The game is based on Castlevania, specifically taking place parallel to the events of Symphony of the Night. We’re a group comprised of three first responders to Dracula’s advances, and two demon ambassadors from hell sent to put Dracula on notice for getting too big for his britches.
The Paladin, a righteous defender who also likes to dance
The Wizard, canon character Maria Reinart, who is surprisingly foul mouthed for a 17 year old girl in the 18th century.
The Warlord, my character, whose specialty is having ridiculous athletics skills despite being like 50-something.
The Rogue, a peasant from hell who likes to stab things. Her player wasn’t here for this game.
The Warlock, a hellish noble who likes to curse things. The Warlord doesn’t like him much for being a demon and all. His player wasn’t here for this game.
So we took a few wrong turns and have been lost in the catacombs beneath Dracula’s castle for a while, and we decided to take some boats down an underground river without considering that we might need a way back UP river. We also ran into Abaddon, the Angel of Destruction, but he got eaten trying to help us escape aberrant horrors.
Eventually, we followed the underground river to a rather large underground lake with a pillar in the middle. While Maria is probing it with her magic senses… it wakes up. Turns out it was a sixty-foot tall Earth elemental. Fortunately, he’s pretty nice. He tends to the fish that swim in his lake. After debating a few options, we ask the Elemental for directions out of the underground lake. He points us on, but just then… Death shows up. Death is usually one of the higher level bosses in the Castlevania games, but our party is almost suicidally reckless, so we’re not exactly quaking in our boots to fight him. (After all, if the Belmonts can take him alone, surely we can do it as a group of five! )
But for some reason, Death has only been using underlings against us to the point that the party has been taunting Death and calling him a wimp and a coward. Death reminds the Elemental that he was supposed to protect the lake from intruders.
Oh, they’re intruders? I thought they were humans.
Kill them or I’ll kick you out of your room and kill your fish.We taunt Death once more as he flies away, but the party gets its wires crossed. Paladin, who is rowing the boat with Rogue, is trying to run away.
The Wizard, who is in the boat I’m rowing along with the Warlock, casts an ice zone spell that minimally damages the Elemental, but starts freezing the lake around the Elemental to give us a place to stand if we have to fight.
On my first turn I leap out of the boat (which only I have the Athletics to effectively maneuver) and grab on to the Elememental’s arm. My plan is to climb up to his head and apply blunt force trauma. I’m not sure what I thought this would accomplish on an elemental, but after round two, I failed to hold on to the giant’s arm. So failing that, I drove my spear into the elemetnal’s belly and did a heavy amount of damage.
Meanwhile the Wizard hit it with magic missile repeatedly, and after the second time the Elemetnal observed that we were actually starting to hurt it.
Then I realize… we can both win this. I tell him to pull his punches but make it look good, make it look like he’s killed us. In round three, I ask the elemental to smash me through the ice, which he does easily. The rest of the party retreats in our boats while I swim to the shore—and for good measure the elemental makes a vast wave that smashes our boats into the rest of the party—Maria using Ghost Sound to provide some Wilhelm Screams of our demise. The Elemental thunders about how he has defeated us, and we sneak away in the ruckus, hearing, down the hall, some Fishmen crowing about how the Elemental destroyed the intruders.
Tl;dr: we fooled Death into thinking we were dead.
