“Your party makes your way down the path until you arrive at the dairy-production factory known as The Creamery. The building itself is shaped like a giant churn that’s being worked by an equally large Bovitaur that’s a spitting image of Brutacious.”
“You make your way through the double doors and are met with a receptionist's desk. A busy-looking Cowbrid is currently taking a call. A nameplate on her desk reads ‘Mootitia’.”
“After a few final pleasantries with the other party, she hangs up the phone and greets you all. ‘Welcome to The Creamery. As you could tell by our sign outside, today is a day for nefarious purposes and not for tours. May I jot down the nature of your visit as an act of aggression?’”
“Yes, that’s acceptable,” Kada spoke for the group. “Tell us, are you the ones that have been stealing the world’s milk?!”
“Roll for Interrogation,” the Farm Master insisted.
“Dang, a 4, should have had Phon do it,” Kada knew the outcome wouldn’t be great.
“‘I’m sorry, I only answer questions by appointment,’ Mooticia refuses to answer. ‘If you like, I can pencil you in for 47 weeks from now. But, if you plan to proceed with your act of aggression, you may take the door to your right. However, if you would like to take the mystic moo-moo shortcut to Brutacious’ office, you may use the portal to my left.’”
On one of the walls of the Utility Room, which had already turned into a cow-themed front office, a white portal started to swirl. “‘That is, if you can figure out the secret to passing through it,’ the receptionist gives a slight chuckle.”
“I got this one,” Phon looked determined. “Listen here, cow, you better tell me whether that portal is a trap or not!” She preemptively rolled for intimidation.
“An 11, pretty high with your modifiers,” Rezin did some thinking. “But she’s a receptionist who deals with aggression all day, plus you just used the racial slur ‘cow’ against her, so she’s less inclined to help. We’ll say she’ll give you a slight hint.”
“‘The portal isn’t a trap and will take you directly to the office,’ Mootitia reiterates. ‘But it may take more than the four of you to figure it out.’”
“Well we won’t take that insult lightly! I rush straight into the portal!” Their leader was quite headstrong.
Rezin seemed amused that she’d fallen for the bait. “A new portal opens in the ceiling above you and Kada falls through it, landing back on the ground, and loses half her health. Does anyone else give it a try?”
“Sure, I will, I guess…” Xard submitted.
“You step through the portal, only to find yourself back on the floor, on top of Kada’s still prone body. What should have taken half your health only takes a quarter since Kada cushioned your fall. She takes an additional quarter of her health.”
“I drink a health potion before anything else!” Kada quickly marked it off of her inventory.
“Does anyone else want to try?” Rezin looked over towards the siblings.
“You’d have to be dumb if you think we’re going to go through the portal after that,” Phon sneered.
“Yeah, I’m out of health potions and I like living,” Drim reinforced her argument.
“No way!” Kada refused their refusal. “I’m the leader, and as the leader I say that everyone has to give it a try! Power of friendship, team solidarity and all that! Plus, I’ll catch you, so you don’t take damage!”
“Still no,” Phon didn’t budge.
“Then I grab you and throw you both through the portal!”
“What the hell happened to protecting me through the rest of the campaign!” Drim rebutted.
“Well, that was more just fancy lip service in the moment,” Kada shamelessly admitted. “And this is more fun. Plus, you’ll be fine! I grab and throw them,”
“Roll for an attack,” Rezin prompted her, “And you two roll for defense if you don’t want to be thrown.” Drim, of course, resisted, but Phon didn’t bother since she already knew the outcome. “Kada, with her absurd strength, grabs you both and hurls you violently through the portal. You both appear at the top of the ceiling and fall.”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Now you have to roll if you want to catch them, Kada.”
“Hmph, maybe I should let them fall if they’re not going to be team players,” she suddenly pouted.
“Catch us or I’m going to intimidate you for real,” the tone of Phon’s voice changed to show that she wasn’t kidding whatsoever.
“You catch them, but there’s still some damage from the momentum. Everyone takes one quarter damage. Do you want to continue trying to solve the portal?”
“Nah, we really will all wipe if this keeps up,” Kada had finally had enough. “Will you tell us what the answer was?”
“I’ll tell you if you go through the other door,” the Farm Master informed them. “When you do, the portal will close and be unavailable to you for the rest of the campaign.”
“I go through the right door,” Xard went ahead so they couldn’t have time to reconsider.
