DOAT Book I, Chapter 22: Bupu’s gift. An ominous sight.

Well good evening dragonscouts! Your Khaleesi has been away but has returned to serve you fresh and steaming liveblogging of Dragonlance for your bored-at-work pleasures. Let’s get back to our noble heroes, who when last we met, were fighting their way out of the draconians (ugh) lair, sacrificing gully dwarves along the way like they ARE NOT SENTIENT CREATURES JFC.

Okay. Our heroes are dragging their unconscious and/or injured brethren (Raistlin and Riverwind respectively) out of the lard pot elevator mid-motherfucking-earthquake. No sooner have they gotten Riverwind out of the pot than the entire mechanism breaks off from the ground and crashes into the pits below. The book does not mention, but I feel compelled to add, that the crowd of gully dwarves who were in the lower pot have now certainly had their brains dashed upon the rocks below. Do any of our heroes give one single fuck about this?

Riverwind is pretty much ready to curl into a ball and die. Sturm is weirdly into this, but Tanis is not having it, so he starts up a little hair-pulling as foreplay.

you have my attention.

 This, at least, seems to pull Riverwind out of his suicidal mood, so together the heroes stumble toward the Temple of Mishakal. Zach Braff Xak Taroth, meanwhile, is drowned.

eh. it was for the best.

Tanis looks around and doesn’t see Riverwind. Everyone else attributes this to, y’know, your basic suicidal tendencies, but Tanis is again NOT HAVING IT. He runs into the interior of the temple where he thinks he hears Riverwind. But when he gets in there, instead of looking for his friend, he starts screaming at the goddess that he doesn’t believe in her. ………………why? If you don’t believe in them, why are you screaming for them to leave you alone, Tanis? I mean, I guess that’s the DRAMATIC IRONY here, but authors, you could at least have your hero use the basics of logic even when he’s pissed. Anyway, Tanis finishes his hissyfit, looks up at the statue and OH SHIT IT’S GOLDMOON.

Yup I suppose our Token Lady has traded her staff for the statue’s necklace some…how… but she sure is alive!

So Goldmoon wakes up and declares that she is a “true cleric” and disciple of Mishakal. Apparently this means she can now heal people by touching them on the forehead which is pretty cool as far as god-granted powers go. Goldmoon even declares that she is not a warrior but a healer which… because girl, I guess.

Anyway, Goldmoon says that her task is to find the one person who has the strength and wisdom to unite the people, fight evil, and set the world in balance. Welp… good luck with that, Goldmoon.

Anyway, our noble band of warriors gets the fuck out of Xak Tsaroth before the armies of draconians (ugh) can find them. Their plan is to go to Solace to supply up, which, JESUS CHRIST WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT? You left that place as fugitives, remember? With the hobgoblins or whatever they were knocking down doors to find you? WHY WOULD YOU GO BACK THERE?

Logic aside, they strike out. During their overnight camp, Raistlin wakes up and hears muffled cries. Why, it’s Bupu, who has repressed her sadness until it can no longer be contained.

Bupu is sad because she wants to stay with Raistlin (don’t we all) but she’ll miss her bros back home. Raistlin tells her she should go back and is basically super sweet to her in that way you’re sweet to someone when you’re all like NO DON’T FOLLOW ME INTO PERIL.

i need u bb

Bupu is so grateful for Raistlin’s solicitude that she pulls out a gift. Is it a lizard? A rat? NO IT’S THE MOTHERFUCKING SPELLBOOK OF FISTANDANTILUS! Bupu snaked it from that motherfucking dragon after all!

With that awesome and incredibly convenient gift, Bupu leaves, and Raistlin watches her go with a single tear and an inner wish for her best life. Never mind that her city just got fucking destroyed and her friends killed, RAISTLIN IS A GOOD GUY DAMN IT. Of course Flint comes in to dig at him about his “pet gully dwarf,” further hammering in the message that everyone but Raistlin is a gully dwarf racist asshole.

Farewell Bupu! ILU you bad bitch.

Raistlin goes back to stash his new book in his pack when he sees a glow on the horizon. Is it the dawn?

IT’S MOTHERFUCKING SOLACE ON FIRE.

SO MUCH FOR THAT AWESOME PLAN GUYS.

And that’s the end – not just of the chapter but of BOOK ONE. We’re on BOOK TWO guys, and it’s only been… like, jesus, I don’t even want to say. My goal is to start updating regularly again! We have more dragons to… lance, I guess.

ANYWAY, thanks for coming with me on this journey so far, dragonscouts! Onward into Book 2!ga

DOAT Book One, Chapter 18: Fight at the lift. Bupu’s cure for a cough.

