen raising his Warhammer over his head to strike at him. With Stonecunning, Sollen inspects the wall in front of him for how to take it down. The join in the corners reveals to Sollen that this is the weakpoint where a solid hammer blow could take the wall down.
At this point the opening credits voice, Jake, arrives “Previously on CritJuice…. You remember him as that helpful Giant Head, Lloyd. Soon he shall be summoned, and soon you shall fight him.”

In the distance the bellow of Lloyd, the giant head can be heard somewhere deep within the confines of the citadel. His scream “hruuuuuuuagghhhhhhh” shakes and distracts the goblins who have not heard such a thing before.
Mack hops onto Tipsy’s back. His pupils have returned to normal and he’s having a great time. His mood – elevated. Feeling cocky. Feeling like Kurt Russell at the end of Big Trouble in Little China. Tipsy spiritedly bounds forward to face the terrified goblins and Mack dissonantly sings to the goblins with Tipsy harmonizing along. (note that here is where Tom recognizes that Dissonant Whispers is a saving throw for the goblins, not an attack roll for Mack)

“You all got dicks on your heads!
Limp dicks would do fine, but that’s not all the time.
You gotta have more than just little dicks. Little dicks on your head.
Oh. Maybe you should be nice to people. Give it a shot, maybe it’s worth it. I don’t know. Or possibly you could be cool about shit. That would be great. Nothing rhymes. So okay! This is a song that doesn’t rhyme. It’s dissonant! Do you get the fact that I want ya to be docile!”

Tipsy finishes the song with a trumpeted solo and two of the goblins are blasted against the far wall and fall to the ground, dead.

Zorticus moves the Duke in front of himself. “I’m not comfortable with this arrangement.” The Duke quietly cries to Zorticus who responds, typically “You shut your filthy mouth.”

“Although, I guess, I’m getting more comfortable with it. Maybe I’m into this.” The Duke responds with an afterthought.

Zorticus creepily rejoinders “They all are, eventually…” Zorticus drives his fist
into the wall and it starts to burn a bit as he hurls fire bolt at the final goblin. “Fuck you” he whispers as it dies in fire, his smouldering corpse falling to the tunnel floor.

Roofer sees that there is a wall between himself and salvation. As he approaches the wall, out of the haystack and thatching on his back several rats pour out and they begin scouring the wall while glowing with bioluminescence. He looks for a weakness that he can strike and shatter the wall.

Sollen telepathically whispers gruffly in Roofer’s mind “Hey, I’m invisible. Right over here. Rock, Rock, Smash, Kill” he whispers in dwarvish in Roofer’s mind.
Roofer sticks his kama (a sickle like bladed weapon) into the earthen wall where it meets up with the stone wall that sprung into existence. Zorticus farts silently while wearing his boots of elven kind. Realizing that he needs better leverage he pulls out his spar and has all of his rats’ assistance he critically destroys the wall in such a way that it crushes the goblins behind it.

The group strolls over their corpses up to the basalt doors, swinging them open. Roofer moves up to the door, leans against it, sliding to his butt attempting to close his eyes when Duke Draymore admonishes “We don’t have time to wait! The Princess needs…”

Roofer climbs heavily to his feet and peers at the somber basalt door. It is basalt with a smooth lustre to them. Highly polished and totally smooth.

“Shall we… open and then…” Zorticus starts and pauses.

“Yes! We should open! The princess is most certainly…” Duke Draymore interrupts, and then is cut off himself by Zorticus covers the Duke of Pukes mouth whispering “I swear to God…. If you try to tell us what to do one more time…”

“You keep asking!” Draymore begs.

“I will kiss you on the cheek! Trust me, I kiss for keeps!” Zorticus whispers with an intense and almost psychopathic glow to his eyes.

“Okay” Draymore quietly says as the rest of the party, disturbed by this interaction quickly opens the door and enters the confines beyond.

A sort of atrium (a grower room, not a shower room) that is perhaps a bit larger than forty feet by forty feet. It is perfectly square with tall walls that hold up a ceiling 50 feet overhead. There is but one entrance to the room, which is where the group has entered from. Green flame illuminates the room from a well in the centre. 5 feet across. The entire room is slick black, highly polished, stone. In the centre is this perfectly circular well that has green flame guttering up out of it, illuminating the black stone, and the walls. As they step in the room, their footsteps echo (except for Zorticus who tap dances silently). Roofer slides his card into the doorjamb as he enters. Thuds and sounds echo up behind them as the passage behind them completely collapses.

The walls are intricately carved with a Ba relief, an intricate and uncolored inlay into the blackness of the walls. Countless figures, larger than life, on top of each other in multiple layers. It’s difficult to make out what they are, intricate figures in intricate positions, most in robes. It is very Mayan or Incan, Azetcan ruin effects. They all have skull faces, looking out of the mural at the party. Both eyes looking out. In place of eyes they have holes. Green flame pours out and up. Dozens of eyes pour forth flames from all four walls.

On the opposite side of the door the group entered from is a staircase made of the same smoothly polished basalt. It goes up about 50 feet or so to a higher chamber above. Flanking the stairs, to either side, are the most horrible twisted statues of vulture demon beasts with their hands out in some sort of warding. They are not alive, just hideous, horrible carvings on either side of the stairway.
In the centre of the room is the well, which attracts Sollen’s attention. Zorticus pushes the Duke and says “drink, drink of the flames.”

Just behind the well and between it and the stairs is a fountain carved in the same black basalt. It is maybe three or four feet tall. It has a wide bowl and carved of two humanoid figures dancing. Coming out of the top of it, out of one of the faces is a flowing green liquid that splashes down and next to the fountain, is a niche carved into the wall with a few empty green glasses.

Roofer feels a bit at ill ease as his own eyes glow with a green light. A sound behind them startles the party and they look behind them to see nothing. The tunnel has completely fallen away and they can see that during their fight they have drifted far and high into the sky. As they look below they see the map of the land from so far and high above.

Somewhere up ahead, up the stairs, echoing with an immaculate clarity down the hard stone walls of the citadel the group hears the gentle crying of a young girl.
Suddenly in one corner the group realizes there is a giant head in facing away from the group, vomiting up hands. It slowly turns around, and it is Lloyd!

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