Welcome to Dungeons & Dragons – The Death Knight’s Squire! Last time our hero, Milhouse the Scholar, infiltrated a holy temple and stole some shit. He also hallucinated a gravestone with Darek Brewmont OR WAS IT REAL?? The mystery is unravelling fast! And by that I mean it’s out of control crazy nuts. Let’s keep it moving, shall we?

-Here’s the map again for reference. Milhouse is currently on Tilepage 3 in the left corner and had just finished exploring the stone structure and investigates the area of the green dot. He now heads north into Tilepage 4

Milhouse starts to grow weary of all this travel. “I am starting to grow weary!” he complains, thinking of home and an oven full of lovely cinnamon buns. He quickly shook the thoughts out of his head; he had quests to complete! The Blood Knight! The Death Knight! So many knights and so little time!

-Milhouse decides to move with stealth (DC 14). d20 +3 = 22. Very stealthy.

Tiptoeing daintily along the path, Milhouse finds this stretch of wood uneventful until he happens across an out-of-place mossy log. An inspection of the log reveals a swath of bright, green, glowing mushrooms! They look delicious, but no! He will not eat the mushrooms no matter how much he would like to. Not like last time when he diarrhea-ed his pants for days. No, no, no.

-Uh oh! Milhouse needs to make a survival roll (DC 12)! d20 + 0 = 13. Whew.

1-Up, bro! Yahoo!

The mushrooms look quite familiar. Yes, but of course! These are Grakspores, certainly! Well known to warriors, they are known to grant immunity to fear during the heat of battle. Milhouse wastes no time scooping up as much of the fungi as possible.

-Grakspores will grant immunity to the frightened condition or any fear effect, at full effectiveness for one hour. They can effectively be used for one encounter and can be consumed as a free action, after which they take effect immediately. Sounds pretty fucking sweet to me. I hate being afraid of things for an hour! Milhouse continues north and approaches another green dot on the map.

Positively skipping at your good fortune, Milhouse continues along the path with newfound rejuvenation. “Aside from those hideous wolf spiders, this adventure has been a breeze! No ill fortunes, no major setbacks. I almost feel like I can let my guard down! Almost…”

Suddenly, as if summoned by his own spoken words, the ground starts to give way under Milhouse’s feet. He tries to roll away, but he’s not quick enough. A trap is sprung, the forest floor opens and drops Milhouse down into a 10ft-deep pit! Alas! Good thing his own spindly legs broke his fall. “Ow!” he cries, rubbing his tender fibulas. “The one time I don’t check for traps and it bites me in the rumpus!”

-Take 1d6 of fall damage = 1. HP is down to 11.

Milhouse looks up. It doesn’t look too far up to get back out, but being an elf Milhouse barely scrapes 5ft of height. He rummages through his pack for rope, but he is out of luck. He doesn’t know the Jump spell. He certainly can’t fly! Huff! His only course of action is to try climbing out. He uses his red tree staff to carve little recesses into the dirt sides of the pit, being careful to not crumble off too much dirt. It’s a very time-consuming task to create these footholds. This was not in Milhouse’s agenda for the day.

-Roll a d4 to see if he makes it out without incident. 1, 2, 3 = yes. 4 = no. I roll a 4 like a complete fucking doofus.

Digging the walls takes so, so soooo long that someone — or something — finally approaches to check the trap. With nowhere to go or hide, Milhouse readies his Magic Missile cantrip by rubbing his hands vigorously together like a hungry wizard! A hooded figure approaches! Milhouse makes his move!

Scientology does 1d50 + 600 damage! Run!

-Here we go. The assailant has AC 12. Milhouse casts Magic Missile: 3(1d4 +1) + Dexterity + Proficiency = 5 + 4 + 4 + 3 + 4 = 20. Did I do this right? Probably not! The assailant does not lose any HP. Not yet at least. The battles begins!

Milhouse catches the assailant’s attention; some sort of female cultist, and she has the initiative by being above the pit! Oh no! “YOU CAN’T TAKE ME ALIVE, FEMALE CULTIST!” Milhouse yells like an excruciating nerd. He sets aside the quarterstaff and the red tree staff. It will have be spells only at this range.

Let’s get crunchy! Defeating the cultist seems easy as she only has 9 HP. Since she is out of the pit, she will be using her crossbow the entire time. She goes first: +3 to hit. d20 + 3 = 22, and my Armor Class is *checks notes* very much below 22. 1d4 piercing damage + Dexterity + Proficiency = 4 + 1 + 2 = 7. My HP is now 4. Gulp!

Ray of Frost, bitch! Thank the gods for cantrips! 1d8 + Dexterity + Proficiency = 3 + 3 + 4 = 10. Jesus Christ. The cultist is dead. Milhouse gets 25 XP

The cultist lies limp after a final blast of cold, raw energy. Milhouse collapses in a tired heap from all that spellcastin’. Once the coast seems clear and the short rest was restorative enough, Milhouse finishes digging footholds out of the pit and finally hoists himself out of it. Immediately, like the scavenger that he is, Milhouse rifles through the cultists pockets and finds the following: a hand crossbow with 18 bolts, a scimitar, a map of Orlbar with some houses circled in red with “here” written near them, and an dull steel amulet with a picture of a red gauntlet. “Puzzling…” Milhouse frowns. And he’s pretty good at frowning.

Milhouse pockets the map and the amulet. Not proficient in the hand crossbow or the scimitar, he leaves those on the forest floor. Dusting himself off, his earlier mood dampened quite a bit by the skirmish, he continues north.