“Ignoring the dozens of heads snapping at him – one of which land true, opening a gruesome wound on his body during his approach – Adam leaps at the hydra, and his sword comes crashing down on the body of the beast...”

“How much damage was that? Ah, you told me. 143. That’ll finish it off. You still take …” Dan rolls some dice behind his screen “… 27 damage from the AoO, and you’ll need to give me a Fort save, DC 24, because this is an advanced half-dragon Miasma hydra. And it explodes for,” Dan rolls some more dice, “83 Acid damage, Reflex 24 half. In a 60 foot radius spread, so everyone needs to roll”

The thin blond geek dressed up with a plastic horned “viking helmet” and a cheap “fur cloak” from a costume shop rolls a handful of 20-sided dice, and says “That’s a sixteen and a twelve….”

“Finally, some results on that…” interjects Dan, the overweight, slightly balding man behind the DM screen today…

...before Adam finishes, smirking, with “… and my +12 Fort save modifier means I pass the fort, but my +6 Reflex fails… Hey Carl, that Protection from Energy is still active, right?”

I reply “Oh yes, it’s ten minutes/level, and I can renew it whenever. So it’d be topped up for this fight, and can soak up to 84 points of acid damage before it collapses. So… one point left on it. No real HP lost to the acid.” I look at Bob, and add “That goes for you, too. No damage, save or not.”

Dan sighs.

“Need some help with those gashes?” asked Bob, a raven-hared, pale man with glasses.

Adam responds “Nah, save your power points, my fast healing will take care of this in like 14 rounds, and Caged Sun will start rebuilding my temp HP from there for the next trap we spring.”

Dan rolls his eyes, and warns “Stay in character.”

Adam sighs, and changes that to “Save your magic, good Bob, I will heal up just fine in about a minute and a half, and we have no immediate threats now that the multi-headed dragon thing is dead.”

Bob – fully in character – corrects Adam “It’s not magic, Adam. It’s the powers of the mind. Much more flexible than a Wizard’s scribbles in a book or a Cleric’s begging for power from some outsider. And I can recover it quickly enough when – as you said – there’s no current threat.” Out of character, Bob then adds “Which I start doing now, you know the drill.”

I smile at Bob’s antics, shake my short carrot-top hair, and tell Dan, our Dungeon Master “Which leaves me looking for the loot.” I roll a die, and say “34. Huh, rolled low.”

Dan shrugs “It’s not like the Int-2 beast with no hands was deliberately hiding anything, Carl. That’ll find everything.” He checks some notes “On the corpses of the folks who previously tried to kill this thing, you find: A heavy steel shield, an armored coat, a breastplate, seven gemstones, fourteen small stoppered bottles of various colors, two curled up pages of parchment, three short sticks, one mere club, one sling, and a morningstar, and a mixed pile of coins. All the weapons and armors are masterwork, of course.”

I nod, and say “I go through, tagging everything with Identify.”

Dan hands me a sheet of paper, saying “Yeah, I thought you would, so I prepared this in advance.” He then checks his watch “And I’m afraid I’m going to have to call it a night – I have work tomorrow.”

Adam pauses for a moment “Don’t you start at noon?”

I chuckle, “Check the time.”

Adam pulls out his phone for a moment, then says “… ah. I guess your best friend at work later today will be your coffee cup. Well, thanks for the game, as always. Same time next week?”

I join in on the chorus of various flavors of “yes” as we break up, exiting Dan’s apartment. Outside the door, I ask “So… Danny’s?”

Bob asks “Is that even a question? I don’t want to cook. And I’m interested in hearing exactly how you managed to pull off at-will swift action casting for the entire sorcerer, wizard, cleric, and Druid list. With no components, no less. I know this is supposed to be an overpowered game, but still….”

As we walk over to the elevator to head up to the 22nd floor restaurants, I chuckle “Same way I finagled Mythic-1 for everyone: This is a ‘kitchen sink’ all-sources game with a few campaign boosts. I scoured sources online, found some 3rd party material that was balanced enough – within it’s intended context – but had an unusual degree of synergy with other material available. So yes, all Sorcerer, Wizard, Cleric, and Druid spells of up to 3rd level as at-will swift actions, no components, Natural Invisibility, regeneration with a kicker, Charisma to everything my build cares about, and so on. Not like you’re a slouch – your manifesting is essentially at will due to that recharge, and you’ve got all lists available …”

The elevator arrives, and – given that it’s four AM, it’s quite empty, so we all step inside.

Bob interjects “Yes, but I have to pay for them, so I need to pick and choose.”

I continue “Still, you can easily cherry-pick off obscure lists, like that 1st level Haste you got from… where was it again?”

Bob inserts “Trapsmith.”

I keep going “Right, the Trapsmith. Meanwhile, I focus on handing out buffs, so I don’t hog spotlight time. You’re enjoying that +4 Sacred to Int, right?”

Adam adds “Strength for me. And yeah, that Protection From Energy(Acid) was a lifesaver – literally – when the hydra exploded with acid on death.”

Bob considers, “OK, no, you’re not hogging spotlight time, and we do seem balanced to each other.”  He considers, and adds “We’re steamrolling CR 16 creatures at 5th. Think we should ease up on Dan?”

I hear an odd twanging, and see Adam and Bob look at the ceiling for a moment – it seems they heard it too.

Adam shrugs “He literally asked for it. Wanted to know how much those particular house rules could be abused. Feat every level, all Pathfinder base, with all 3.5, 3.0, and 3rd party sources permitted, one free archetype, plus the background feat and the ‘light body technique’ thing… where was that from?”

I answer “Spheres of Might. I picked up a few key items from the Spheres of Power bestiary.”

Bob considers “Eh, we’ll back down when he asks.”

At that point, the elevator arrives on our floor, and the door opens. Bob and Adam step out first, and as I go, the elevator starts to fall out from underneath me… fortunately, I am already moving, and just barely get clear as the steel box of death falls 24 floors straight down, smashing itself to bits in the sub-basement.

We all pause.

After a minute, Bob takes a deep breath and breaks the silence with “Stairs going back, then?”

Adam and I reply simultaneously with a very emphatic “Yes!”

Fortunately, that breaks our stupor at just how close we came, and we all start laughing. Adam adds “I think I need something slightly stronger than soda today.”

Danny’s is just a short walk from the elevator, which we make in silence, just sort of absorbing what happened.  It’s a little hole-in-the-wall 24-hour restaurant - and yes, they serve drinks.  The waitress, Samantha, doesn’t have her name badge on tonight, but we’re regulars and we know each other by sight.  

When she sees us, she frowns briefly before she puts her smile back on, and asks, “No Dan tonight?”

I shake my head, “Nah, he’s got work tomorrow.  Well, later today, really.  Noon.”

Samantha nods as she directs us to a table, “So he’ll be stopping in for coffee at the end of my shift, then.  All right.  What’ll all’y’all have?”

We pick up an appetizer of deep fried cheese sticks and each order our favorite comfort food - Bob gets a Shepherd pie, Adam an omelet, while I go for a ‘bacon overload’ - a specialty of the house.  For drinks, rather than our usual soda, we order a pitcher of beer to share.

We shoot the breeze a bit while we eat, discussing nothing of particular relevance, and get the beer refilled.  The second time it’s out, Bob asks Samantha: “Got anything fancy for drinks?  I want to celebrate survival.”

Samantha frowns slightly at that, then shrugs and puts her smile back on “Yeah, Danny is experimenting with some recipe he found in his grandma’s journal.  Djinn in Tonic.  Yes, with a D, his grandma wasn’t big on standardized spelling.  He asked me to find some regulars willing to taste-test before we put it on the menu… you up for it?  No charge for this round, provided you give us your honest feedback.”

We paused for a moment to think.  We’d had some of Danny’s grandmother’s drinks before.  Most of the time, they were quite vile… but despite being mixed drinks, they’d get folks drunk faster than Everclear.  Of course, after the close call at the elevator, that’s what we wanted.  Good thing Dan’s place was close enough that we all just walked, because none of us would be legal to drive after one of these.

“Yes please!” we all say as one.

Samantha replies with “You’re a braver crew than usual,” leaves, and comes back shortly thereafter with three flutes full of some drink that seemed to constantly shift between blue, green, and red, passing them out to us.  We sip them - this particular drink tastes like blueberries to me - and feel the effects almost immediately, despite our full stomachs. Relaxing a bit, we discuss the elevator incident.

Bob starts in with “I cannot believe how close we came to buying it today,” as he takes a second, cautious sip, and very quietly adds “Strawberries this time?  It was apple….”

To which Adam replies: “Heh, yeah.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have all our character’s abilities and hit points and stuff in real life?  A twenty two story drop would barely phase my character.”

I chime in with “Twenty-four.  You’re forgetting the basement and sub-basement.  Still, falling damage caps off at 20d6, so same thing.  I think all of us would survive it in different ways… I have Waxen Regeneration from Freelancer so it doesn’t matter if I run out of HP, as long as it’s not fire; Adam has a boatload of hit points from being so Con-focused and the house rules of max HP, double at first; and Bob, you’d just soak it with Elan Resilience, right?” I take another sip, and this time, it tastes like bananas.  I look at my glass in confusion.  How does that even…?

“Improved Elan Resilience,” corrects Bob, “I took the feat from Complete Psionic for efficiency’s sake.  I figured Dan wouldn’t be pulling any punches, so while yes, I can recharge my power points from zero, I can still run out in any one fight, and that lets me soak an extra hundred or so damage if the fight doesn’t run too long.  Yeah, I’d be really nice if I had all my character’s abilities in real life.  Hey, share the wealth: I wish all three of us did.” He shrugs and downs the rest of his drink in one gulp, then stares at his glass as the lights flicker.

“Yes, I wish we all had our character’s abilities,” Adam and I agree, one after another, and down our glasses, the lights flickering for no good reason when we do.  Mine tastes like a full dinner this time.  A three course meal - caesar salad, filet minion with a fully loaded baked potato, and a chocolate fudge sundae for dessert.  All at once, yet each flavor is perfectly distinct.  I do not know how it works.  Is this thing hallucinogenic or something?

Seeing we’re done, Samantha comes back with our checks and inquires, “How was it?”

As we settle up, we all give our review.  Mine includes “You may want to make sure the Drug Enforcement Agency doesn’t shut you down.  This drink is that wild.”

Samantha jots down the reviews, not trusting our handwriting after we’d collectively gone through two pitchers of beer plus the experimental drinks.  When she finishes, she says “Y’all come back now, you hear? I’d offer to call you a cab, but I know all’y’all are within easy walking distance.”

As we leave, I let her know “Oh, and you might want to take the stairs going home… one of the elevators is very out of service, and I wouldn’t trust the others right now.”

She pauses before replying “Well… I hope you’re up to the number of stairs to get home, then….”

A cold chill sweeps over me as she says that.  Still, while I do dread descending the many flights of stairs to get out of the building while being severely tipsy, I really don’t trust the death-trap elevators at the moment.  But at least they’re down.  Adam and Bob have it both easier and harder: They live in this building, just five floors away, but that’s up.  Not sure which I’d rather, but we live where we live.  Fortunately the stairs are clearly labeled due to fire regulations: Few folks use them in a building this size, and we’re not exactly sober.  When we find them, we say our half-drunk goodbyes, and all proceed back to our homes.

The stairwell is concrete - walls, floor, ceiling, and the stairs themselves - in case of fire.  The lighting is glass and steel, and the handrails (which I make extensive use of) are really just steel pipes mounted in the concrete - there’s no exposed plastic at all.  Absolutely nothing in here will burn, by design.  It does make the stairwell quite boring, and causes my footsteps to echo eerily.  I do quite well descending, despite being sleepy and half drunk… until I get to the 14th floor, where I hear a whistling.  Not seeing anything of note in the way, I shrug and continue on.  But when I step onto the 13th floor, I hear a small splash when my foot lands, and promptly slides out from under me, causing me to fall backwards.  I hear someone shout in surprise - not my voice, I think it’s a janitor - as I fall and hit my head.

Not hard enough to make it lights out, though.  I was just starting the down the stairs to the 13th floor, so my butt hit the landing for the 14th, soaking most of the impact, and I fell backwards from there.  Lucky me, I get to live.  Again.  Still hurts, though.

The man I heard earlier rushes over to help - yes, he’s the janitor, in uniform, carrying a mop, and everything; nametag says Eric, offers me a hand and says “You OK?”

I accept the help up, grunting a bit, and tell him “I’ll live.  Aren’t you supposed to put out warning signs?”

He just points, and I look and see the bright yellow “CAUTION” folded sign that he’d put on the landing. Guess I’d just missed it.  I shake my head to try and clear the cobwebs, and say, “My fault, then.  Thanks for the hand up.” I manage to get the rest of the way downstairs without incident, although I am aching when I finally reach the ground floor.

Not thinking overly much about the time (being quite tipsy, aching, and tired), it doesn't occur to me to go further into the building, through the lobby, and exit via the well-lit front door onto the lighted street. Instead, I take the nearest exit… which leads straight into a dark alley. 

Which is where I interrupt a fat man in a suit, with his pants down, pounding into an older woman with her very short skirt hiked up and her blouse open. She's leaning against the wall going "Oh, you're so big," in a very unconvincing manner while he gropes her swaying (and obviously enhanced) breasts and grunts loudly, obviously just finishing as I open the door.

He of course panics, quickly pulls out, and hastily pulls his pants up while running away. He actually manages it; surprisingly coordinated, for a guy who just got his rocks off. The woman screams at me, "He didn't pay yet!" as she draws a small knife from her purse and charges at me.

Half-drunk, exhausted, sore, and dealing with an adrenaline crash from earlier, I am in no shape to dodge; her knife lands in my gut with a thunk, then she yanks out the blade and high-tails it, a liquid I don't want to think about running down her thighs while her artificially inflated "girls" flop around freely.

"A thunk?" my addled brain wonders as I lean against the concrete wall.

It takes me a bit to realize I am not, in fact, bleeding out in a dirty alley from a gut wound. Feeling around with my hands in the dim light, I find the reason: I have a paperback book from the local library in the front pocket of my hoodie: Dragon's Dance took the blow. Quite a bit of force behind it; the blade reached page 306. I'm thankful I like longer books. I expect to have a nasty bruise later, but all told, that could have gone much worse. 

Taking a deep breath, I tell myself, "Almost home. One street to cross, one well maintained elevator ride to my floor, and I can crash in my bed."

As I head out of the alley and towards the street, unbeknownst to me, an overworked truck driver fell asleep at the wheel. His arms, dropping from the steering wheel, flick his lights off, and so he's barreling down the road, completely out of control at forty miles an hour. 

Looking both ways, I fail to spot him as I cross the street (it's been a very rough night). I also fail to spot the drain, clogged and full of water, which I plop my foot into before banging my shin on the pavement. I suppress a scream, and feel the wind as the out of control truck blows past me, not an inch from my nose.

Unsure whether to bless fate for keeping me alive, or curse it for my suffering, I trudge on. The remaining trek home is blissfully uneventful, so I undress, shower, and collapse on my bed, settling on being thankful that I don't have to be at work for another 36 hours. I am so tired, I'm asleep before my head hits the pillow.