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Ominous, Blusterfuss, and Pothole stared at Blacksash as he rose to his feet and the glow around him faded. "Blacksash?", said Ominous. "Are you... okay?"

"I'm definitely okay." said Blacksash, and then smiled. "I'm more than okay. I've got cleric powers now."

"Well," said Ominous, smiling, "that should be useful. Let's get back to town. I've got a plan brewing."

"No." said Blacksash, stopping everyone else in their tracks. "Metagaming is blasphemy against the Dungeon Master. We need to at least scout ahead so we've seen things before we can take any action regarding the ogres and the keep."

"Screw that!" shouted Blusterfuss, "I'm not going back there to get killed!" She looked around at the others. "Again!"

Ominous was staring at Blacksash, sizing up his friend's newfound zeal. "We can do this. We just need to scout out the area without being seen. What do you say, Blusterfuss?"

"I say screw you! Why you want me to go?"

"Because you're the rogue."

"Oh.", said Blusterfuss, as if this hadn't previously occurred to her. "Right." She stopped and thought for a moment before answering. "Sure. I can scout the area." She looked at the sky. "If I'm not back by dark, come looking for me." With that, she bounced off into the distance.

Blacksash spent the afternoon praying and repenting, while Pothole lifted weights. Ominous wasn't certain why Pothole had carried the two dumbbells all the way out here, but in his spare time, he was able to calculate a formula describing how much each weighed: (Pothole's max encumbrance - (armor weight + greatsword weight)) / 2.

Later that evening, Ominous was staring at a beetle in abject boredom when something very odd happened. The grass suddenly began to grow. It quickly grew to about three and a half feet, wrapping around his legs and thighs. Blacksash, who had been kneeling, and Pothole, whose height was barely four feet standing up, were both totally ensnared. Shaking the sleep from his eyes and looking around, Ominous quickly saw the culprits. A group of druids was approaching through the tangled overgrowth they'd just produced.

"Wait!", called out Ominous. "We aren't out here to kill wolves!"

A sling stone whistled past his ear, quickly followed by others. Swearing under his breath, Ominous began launching magic missiles. "You'd better muscle your way out of that grass, guys!" He shouted. "I doubt the DM is going to give us two do-overs in a row!"

A moment later, a well-placed stone hit him in the temple and he saw black.

Ominous awoke in the grass, surprised to be alive. A cloth bandage was tied around his head, and a note was pinned to it.

Dear sir,
Frightfully sorry to have inconvenienced you, as our original mission was indeed to locate and dispose of poachers who might be endangering this area's few remaining natural predators. However, by the time you notified us that you were not indeed of that ilk, we'd already used the entanglement spell, and were loath to allow it to go to waste. After all, we too need experience, and having defeated you, we're nearly halfway to second level. You'll find all your companions well, although you may need to travel a few hundred yards southeast to locate your halfling friend.
-Tarbo GreenThinger

Groaning, Ominous rose to his feet. He had one hell of a headache. Pothole, seated in the grass about five feet away, waved. Nearby, Blacksash was just getting up too.

"They let us live.", marvelled Ominous.

"Yeah.", grunted Blacksash, rising carefully to his feet, his arm clutching bruised ribs. "I saw some of what happened. After you caught a sling stone and went down, they rushed over and started beating on Pothole with Shill-ih-lahs."

"It's pronounced Shi-lay-lee.", said Ominous.

"Right. Whatever. Anyway, they were beating on him for a while, but he wasn't really getting that hurt, and it didn't seem like he could get up anyway, so one of them stood with one foot on his chest while the others came over and started kicking me and hitting me with shilleh... with those magic clubs. It sucked. I couldn't even get my arms up to block with cause of the grass wrapped all around me. But as I was passing out, figuring we were all done for this time, I heard a voice."

"One of the druids? What did he say?"

"It wasn't any of the druids. It was The Dungeon Master. He said This is what you get for metagaming."

"But we haven't at all!", protested Ominous. "Blusterfuss went to... ohh." He looked over to the southeast. "Follow me."

Not far to the southeast was a shaded glen with a small pond. Over the edges of the pond, Brazen Blusterfuss hung upside down from a tree branch, gagged, with her arms tied behind her. And she was topless.

Ominous walked over to her, keeping eye contact. When he reached her, their heads were at just about the same height, and he ungagged her.

"Those sick bastards! Cut me down, Ominous! When I get..."

"You never planned on scouting out that keep, did you?" Interrupted Ominous.

"Course I did! I just got jumped by these four freakin' druids before..."

He cut her off again. "Before you got more than 2 minutes away? I don't think so. I think you'd planned on waiting here until nightfall, then coming back and telling us you'd seen two ogres in front of the keep. In fact, I'll bet you were hanging out here half-naked admiring yourself in the water, weren't you?"

Blusterfuss was blushing now, and started tugging at the ropes holding her wrists. "Just cut me down and let me get some freakin' clothes on, will ya? This is freakin' embarrassing!"

Ominous picked up one of Blusterfuss's knives from the ground nearby and cut the ropes holding her wrists, then handed her the knife. "Really, Blusterfuss, this isn't the right reason to play a female character."

"Yeah, yeah. Heard it before." She reached up towards her feet, but her abs, even as toned as they were, didn't have the power to lift her massive upper body. After a minute or so of trying, she shot Ominous an embarrassed yet plaintive look. Ominous looked over at Blacksash, and the two of them rolled their eyes.

"Pothole?", Ominous asked, "Can we borrow your sword?"

The sword was heavy and awkward, but eventually Blacksash and Ominous were able to cut the ropes around Blusterfuss's ankles. She landed uncerimoniously in the mud at the edge of the pond, and sat there, rubbing at her ankles.

"Damn, my feet are asleep. Anyone see my top?" Ominous, Blacksash, and Pothole searched the area for the paisley curtain Blusterfuss had been using as a blouse, but it was nowhere in sight.

"Well, dammit!" she yelled, arms folded across her chest. "Now what do I wear?" Ominous pulled back his hood, and began removing his robe. "Ominous!" said Blusterfuss, surprised, "You're an elf!"

He smiled. "Very observant of you." Beneath the robes, he was a scrawny, stooped elf who exhibited none of the beauty generally attributed to his race. He was bare-chested, and wore only knee-length breeches. He looked like someone had beaten him with the proverbial ugly stick.

Blusterfuss winced as she looked at him. "Bleuugh! Keep the robes! I look better than you naked!" Ominous stopped and raised an eyebrow at her, questioning. "Yeah. I'm serious.", she said. "Blacksash, maybe I could borrow your armor?"

"I don't know how we get into these situations.", said Blacksash, removing his chainmail and throwing it to Blusterfuss. he at least wore a light shirt beneath, and had a better physique than Ominous Buttcrack. He also had a fairly broad chest, and Blusterfuss was a halfling, so the chain shirt looked like it could fit. However, when she tried to pull the armor over her head, she found that steel chain doesn't stretch.

"Ooooo! Waaaaa! Coold!", she yelped, smooshing herself flat to fit under the armor. Once she'd managed to pull it over her chest, the rest fell nearly to her ankles. Blacksash's chain shirt was a full-length dress on her.

"Right.", she said, "This isn't gonna be comfortable." She tried to adjust things a bit, but it didn't help. "We'd better get moving if we want to get back to Burgtonburyville before midnight."

As everyone was far too beat up now to consider scouting the keep, they were forced to agree.