Just a gaming story:

Just a gaming story:

My soon ten year old player decided to commune with a not previously established goddess for assistance in a bad situation. We spent a bit of time negotiating a bargain and we landed on giving away the light power in his lightmagic sword. With loud protests from the swords talking spirit of course.

After getting back to safety he asked the goddess for what to do to get the power back. I turned the question back to him and he suggested catching bugs.

In my authoritative goddess voice: “You will fly to my temple on… ehm… Temple Island and get rid of the beetles that have defiled it.” His preparation was bringing a bug catching net. So innocent.

It started out with a quick montage of him catching and disposing of hand size beetles around the currently uninhabited island. But then more came from inside the dark temple. He brought a lamp and found a beetle the size of a car. After some overconfidence and a handful of misses, with a broken arm, badly bruised back and some burns, the whole place was on fire and he was flattened by the collapsing roof that sent him unconscious through a wooden floor to some basement.

He did loot (read request) a rain staff though. Too bad he didn’t wake up until the whole place was already in ruins and embers. But the giant beetle died in the chaos and he got the power back since a promise is a promise. But the goddess asked him to leave immediately and didn’t respond to his prayers again.

I rubbed his failure in even more by describing the huge statue of the goddess crumbling and crashing down on the temple as he flew off the island in the rain. He felt awful the whole time, and I loved it with all of my sadistic parent heart.