In Which Albert Pujols Descends Into the Dungeons of Dredmor In December 2011, Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols walked away from the St. Louis organization and signed a 10-year deal with the Los Angeles Angels valued at more than $250 million. Buried in the contract was a small, little-noticed clause that Pujols must, prior to spring training, descend in the infamous Dungeons of Dredmor and defeat the evil Lord Dredmor. What follows is the account of that journey. Most every knows Pujols’s baseball skills - power, contact and defense. Now we see his dungeon crawling skills (from left to right): Maces, Useful for knocking out creeps. You can even keep them in your handbag if you want to. Shield Bearer, Return with your shield - or under it? For the defense-minded adventurer. Berserker Rage, When you attack, there is a chance that you'll become really angry! This increases your attack abilities. Master of Arms, The Armorial Art revolves around gracefully strapping large chunks of metal to your body. Fleshsmithing, You are a fleshsmith! You can heal the wounds of your body, rend the flesh of your enemies, and possibly summon deli meats from the Elemental Plane of Cold Cuts. You cant make armor out of it though. Sadly. Assassination, Something about a creed. Honestly? You just kill better. Smithing, Forge iron in fires! Construct weapons to smite your foes! Become more burly! As you can see, Albert is burly, caddish and stubborn. Precisely the reasons he was chosen for this task. To defeat Lord Dredmor, Albert is taking along his Louisville slugger: Pujols may want to think about upgrading the weapons and saving his bat for ballgames. Before venturing out, Albert stops for some food and drink: Finally sated, Albert approaches the entrance and sends a text message to his agent, “Why do I have to do this? I’m Albert Pujols.” Before he gets a reply, the gates open and the battles begin: Diggles! Good thing he brought his bat: Dead diggles. This adventuring thing is actually fun, he thinks. A short time later he finds a store with great weapons and armor, and even some bling. Despite signing a $250 million contract, Albert finds his credit cards don’t work in the Dungeons of Dredmor, and he must accumulate what are called ‘zorkmids’ before he can buy anything. Right now he has just 6 zorkmids from killing those two diggles, and that won’t even get him a cup of coffee. So the slugger ventures out in hopes of accumulating cash. In one room he kills some minor meanies and finds a statue of the bad boss himself, Lord Dredmor: “He don’t scare me none.” It’s only a statue, Albert. Nearby he finds a recipe for making a kick-ass sword: Just need a wooden sword, a naturey orb and an alchemy kit (and some alchemy skill of course) and instant Timberbane sword! He would name it Justin. In a short time Albert faces a choice: Hmmmm. Albert was thirsty. Eventually Albert began accumulating a fair amount of goodies for his inventory: Eventually Albert wandered into the Haus of Eggplants, though no eggplants were to be seen. Further north, a diggle (soon to die), a lever and a chest. To be continued...
Part Deux: In Which Albert Delves Deeper The future Hall of Famer is moving slowly still through level one of the dungeon. Before too long.... Level 2! Albert feels empowered. He chooses Smithing level 2, which gives +1 melee damage and +1 traps. Albert plans to earn lots of early experience by disarming. A diggle beckons. He is soon to be an ex-diggle. “I want that shield,” thinks Albert. “Its better than my shield. How the hell do I get it?” Ah, the old lever ploy does the trick. Albert takes a breather from diggle-bashing to try his hand at crafting, but for some reason it doesn’t quite work. “Hmmm, is this an iPad?” “I wish for the Cardinals to finish in last place.” But before long arrives Mr. Potato Head. A dead potato. If he had time, he’d turn it into french fries, but adventuring beckons. Albert stumbles upon a Coke machine. Wait, not coke. Bolts. This is the one Albert wants: Unfortunately, he’s only about 25,000 zorkmids short. So he settles for a standard copper bolt. Boring. At this point Albert bashes another statue of Dredmor and levels up. His next skill: Albert assumes this allows him to be better armoured. He gets cocky and careless and wanders into a trap. A short time later, before he's fully healed, Albert finds himself in a whole heap o’ trouble: His health is halfway down: Albert survives, but with only 5 health points left. He must gather his wits before venturing forth: And what does an adventurer needs after a hard-fought battle? A danish, or three. To Be Continued.....
Part Three: In Which Albert Finds the Bawdy House of Doom Still on the first level of the Dungeons of Dredmor, California Angels slugger Albert Pujols comes upon a Lutefisk Statue. He has no idea what Lutefisk are, nor why he’d need to tithe them. Perhaps, he wonders, they’re a new performance enhancing drug he could try before the random testing gets underway. In a nearby room, Albert comes upon a veritable bounty, including a kick-ass mace. And with that Albert finally puts away his Louisville slugger in favor of his new best friend, Mlofur. He comes upon an UberChest (TM) but its locked. He’d hoped it might contain some Lutefisk. Bashing with his new mace doesn’t help. Albert decides to come back later. Nearby, a Mysterious Portal. Hmmm, Albert wonders. He know its mysterious because.... it says so. Thus far he has avoided going through any of the regular portals in hopes of clearing out the first level. But this is more than he can resist, and he he steps through.... ...only to find himself transported instantly to what’s called “Level 0: the Bawdy House of Doom.” The first thing he sees is a giant blue potato, seemingly tougher than the earlier monstrous potatoes. This can’t be good. The potato is no match for his Night’s Tentacles mace, but the tuber does do some damage: This time a danish won’t suffice for healing. Its time to break out a fine Merlot. Albert guzzles the entire bottle before realizing the Merlot restores spell points, not health points. Damn. And it had a nice bouquet. So instead: What goes better with wine than cheese? Unfortunately it tastes like Velveeta. But it does the trick: Good enough to explore the Bawdy House some more. Damn. A swarmy. This could be tough. Eventually the swarmy is no more, but before Albert can catch his breath.... This guy calls Albert names, then does massive damage: One more shot does Albert in: Thus clearing the way for Mark Trumbo to play first base for the Angels. The morale of the story: don’t go through Mysterious Portals until you’ve leveled up a bit. THE END (unless I start over....)
Very funny. Enjoyed it and I hope you do another. Continuing the theme of sports stars, celebrities etc. heading into the Dungeons if possible.
