04/13/2026: The Restroom of Rekoning

The plan had seemed sound enough, right up until the moment it wasn’t.

Arman, wearing the face and form of the nightmare shepherd Lawrence, surveys the cramped tavern restroom with the cool calculation of a man who has done worse things in worse places. His nightmare shepherd companion is unconscious on the floor by Arman’s feet.

Somewhere in the stalls, Reklaw quietly continues to chant, the golden light of his summoned solar already filling the cubicle behind him with a steady, celestial warmth. The solar shifts its enormous, luminous form around the nauseated monk slumped upon the closed commode, regarding the restroom with the patience of a being who has watched civilizations rise and fall — and who has decided that this particular assignment is a significant step down.

Kiki leans against the cool of the tiled wall, tail twitching, eyes watching everything. Thunk darts out the door, back into the taproom of the Hag’s Arm.

Near the bathroom’s sink, Fork crouches by the door, eyes bright with mischief and acquisitiveness, “I think I’ll cast Summon Lesser Demons,” he announces, with cheerful confidence. “That should give us cover to leave!”

The words are spoken. The magic answers. The bathroom fills with — creatures. Large creatures. Large, smelly creatures.

Eight stench kows materialize in the confined restroom with all the subtlety of a thunderclap. They are not small. They are not odorless. They lumber and snort in the close space, their hides steaming, their presence a physical assault on every sense.

Kiki gags. Reklaw is overcome by nausea.

Fork, who knows exactly what these creatures are, says nothing. Fork watches the chaos bloom, pleased with his work.

The solar opens one eye. It looks at Reklaw. It looks at the stench kows. It looks at the quasit crouched by the sink.

“Sorry,” croaks Reklaw. “*Urp.* We could use some help.”

The solar rolls its eyes.

On the other side of the stall door, the panicked lowing of the herd begins. The fiendish creatures, terrified by the golden radiance pouring from the cubicle, stampede through the bathroom door, ripping from one of its hinges, and into the taproom beyond.

⚔

Arman follows, still wearing Lawrence’s form. He steps forward with the purloined staff — a magnificent weapon of unknown provenance, acquired from the real Lawrence’s remains under circumstances best not examined too closely — and brings it down on the nearest stench kow, wondering idly what the properties of this new weapon might be.

The stench kow explodes.

Fetid goo arcs in a graceful, horrible parabola, spattering every surface and every creature in the immediate vicinity. Arman flicks the worst of it from Lawrence’s chest with a look of disgust and steps toward the next kow with grim determination.

⚔

Thunk darts toward the stage of the Hag’s Arm, where a fair, tall elf reclines, tuning a lute.

The bugbear finds Bayleaf the bard in the back corner of the tavern — a lithe figure surrounded by an improbable collection of instruments, watching the skirmish in front of the distant bathroom door with one elegantly arched eyebrow raised. The combatants appear to be a pair of nightmare shepherds and what looks very much like a herd of cattle.

“What do you suppose is going on over there?” he wonders aloud.

Thunk raises his voice above the din. “My friends are doing that! I could show you a lot of weird demon stuff,” he says earnestly. “There’s an angel and I’m a bugbear and there’s a whole bunch of others. We’re trying to get these guys’ souls back. It’s a whole other world. We have a car with cannons on it. Come with us?”

Bayleaf blinks, understanding none of what Thunk has said, save that there is an offer of a ride away from the Hag’s Arm.

“Right,” he says, gathering his soul coin tips into a leather purse and his instruments into a sack. “Show me the door.”

Thunk screams, “I MADE A FRIEND!” with savage joy.

Bayleaf’s other brow rises — surprised, and a little alarmed.

⚔

Back in the restroom, events continue to compound.

The solar, perhaps driven by some celestial instinct to rebel against its circumstances, casts Blade Barrier. A sixty-foot diameter storm of whirling divine blades materializes — primarily in the bar — shredding tables, chairs, and many of the remaining devil clientele. The stench kows drop, as do some of the less-powerful devils. Wailing commences from a cluster of horned devils and what might have been the table of incubi.

⚔

Bayleaf is scurrying after Thunk, who is making a beeline for the tavern’s front door. The bard’s instruments clatter in the leather sack on his back, and he slows as they pass Vali, who is seated at the bar.

Bayleaf’s eye has caught the lyre strung across Vali’s back, just above a scaled, be-rattled tail.

“Brother Bard,” Bayleaf begins, “this is no place for the performing class. I have managed to score a ride to elsewhere in some sort of enchanted vehicle — one with cannons atop it. Pray, come along, and we might make our way as itinerant performers in this corner of Hell.”

Vali spins on the barstool to regard the newcomer, just as the solar’s savage spell fills the taproom with a tornado of blades.

Vali, who has been standing in front of Bayleaf examining his bass clarinet, is dropped by several chunks of whirling furniture and flesh from the solar’s spell. Bayleaf grabs the clarinet as it falls from Vali’s hands, bleeding from his own wounds.

Bayleaf watches his favorite new bard crumple to the ground approximately ten seconds after agreeing to join this enterprise. He and Thunk drag the dying Vali behind the bar, which offers a measure of cover.

Thunk mutters the incantation to Spare the Dying as Bayleaf calls out, “He’s got eye stalks! I hadn’t noticed that before!”

The  contract devil who has joined them in sheltering behind the bar nods, “Morda’s special drink will cause that.”

Vali opens all his eyes, simultaneously stares at the ceiling, three different walls and the filthy floor.  He gasps, “She told me it would be temporary!”

Seated next to him on the floor, the contract devil reminds him that Morda is in Hell for all eternity, and ‘temporary” may be a relative term. 

In the space behind them, Thurk  decides that enough time has been spent in the Hag’s Arm. He waits for a break in the action so he can take everyone out of the tavern and back to the truck.

⚔

What happens next begins gradually, the way most disasters do — with small steps that each seem reasonable as they occur. Fork, grinning, spots the chain around the celestial’s neck. A holy symbol. Gold. Worth, Fork estimates, tens of thousands of gold pieces.

The demon climbs up to sit on the solar’s lap. “Shinies?” he says to it, hopefully.

The solar, eyes squeezed closed, is concentrating upon the very destructive spell whirling just on the other side of the bathroom wall. It can neither pause to answer nor to avoid Fork.

Fork grabs at the necklace.

The chain snaps.

The holy symbol sits in Fork’s hands, warm and heavy and extraordinary.

The solar opens its eyes, regarding the quasit clutching the front of its golden robes.

Fork does not wait to discuss the matter. Fork stashes the holy symbol and opens the Bag of Beans that hangs on his belt. It is a magical treasure he has yet to try. Plunging his hand into the bag, he seizes a single bean and tosses it to the floor, where it lands with a popping flash of roiling smoke.

When the air clears, a treant towers before the bathroom door.

“I wanted a mummy lord,” Fork says, sadly.

Fortunately, the treant is unable to understand how disappointed its summoner is by its presence. Instead, it flexes its bark, shakes its boughs and scraps its roots over the tiled floor toward the door to the restroom before swinging around to face the having Kiki, the grinning Fork and the top half of a surprised solar stuffed into one of the stalls. The treant is torn between a chaotic need to leave the crowded, smelly restroom and a burning desire to murder all other occupants of the same.

Fork considers: the treant is now between himself and the only exit. Then, realizing the treant will likely smash him on its way out through the open restroom door, Fork considers the toilet. He slips under the stall door and gestures urgently to Reklaw.

The quasit makes it clear he would like to hide within the confines of the commode.

Reklaw, wrestling with the urge to vomit, considers.

⚔

Arman, watching this unfold from his position near the dead stench kow, has larger problems. The solar, before it cast its devastating spell, saw through the changeling’s disguise. And Arman’s nightmare shepherd companion — one of Lawrence’s comrades — stands next to him bristling with rage at the occupants of the bathroom. It still believes Arman to be Lawrence.

The changeling arranges Lawrence’s face into its most composed expression.

“Well,” he says. “That went well.”

“Let’s kill them,” the nightmare shepherd suggests, nodding toward the bathroom. The door, hanging off its hinges, reveals the back of the newly arrived treant, its leaves shuddering in the entrance.

“I was thinking,” Arman says carefully, “we wait for the treant and the solar to settle things between themselves, and then we come in for the loot.”

His suggestion is lost in the din of the storm of blades in the taproom.

“…Or we go in immediately,” Arman says, to the back of the nightmare shepherd already charging through the bathroom door.

⚔

The Wand of Wonder fires twice.

At first, Fork is delighted. He clutches the gaudy wand in his clawed hand and grins.

The nightmare shepherd, navigating the situation with what limited tactical awareness remains available to him, is engulfed in a Stinking Cloud, as are the other occupants of the restroom. The wand also fires a Lightning Bolt simultaneously, going north-northwest — through the treant, through the wall, and through many of the devils on the other side.

The damage is not, by any measure, impressive. The treant remains standing, scorched and smoking ever so slightly. The chaos remains. Morta the hag, returning from wherever hags go when they step away, pushes past Thunk without a word and surveys what has become of her establishment.

The blade barrier continues to spin.

⚔

Somewhere in a stall, Fork has made a decision about the toilet. The nauseated Reklaw moves to allow the demon to hide within the mouth of the commode before closing the lid and reseating himself.

Beside him, the startled solar struggles to maintain concentration on its Blade Barrier spell.

The sounds of bellowing devils and whirling blades pours in through the destroyed bathroom door.

Things are getting interesting.