Rage to the Challenge - 24/03/2022 - A Kavel Perspective

The Gathering of Thicc Bois!

“Oi Kavel! Over here!”
…

I had come to Daring Heights to catch up with Morgana, my old woodcarving instructor. With that out of the way, I was considering checking in on Sorrel at the Temple of Selune. But, as I was walking around the city, I heard a voice from behind me. A voice that is quite familiar to me now. I have only been on one adventure with the human man, but he has come to visit me at the Fort several times now, to workout with me and my bros.
…

I turned around to see a tall, well-built human man waving at me.

“Ivan!”

I walked over to my fellow barbarian. “Good to see you, comrade. How are you?”

Ivan was eager to explain a regret he had on a previous adventure that was troubling him. He mentioned a journey where he could find redemption, and how he needed some help. Specifically Ivan needed, “some thicc bois,” his words, and was opposed to the inclusion of more magically orientated adventurers. There was in particular an intersection of elves and wizards that Ivan was not keen at all in seeing in team thicc bois. Only one magical elf person came to mind, but I didn’t question him on this point.

Ivan and I have had conversations about the abundance of adventurers who don’t take their conditioning seriously enough, let alone their strength. I think it is fair to characterise Ivan’s opinions on pure magic users as ‘disapproving’. We are broadly on the same page, but rather than disapprove, I am merely disappointed in those who do not put enough stock in their physical strength. Regardless of our minor difference in opinion; I too was eager to adventure in a team composed solely of physical specimens - it could only mean good things.

“Okay,” I agreed with comrade Ivan, “let’s get some thicc bois.”

A moment later, comrade Ivan made an observation, “... is that Varga I see?” , and so he yelled in the street again.


Getting Thicc’er!

Oi Varga! Over here!”

I had not seen comrade Varga for a long time. We were last together trying to procure an item from a mansion in the Fire plane, for a genie. A group of sassy squirrels beat us to our objective, so we did not achieve our goal. My last adventure also ended in failure - ee did not reunite Gerhard with his friend Henri. But, in both previous adventures, we did not have three barbarian badasses on the team!
I did not want to seem overconfident, but already I thought this team was looking good for future success. Did we even need anyone else? Our team’s thicc quality was super high already. Ivan felt maybe we needed more. Maybe at least one magical healer, and one more exceptional specimen.

Ivan said we were off to the Sunset Spines. I knew part of those mountains very well. Varga wanted to bring her chinchilla buddy, Cleaver - since chinnies are native to mountains and it would be nice for him. So, she went off to get Cleaver, while Ivan and I relaxed around town doing some light, street drinking.


More Thicc!

We saw Sorrel’s young, drow friend Toothy walking about, and he stopped to say hello. There was a lot of high-fiving in all directions. When Ivan and Toothy began chatting, it was clear they had met before as there was a camaraderie between them much like with Varga. Toothy and I were reminded that we have only met once before at Sorrel’s ceremony for accepting Selune in her life.

Toothy has a wiry strength about him. I reminded him that my offer to come and train at Kavel’s Corner is always open. Ivan encouraged Toothy to take me up on the offer by removing his shirt in the middle of the street and showing the gains he had achieved at my gym. It was at this point that I realised that when Ivan took his shirt off in the Witching Court bay, it wasn’t because we were wet; he is just fond of taking his shirt off.

Ivan asked Toothy to join us. When Ivan mentioned we would meet a gargantuan capybara, Toothy was sold.

Varga came back with Cleaver. This meant we had a team of four iron warriors. We should have been looking for our healer, but we were busy just being excited by the strong energy of the group. No offence to the Daring Academy, but I don’t care how powerful a spell you can cast; the collective, physical power of the group here was unrivalled.

Ivan had not put his shirt back on, and caught up with the excitement of being around so many, “thicc bois,” kept flexing his muscles and posing for us and the citizens of Daring Heights. To be fair, we all got caught up and followed his cue. With all the flexing, we achieved something... Ivan, our team captain for this adventure, had given us a group name.

“Let’s call ourselves, Thicc Bois.”


Room For One More Thicc Boi!

