Our intrepid group consists of two rogues: Emmriel, who specializes in picking pockets and stealing hats; and Phynix, who wields a Rod of Wonders to hilarious effect. The monk, Pois, is best described as an accidental tactician. Heron is the charismatic dragon disciple and also the only male of the entire group. Kitty is an unfettered Litorian; for those who don't know the Cookbook, that's a fancy way of saying "giant cat-person fighter-rogue."

Our campaign recently got a new dungeon master, who had a reputation for being extremely tough on PCs. He discovered quite early on that we had power-gamed our characters pretty fantastically. And since our party had been together for so long, we had become extremely well-balanced and cohesive, a quintet of adventurers rightly feared across the face of the land known collectively as "Heron's Harem," for the composition of one guy and four girls, who had been chased out of and declared outlaw in nearly every city they visited. Well, the ones left standing that is.

Our DM became frustrated because for each new twist he threw at us, as at least one character could nonchalantly annihilate or answer to whatever it was. And so, it came that our little group was in an inn when we were approached by a brave but ugly dwarven fellow. He offered us adventure and we snapped it up like candy.

Our adventure led us to an ancient desert city. The high columns were guarded by a huge stone statue that would attack any would-be plunderers such as ourselves. Our DM was a little surprised when we easily destroyed it three turns. That's right; turns, not rounds. So, the DM upped the ante and threw a Huge version of the same creature which was also summarily destroyed. Finally, he sent the Colossal-ranked stone monster at us, but it was hardly a match.

After breaking the stone guardians, we made our way deep inside the city where we encountered a door which led to another plane.

Upon entering the plane, we discovered that our gamemaster had shrewdly filled it with incorporeal shadows capable of touch attacks that did no real damage except to drain us of our strength and energy. We were completely caught off guard. Not a one of us had a single weapon with the ghost touch or an ability to damage said incorporeal creatures. