h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

EXPLAIN THE FREKKIN QUEST PLEASE!?!?!?!?!? <?OOC>

Okay, fine, recap.

The heroes, whoever they happen to be, are joined by the wizard Armond as they head to the kingdom of Malibu. The king says you need to rescue his daughter and defeat the Dark Roi'Nah, a minor evil god. He's holding Princess Sera ransom; to get her back, he needs to surrender the souls of the people of the kingdom.

To this end, you must acquire the two Keys, and use them to get into his fortress. We've already gotten them.

But wait! Now it turns out that the Princess wasn't actually captured, as we just saw. So, now it's time to defeat the Dark Roi'Nah.

So why did the king SAY she was?

OK ... that cleared some things up ... but since there's no hostage, why do we have to take this guy seriuosly?

If before we knew his threat was fake, he couldn't take the souls of the people without the king's permission, why the heck do we have to take him seriously now, when it turns out that the King's fake, everything's fake, so why not go home? What's the threat /NOW/ that this guy poses to us? Other than simply being a convenient thing to chop at for you barbarian types ...
Nerd42

Isn't that reason enough?

Have you never played the Final Fantasies? Quite often there's no logical reason for doing everything...like in FF VIII, where-

SPOILERS!

...the final aim is to beat the evil sorceress in the future who is trying to compress time in order to rule over the world in all time periods, and doing so using a machine that has just been invented/is being invented in your time period. Do you a) destroy the machine in the present, and somehow stop the inventor from ever rebuilding it (through any means necessary)? or b) do as the sorceress wants by compressing time, simply so you can go forward and try to defeat her in her time? Oh yes, b) every time.

END SPOILERS!

Anyway, therefore however much sense this plot makes/doesn't make, it can't be much worse.

Oh, and I'm sorry I'm overstepped the boundaries of what I'm allowed to do, again (number of posts ago now, when we were still fighting...I just haven't got the hang of it. I think I now understand what I can do...it's just a bit weird, the Gamemaster also controlling three of the characters in the quest! Still, my apologies.

...so...we're still leaving the battle chamber, right?



Is this a staircase I see before me?

*Dirten wanders about aimlessly*

Well, now that he has no hostage anymore, the assumption is that he might just try to storm in and kill everyone. It may not be as effective, but it won't be as pleasant as if he gets killed himself. So, yeah. Sorry, I didn't really think this through as clearly as I could have.

And the king, at the time, had been the impostor, who hadn't /known/ she was really in hiding.


[Armond] No, that's a portrait of, er, three large pink women wearing one very small piece of gauze. Come on, let's ...

[He stops, then goes over to the painting, and pokes at the corner. It turns around, revealing a staircase leading down.]

[Armond] ... Er ... yes, it is.

[Dirten]Hey! Where'd the girls go!


*draws his word and heads down the stairs*

[Gandark] *follows*
Gandark

[At the bottom of the staircase is a smashed-down door with a sign hanging from it that says "King's Hiding Place." Armond smacks his forehead. Through the door is a study that looks like it's been ransacked. There's a desk that looks mostly undamaged, but in the middle of it is a note pinned down by a knife.]

*charges in and hits the desk with his sword*

[LQ enters, grabs the knife and attempts to do a flashy move involving flicking the paper up with the knife and grabbing it out of midair. He fails miserably and sends the note flying through the air away from him.]

[Armond] Give me that!

[Note] GIVE US THE SOULS, PRINCESS SERA, OR YOUR FATHER GETS IT. SINCERELY, THE DARK ROI'NAH.

[Armond] Wow. A note with a "speaking voice" spell on it.

[Sera] Uh-oh ...

*Glares at the DM* are you going to tell us if the desk disintegrates or not?

[Eric]So, if it was not the evil ro-nah or whatever his name is who kidnaped the princess, why did he pretend he had and goad us into geting the keys with the intent of kicking his arse?

[Gandark] Wait a second ... *wheels turn in Gandark's oft-malfunctioning brain* ... so he didn't need the King to give permission to take the souls, he needed the Princess's permission. So, he may have kidnapped the real King as a hostage against the Princess, not the other way around! Or something?
Nerd42

[The desk is thoroughly destroyed, yes.]

[Armond] Er, no, I think His Royal Highness was hiding here, and got found out.

[Sara] I ... think he needs one of us or the other to -- wait! Maybe what he /needs/ is for whoever's in charge of the kingdom to give him the souls under duress!

[Armond] Hmm, yes ... let me check my notes from when I was in the library ...

*forgets what he was talking about*
[Gandark] So, where to next?
this is pretty weird ... Gandark (the elf wizard here, not the Gandark I usually play) is perpetually part of an adventuring party, in a quest that, in his mind, goes on forever. Actually, it's a bunch of different quests with different parties but Gandark, with short term memory loss, thinks he's been on the same quest all this time
Nerd42

[Armond] Well ... we've got the keys now. Let's pay the Dark Roi'Nah a visit.