There was still room for more thicc energy. But how were we to round off the team? We knew quite a few adventurers between us. There were some more thicc people around, but it was just luck that many of us happened to be in the city, so close to each other. I suggested we branch out to looking for ‘thicc adjacent’ like paladins, fighters and even monks.

As we considered our options, whilst also practising group poses we could do as a team of thicc bois, a noise came from below our chest level.

“Grrrrrrr!”

Ha! A cheeky, grimacing halfling was flexing their biceps while looking up at us. Comrade Kelne had joined us.

“Work it!” Comrade Ivan exclaimed.

I bent down to squeeze Kelne’s pythons, and asked them a question.

“Kelne, you can still transform into a big ape, right?”

“Yeah, of course. I do whales a lot too. All sorts of big, strong creatures,” they replied.

Yes! I smiled at my cheeky, halfling comrade, stood back up and said to the others, “those creatures are thicc boi creatures!”

Ivan invited Kelne to our “thicc boi Excursion,” and Kelne joined us!


Gaining Thicc Boi Approval

Ivan would occasionally lean in, and check with me if he was, “doing it right?”, as he put it. I think he was referring to how he sounded when he said ‘thicc bois’ and other references to being tough, along with his posture when saying all these things.

I think, after training with me at Kavel’s Corner, comrade Ivan believes I am more than a strength trainer, he seems to think I am a conduct coach for behaving tough. It was remarkable to me that he was self-conscious about how he is perceived, given how brashly he removes his shirt - which he still hadn’t put back on yet. But, I did not feel it would be productive to have a conversation with him on this point right then. In addition, I did not in fact see anything wrong with his posture and manner of speaking. It all seemed positive to me, if not on the inside, the outside was strong. So, I reassured him, “yes comrade. Everything is good.”

We were ready to head out.

“Looks like a good party!”

A male dragonborn was standing a few feet away from us. This was, to borrow comrade Ivan’s favourite word, a ‘thicc’ male dragonborn. The man looked like a veteran and was giving us his approval, as he smiled at us, wished us well and headed off.

I was sure I recognised that man from the Fort. Varga confirmed that it was the very experienced adventurer Ghesh. Varga bought her dominator axe from him. Toothy was working on a painting project with him.

Ivan wolf-whistled in Ghesh’s direction.

When I turned to look at Ivan, he had moved and was hiding behind me.


Somewhere in the Sunset Spines

Ivan took us on a two day journey to a cave in the Sunset Spines.

As we entered the cave, it was remarkably humid.

“Ivan you’ve come,” said a voice deeper inside the cave, accompanied by the sound of splashing water.

Ivan, with haste, ran toward the voice. “Follow me! We need to go!”

We came across a giant bonsai tree deeper into the cave. Underneath the bonsai tree was a gigantic sized bath full of warm water that was causing the air to feel humid. The bath was full of oranges and lemons, and a gargantuan creature’s head was emerging from the centre.

“I see you have come,” said the gargantuan creature from the bath. The creature looked to be a gigantic capybara with strange eyes that looked like the sky at night. The capybara was pleased to see Ivan.

Comrade Ivan was very pleased to see the capybara, he removed his outer clothing faster than I’ve seen him do before, and made an impressive leap into the giant bathtub, straight onto the giant capybara’s face. Comrade Ivan then had an emotional outburst of happiness and sorrow. I could hear sobbing echoing around the cave from where I was a fair distance away from the bath. Comrade Ivan was overwhelmed.

The talking capybara placed Ivan on the rim of the bath. Ivan was facing the capybara, which put his back to the rest of us. We were around twenty feet away from them.

The capybara was very familiar with what was upsetting comrade Ivan. It was something to do with the killing of pirates, which led to something bad. I believe Ivan threw a kraken’s eggs off of a boat. The capybara felt Ivan had a powerful tool at his disposal in the form of his fighting rage, but Ivan used it too recklessly. To be fair to my comrade, I have not witnessed him being excessively reckless in the one time we fought side by side. But, given Ivan’s reliance on me as his behaviour coach and his emotional fluctuation on this day, to be fair; I could easily imagine my comrade can be a bit much, from time to time.

The capybara suggested some trials would help comrade Ivan, and had something in mind. Comrade Ivan strongly agreed, and was now ready to introduce us to the capybara.

Ivan called us over to come meet the capybara. He was still facing away from us. We couldn’t see his face, but there was a lot of wiping around the face and eyes and a readjustment of his posture from a slouch to a stronger upright position.

The ‘bendai’ or even Capybara, as he was known greeted all of us one by one. The bendai then had a gift for Ivan, which he gave to Ivan by swirling water around his head, and a magical silver headband appeared on my comrade's head. The silver band washed away all of comrade Ivan’s frustrations and rage.

Before we left for Ivan’s trial, Varga asked to leave Cleaver here with the bendai. The bendai agreed. Toothy asked the bendai something too:

“If it’s okay… could I boop your snoop, please?” The bendai allowed this.

We were now ready for the trial.

As we left the cave, we could hear chanting as if from a crowd. This was peculiar, since we couldn’t hear the chanting when we entered the cave, and it seemed to be coming from the cave walls themselves.


The Trial of a Thicc Boi!

As we exited the cave, we stepped foot into an immense arena through a southern gate. It was disorientating. I did not recognise the stone, it didn’t seem like we were in the Sunset Spines anymore.

There was no way to return to the cave through the entrance we came in from. Two gates were located on the west and eastern points of the oblong arena. Opposite the southern entrance was a raised balcony for premium seating. The arena was packed with skeletons. It wasn’t clear if the chanting noise came from them. They weren’t moving.

“Let me take the lead on this one!” Ivan said, running to the centre of the arena, where a couple of columns of stone statues could be found.

Ivan looked up to the crowd of skeletons and yelled, “ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!”

Ivan had also removed his shirt again.

It was actually getting hard to tell if he had removed his shirt, since his shirt isn’t often found on his back.

The cheers faded. Ivan was displeased.

While Ivan was on his own in the middle, looking around in disappointment, Varga asked the rest of us to respect Ivan’s lead, since this was like a raiding party to her, and the person in charge of the raid makes the decisions. I guess this was a mentality both her and Ivan had in common. So, I agreed to follow. Whatever helped Ivan.

“Trial begin!”

We heard Ivan shout out in the middle of the arena whilst poking one of the statues. His follow up clapping changed nothing - no trial appeared to begin. Ivan’s attempts to push over one of the statues didn’t cause the commencement of a trial either - nor did any statue tip over.

Still standing by the entrance we arrived through, we saw Ivan run up to the western gate and push it - this also didn’t progress his trial from starting.

“... Varga. Are you sure we should follow comrade Ivan’s lead?” I asked.

I was given assurances that it was still appropriate to let him steward our adventure due to raid rules, although we were allowed to copy his actions.

So, we all started to explore the arena to see if we could get Ivan’s trial to begin. I went and had a better look at some of the statues and tried to copy comrade Derthaad when he’s investigating. But, when I went to cast the Detect Magic spell, I remembered I cannot do that…

I was reluctant to admit it, but it seemed there were some tasks that were not suited to us thicc bois. If comrades Derthaad or Glint were here, the trial would have begun already and we’d be happily applying our thicc boi energy to the trial. At the moment, the thicc boi energy was going to waste.

“Okay, well, what do you think guys - should I break out the Commune spell and talk to my god, Tymora?” Kelne asked, bringing a welcome amount of magic to the thicc bois.

Thanks to Kelne we understood that we had to go through one of the gates.
We walked through the eastern gate.


Missing Statues?!

We walked through the eastern gate, and appeared out of the western gate… except this wasn’t quite the same arena - the two columns of statues had all gone!

The gates slammed shut.

Ivan strode back into the centre, “are you not entertained?”

The cheering around us seemed unfazed as it continued at the same noise level.

We joined Ivan around the centre of the arena, and spread out a little.

We were in an arena. I expected for us thicc bois to fight. But, instead we were facing puzzles, and thicc bois were not doing well with puzzles. We were lost and distracted by our own confusion that we did not see where the boulders came from as they painfully crashed into the arena onto us.

Kelne and Varga managed to dodge the full brunt of the boulders. Good for them. Toothy, Ivan and I got hit and were partially stuck under boulders.

Varga helped Ivan shift the boulder on top of him to escape from under it. Ivan went to help Toothy, who despite his great, practical strength couldn’t get a good purchase on his boulder on account of one of his arms being stuck.