“After Xard passes through the right door, the portal shuts off for good. If you recall Mootitia’s hint about ‘more than the four of you’. Someone needed to go through the portal one more time for it to start teleporting you all to the end. It’s always the amount of party members plus one. So if you hadn’t stopped there, you would have made it.”
“““I hate this game.””” Three of the four players agreed.
“Ah, cosdammit!” Kada was worse than the others. “Such a simple ass puzzle. I should have gotten it. I am no longer fit to be the leader. Someone else can do it.”
Xard put his hand on Kada’s shoulder. “You were never fit to be leader in the first place.”
“I know…”
Rezin pressed on. “You enter a wide room, the center of The Creamery. There are many doors and many paths you can take. Around the room are a few cheese bushes and two ornamental waterfalls of milk. What do you do?”
“Well, let’s use my passive to start,” Xard took the lead. “If I touch the milk, we can heal up, right?” Rezin nodded in confirmation. “Okay, I stick my arm into the waterfall and let the milk run down the arm and out of my hand like a faucet. Come take a drink everyone so we can top off.”
“I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something about the idea of Xard asking us to drink his milk is off putting,” Phon struggled with the scenario in her mind. “But whatever, I’ll take free health.”
“The party laps up the milk and everyone is healed back to full,” Rezin progressed the scene once everyone agreed. “But then you suddenly hear a cry from an opening door. ‘Hey, these guys are touching our milk! Get them!’ A swarm of guards known as the Bulltallion rush into the room and surround you. What do you want to do? We’re not officially in combat yet, so we won’t roll for sequence.”
“Oh, I know, it’s finally time for the mystery box!” the former-leader proposed. “Surely it will do something to stop this big army.”
“Actually, wait,” Xard intervened. “I think I have something that can take care of it. But… uhhh… do I really have to say the full incantation out loud?”
“If it’s the spell I’m thinking of, then yes,” Rezin confirmed.
Xard let out a deep, guttural sigh before sitting up straight in his chair and recited, “Spirit of all that is farm-fresh and dairy, surrender to my subligation. Milky Madness! I take control!”
“Alright, you can now directly control any dairy products in the room. So what are you doing?”
“Well…” he thought for a moment. “I command the waterfalls to surge outward and sweep up the army, maybe incapacitate them if possible.”
“Okay, that’s pretty complicated,” Rezin crinkled his mouth. “Let’s say you need a 20 to hit them with it and a 25 to incapacitate them.”
Xard picked up his dice to roll but then was stopped by Phon. “Wait, I have a skill called Sweet Talking Fate—add +5 to any dice roll outside of combat.”
“I’ll also add Send It To The Void—lets you send one dice roll to the void and force a reroll.” Drim helped out as well.
“Well that’s good, because the first roll was a 6,” Xard laughed in relief. “And now a 21, nice.”
“Yup, that’s a 26 with Phon’s +5,” Rezin noted. “The milk from the two waterfalls leaps away from the wall and the torrenting spouts swirl around the room. Liquid dairy surrounds the army in a great vortex and begins to shrink, pushing the Bulltallion together into one clump. Then the milk begins to curdle, solidifying and turning sticky, trapping the army in one big blob of cottage cheese!”
“Okay, I can see why people say this class is overpowered,” Xard acquiesced.
“Yeah, that probably would have been a long drawn-out fight otherwise,” Drim shrugged. “But I’m starting to get a bit tired, so I don’t mind.”
“Yes, I’m actually getting a signal from Chorus that we should start wrapping things up,” the Farm Master glanced at their offscreen director. “Because I just looked at the time and damn, yeah, it’s getting late. We were supposed to go through a long puzzle sequence where you all try to pick the correct door in the room that leads to a variety of scenarios and mazes, but I’ll just tell you now the answer is the door you came in from.”
“As if fate itself guides you, your party gets a sudden burst of inspiration, as if led by the Great Bovine herself,” he wasn’t going to give them the chance to do anything else. “You open the door you came in from and see the same milky-white portal that was in the lobby before. It will no longer harm you, so the party steps through.”
The scenery in the Utility Room changes once more. It displayed an oddly shaped room, almost like the inside of a skull—only further confirmed by the two ‘eyehole’ windows on one side. “You’re all teleported to the very top of The Creamery—Brutacious’ office that is located in the head of the Bovitaur.”