Dear Dege #7 - The Weakest Takeover Ever

I truly did not deserve the accolades I was showered with that day. I had rolled into a small duchy with my two friends, Allister & Vignor. I was a small time bounty hunter just starting out and my pals had been training on the job like myself. I was born with a particularly powerful sense of smell. It was especially annoying eating the garbage that passed for meals growing up. So the three of us enter this land and we're immediately summoned before the Duke. The subjects were screaming about him falling under some sort of magic spell. As calm third party travelers, we were immediately thrown into this bizarre rescue mission. I look at the Duke who is slumped in his chair drooling with his eyes rolled back and I look a couple feet to his left and there is his weird adviser. The man had scraggly hair, knotted facial hair, massive bags under his eyes, he smelled like he'd been in an apothecary, we're talking next level obvious this guy is involved.

The townspeople are all standing around shouting and begging us to please save their kind lord. The adviser, the only guy around who knows magic, explains he can allow us to enter his mind to save him there. I'm sure this is part of his plot to trap anybody useful in this same other plane or something. The three of us agree to enter and we're transported to this mountainous region with hot magma and a 40 ft. dragon perched at the entrance to some cave. I sniff the air, not a hint of molten rock or a dragon. I walk through the lava unscathed while my friends watch in disbelief. The dragon doesn't move and I walk through him. They give chase and catch up - I had a feeling from the start it was all an illusion. Inside the cave the adviser is there maniacally laughing. We ignore everything around us and in tandem cleave this guy to pieces. The illusion all fades away and the Duke wakes up. I actually feel a little bad we didn't even listen to his evil backstory about why he did what he did. The Duke immediately rewards us with homes and wealth and wives. It felt like some weird existential joke.

Blando, half-orc, DnD 3.5