I could see Ivan, from where I laid on the ground, as he tried to get a rage going, but the silver band on his head was preventing that. But then, Ivan began to grow, until he had tripled in size! He then found it effortless to remove Toothy’s boulder from him, and once finished he shrunk back to his normal height.

Varga approached me.

“Why haven’t you moved your boulder, Kavel? Isn’t this your thing?”

Ha! I see news of my herculean feats of strength have made their way around the adventuring hubs!

She was right. With a little shame, I admitted that I was waiting for an audience. Audience attained, I pressed and bridged the large boulder from off of me. I then scuttled out of the way as the boulder fell back down to the ground.

Kelne, our honorary barbarian in the thicc bois casted the True Sight spell and informed us that the boulders were not real.

I pointed out, “they felt real when they were on top of us,” but nevertheless comrade Kelne was adamant that they were not real.

We went up to the eastern gate again, and this time, since the gate was shut, we combined efforts to lift it up and we walked through.


Dark Vibes for the Arena

We exited from the western gate again to another new look for the colosseum. Once again, no statues, but this time it was dark, with lighting provided by the giant runic symbols spanning out from the centre of the arena.

“Oh fuck this!” Ivan proclaimed.

“Comrade you said this was a thicc boi excursion!” I said, admittingly getting a little frustrated myself.

Ivan got out his Cube of Myriad Forms and a metal hawk appeared. We gathered around Ivans viewing device as the hawk flew up to get a full look at the runic symbols on the arena floor.

I had seen an unfriendly runic pattern in the Angelbark forest. I confirmed with Lord Jaezred the pattern one time too. It was a surprise to me, when comrade Varga showed us she had these markings on her body. Understandably she was not pleased. To our fortune, as we looked through the metal hawks’ eyes through the viewing device, the symbols on the arena floor did not match the demon mark we were familiar with.

Feeling a little more confident about the runes, we approached the centre.

A pit-fiend materialised.

Ivan ran to face it.

“Hello! I’m trying to do things differently. Are you going to hurt me?” Comrade Ivan announced in front of the pit-fiend.

The pit-fiend did not attack. But, he couldn't understand us, nor we him. We were stuck, and the pit-fiend was getting a bit irate.

Our ‘thicc boi’ excursion was not going as expected, I mentioned out loud that, “I feel we’re being forced to concede we need more than thicc bois in our team.”

“Never!” Ivan shot back, glancing over his shoulder.

Varga used an axe to start carving calligraphy into the ground to try and communicate with the pit-fiend. He was less irate looking at Varga’s markings, but he couldn’t follow what Varga had written.

Ivan tried speaking more slowly, but also louder whilst gesticulating wildly.

Toothy tried drawing on the ground to communicate with the pit-fiend and drew comrade Ivan and the pit-fiend hugging with a question mark beside the drawing. Still, no comprehension between the parties was attained.

When Kelne got a little bit closer to the pit-fiend, they seemed to notice something. Kelne went up to the pit-fiends leg and touched it. The pit-fiend did not seem to mind, it then followed Kelne and sat down with them.

“It’s a child!” Kelne informed us. Kelne’s True Sight spell was still active, and they said there was some illusion magic here. The pit-fiend was a child about the size of the illusion’s leg. Kelne asked for some fun, silly magic. Toothy casted a spell called Dancing Lights. He made four flames come together in a humanoid flame form, and made it do silly dance, which amused the child pit-fiend.

Kelne got up and beckoned the child to follow them outside the runes. As the child, dwarfed by its illusion, exited the runes, the child appeared, and then grew into the pit-fiend!

“Thank fuck!” We all heard within our minds, as the pit-fiend, who introduced himself as Hugo, communicated directly into our minds.

“D’you know how long I’ve been trapped here?”

It turns out Hugo made a crap deal with a cambion.

Kelne was a little alarmed that Hugo was in fact a pit-fiend. They needed reassurances it was okay to let him go flying off to the Dawnlands. Toothy convinced them it was fine.

Hugo left, and we approached the eastern gate again. The gate was up, and we walked through.


Preliminary Events Concluded…

This time we re-entered the arena through the southern entrance.