After all that gully dwarf racism in the last chapter, I’m a little hesitant about this one. I mean, Bupu’s cure for a cough is going to end up being something charmingly primitive or hilariously dim-witted and we can all laugh at how awful gully dwarves are, because dwarf racism = comedy I guess. But there’s a fight at the lift to get through, so it’s time to get going.

When we last left our intrepid adventurers, they were about to jump some draconians (ugh) at their makeshift lift made of lard rendering pots so that they can get down into the underground tunnels of Xak Tsaroth. The lift is apparently run on gully dwarf power, as they have to get into the top pots to give the necessary ballast to lift the draconians (ugh) to the top. Not this time though – no sooner do the draconians (ugh) start spouting shit at the gully dwarves than Caramon and Sturm wade in to start fucking their shit right up.

I’m assuming.

Still, it’s not a cut-and-dried battle, as the book is quick to point out: “[u]nlike goblins, who attack anything that moves without strategy or thought, draconians [ugh] are intelligent and quick-thinking.” Oh great, so you made some room in your gully dwarf-racist chapters for a little goblin racism. Thanks, book.

Anyway, the two remaining draconians (ugh) release the mechanism on the lift so they can drop down and get reinforcements – oh no, wait, 20 draconians (ugh) are already on their way up in the second pot. Caramon, Sturm, Tasslehoff, Tanis and Flint all jump into the pot after the two going down, increasing the speed of the reinforcements on their way up to slaughter their less combat-experienced companions. Great job. Additionally, Flint’s battle strategy seems to have been landing in the pot head first and getting stepped on by Caramon. Still want to talk about how stupid gully dwarves are, Flint?

Anyway, the pot battle rages with five of our adventurers against two draconians (ugh) while twenty of them continue to rise to the top to face Goldmoon, Raistlin and Riverwind. Riverwind, very sensibly, decides it’s time to try to stop the lift mechanism to prevent the imminent attack. But while he’s uselessly trying to figure out how to do this, Raist shoves him to one side and jams his staff between the wheel and the floor, halting the pots

Meanwhile, in the pots, Caramon decides to cut through the bullshit and just throw one of the draconians (ugh) off the side. But unfortunately the twenty draconians (ugh) in the other pot have decided to try to swing over for an attack. All the swinging around and shifting weight actually make for a very exciting battle, so I’m giving the authors credit where it is due for this one. After much hacking, slashing and dizzy spinning, Tanis gets hit on the head (of course).

Raistlin, as usual, steps in to save everyone’s shit. He gathers his new friends, the gully dwarves, around and tells them that to keep the “bosses” from hurting him, their BFF, all they have to do is jump on the chain with the draconians’ (ugh) pot. All of them (except his bae Bupu) do so as Raist pulls his staff out of the wheel, and the combined weight sends the reinforcements down into the hole, while bringing Tanis and co. back up. Hooray!

Welp, obviously we’re not going to reach the Highbulp through the well. Fortunately Bupu knows a secret route, so she leads are heroic band down another corridor. As it turns out, Bupu too has some magic in her, as she waves a mysterious object at one wall, and a secret passage appears! Oh man, what magical object does Bupu have under her command???

…it’s a dead rat.

As Tasslehoff helpfully explains, the mechanism was actually a hidden floorboard, but HA HA gully dwarves are too stupid to know what floorboard mechanisms are! She thinks she’s people! Tasslehoff laughs about how she probably tripped on it once while carrying the rat, and now thinks the rat is magic, because lest we forget, Tasslehoff is a sociopath.

Anyway Bupu is like “DO YOU WANT TO KNOW THE WAY DOWN OR NOT” and hustles the group into a slimy pipe. I can only consider this Bupu’s revenge on everyone for underestimating her. “I could have taken you through the garden terrace, but OH NO you CRITICIZED MY RAT, it’s the pipe for you motherfuckers!”

Everything is going disgustingly in the pipe until Raist starts coughing again, and Bupu provides him with the chapter’s titular cough cure-all – a lizard corpse on a string, to wear around one’s neck. This he rejects politely, although first she gives him A MOTHERFUCKING EMERALD, his reward for being the only member of our heroes who isn’t a goddamn gully dwarf racist. That sounds like my preferred cure for a cough, tbh.

I FEEL MUCH BETTER THANK YOU

The chapter ends as the group turns a corner and ends up sliding down into a room where sacks of flour break their fall, and also coat everyone in white powder. Good work, Bupu! I don’t believe what anyone says about gully dwarves, you are one bad bitch.

Despite the continued racism, this was a much better chapter, highlighted by the epic lard-pot-in-midair battle royale. And I’m glad to see Bupu get some of her own back too, coating assholes in flour and handing out magical shit and emeralds like it ain’t no thing.

Asshole count: ANYONE WHO IS MEAN TO BUPU.