No columns of statues… no ambush of boulders. Daylight too, and no runic symbols.

But, now there was a huge metal grate in the centre of the arena.

We circled the grate, and peered in.

We couldn’t see anything as we looked inside. There was the sound of a rushing wind though, and the huge gate blew open!

A tornado of sand shot out of the grate into the air above us, and split into eight different smaller vortexes. These mini tornadoes of sand settled on the arena floor, surrounding us, equally spread out into eight separate tornados that settled into humanoid sand creatures armed with weapons.


… And Now! THE KANTAS THICC BOIS vs. THE NAME-UNKNOWN KILLED-BY-IVAN PIRATES!

Kelne casted Spirit Guardians and surrounded the area around themself with an army of flying halflings.

Varga turned around, and charged towards one of the pirates unleashing blow, after blow with her flail, hurting her adversary with each attack.

A couple of the pirates charged at Toothy, who was separated from the rest of us, on his own, at the northern side of the grate. They got the drop on him and speared his sides several times. One of them got caught in the perimeter of Kelne’s Spirit Guardians, taking some radiant damage from the cheeky halflings.

I myself ran through Kelne’s familiar Spirit Guardian spell, and attacked a pirate opposite Kelne, missing on my first attack, and then landing the poleaxe’s hammer into the pirate's arm.

From the western part of the arena where I was, I could see Varga take some damage in the southern point, and Toothy retaliated with his glaive in the northern quarter. Toothy was then ganged up on and flanked. He defended well, but was taking punishing blow after punishing blow.

Ivan was engaged by one of the pirates. Ivan seemed to recognise them, as he addressed them all:

“Forgive me! I know I caused your death. I’m different now!”

Ivans words did not cause our adversaries to pause the battle. Nor did his singing of a sea shanty. But, Ivan carried on anyway.

I should have paid less attention to my comrades singing. My temporary lack of awareness, meant I became flanked by one of the other pirates joining the ally I was attacking. I took some damage from the pirate's sword. However, thanks to my conditioning, these sword slashes did not cut the skin like it would have a less conditioned individual. In fact, one could say this for all my comrades today - we were thicc bois after all.

Kelne moved towards Toothy, who was now surrounded by three attackers. A powerful Guiding Bolt missed, but Kelne’s army of radiant halflings magically scorched all the pirates with holy light.

From the southern quarter, Varga shouted out:

“Not judging! But, are you gonna apologise to all the people you’ve killed?”

Ivan continued to sing his sea shanty.

Varga performed a war cry I hadn’t heard from her before. It was inspiring. I think she inspired even herself, as she swung her flail into one of the pirates and ended its life anew.

The battle continued. Kelne’s Spirit Guardians laid down radiant pain onto mine and Toothy’s opponents, breaking up their attack a bit, reducing the attacks they could land on us, although we were still absorbing multiple blows from all sides. But, me and Toothy are probably more alike in our ‘thiccness’ than the others, despite appearances, and our bodies took the beating we received better than most could.

Toothy seized an opening and killed one of his opponents. At the point of death, the pirate was reduced back into regular sand.

As one pirate at the edge of the arena ran to attack Varga, we heard another address Ivan:

“You killed me without even knowing my name!”

This did cause comrade Ivan to put an end to his sea shanty performance. I couldn’t make out everything he was saying, as he tried to make peace with the pirate that addressed him and was going after Toothy. But, with an acknowledgement that he had fully explored the diplomatic options, Ivan now leapt to help comrade Toothy, and to my delight, comrade Ivan - despite the silver band, was able to rage, and rage with the frenzied might I’ve seen him bring to battle before.

Ivan swung his greataxe with immense skill and sliced off one of the opponent’s arms.

Kelne moved closer to me and my two opponents, battering both of them with radiant pain, and slamming a guiding bolt into one of them, too. One foe was hurt badly, the other fell to Kelne’s onslaught. I followed through with some bludgeoning swings to the remaining foe.

Varga held her ground against a fresher opponent that engaged her, while together Toothy and Ivan slayed the last of their aggressors.

As Ivan’s great axe reduced the pirate to sand, there was more chatter from him about, “wishing they could all rest in peace now.”

…


…


Thicc Bois vs. Pirates Continued!

Ivan darted south to join Varga in her defence against two opponents.

“I will make sure you rest in this life. I’m going to kill you again. Sorry about that.”

Ivan’s redemptive arc, I say it again; not as empty as it seems on face value.

My last opponent got another good attack on me, but to my rescue, comrade Kelne tried something new, and casted a Derthaad favourite, Dispel Magic. My pirate opponent was immediately reduced back to sand.

I was impressed with comrade Kelne’s ingenuity. It was like a one hit kill

“Comrades! Kelne’s magic is so thicc!” I exclaimed to the team.

In the southern quarter, where Ivan had joined Varga to back her up against her two opponents, Varga despite the multiple batterings I could see her take, had a late game surge in energy and obliterated one more of her foes with her powerful flail, and injured the other one that Ivan had engaged.

To my left, in the northern quadrant, Toothy was bleeding all over the place. He absorbed the most punishing blows of the lot of us, and most of them before he could prepare his battle rage. He seemed fine for now though.

I was without an opponent, and so too was Kelne, with her Spirit Guardian spell still active. There was only the pirate in front of Varga now. I looked down at Kelne, and I got permission for what I did next. I picked her up and ran her towards Varga’s opponent - I knew my legs would carry us there faster, and Kelne’s radiant halflings burnt some holy pain into the pirate.

I was expecting either Varga or Ivan to finish the remaining pirate, but then a glaive from the corner of my left eye came into view and embedded its tip straight into and through the pirate, reducing the last one to sand. Toothy bloodied and beaten had one more left in him!

Ivan had some more words to say. Whatever he said sounded like a prayer. You do you comrade. Despite the strangeness of the trial, I was proud of my friend.

In Ivan’s prayers, he mentioned something about the pirates not wishing us harm, to which Toothy spoke for the rest of us who took a beating whilst Ivan was experimenting with passive approaches to conflict resolution:

“They hurt!”

Our unofficial barbarian casted some healing magic on Toothy - it was appreciated.

The southern gate, where we first entered the arena from, was open and we could see the bendai in the far recess.


Back in the Capybara Cave

Capybara congratulated Ivan on his actions during the trial, and gave thanks to the rest of us for helping him through it.

Ivan felt he was thiccer now than when he first came into the cave. There was truth to that statement.

The bendai felt that such progress deserved a fitting reward. First he waved away the silver headband from Ivan’s head. Secondly, he took, ‘Barbera’ Ivan’s greataxe, lowered it into the bath water, and when it emerged the greataxe had changed. The metal was a fine decorative blue with what looked like barnacles built into the axe’s butt. The wood handle looked more elegant too.

Ivan was very pleased with his reward. I guess Ivan wished to display very clearly to everyone how pleased he was, because he exaggeratedly fainted into my arms. I caught him, of course. He thanked me for, “always spotting,” him and received his improved greataxe.

Like a good comrade, Ivan asked the bendai if his comrades too, who stood by his side and fought with him, could receive a gift of some kind.

The bendai obliged. He brought four of the oranges out of the bathtub. They split open on the ground, revealing pouches with 200gp each.

Toothy remarked that if this was how all oranges were like, it would make eating your five a day easier.

We thanked the bendai for the gifts and Cleaver rejoined Varga. After saying our goodbyes we left the cave and started our journey back to Daring Heights.

On the journey back, we had time to reflect on how cool it was to finally adventure with a team composed entirely of strong people. For me, this was always what I wanted. And sure, I have come to appreciate how useful my magically-inclined comrades’ magic can be. And sure, there were setbacks at the beginning of the trial, but whatever. It was really cool. thicc bois are the best.

We agreed we needed to do something to celebrate ourselves.

Forever more, we would be the thicc bois.

Varga and Toothy are both proficient leatherworkers, and they agreed to design some thicc boi jackets for us. I was looking forward to these jackets. When people would see us wearing them, they would know we were the varsity team of thicc adventurers here in the Dawnlands and beyond.

“Yass queen!” Ivan said, when Varga put forward some colour ideas for the jackets. Oh yes, I forgot. ‘Yass queen’ was another phrase comrade Ivan was very fond of.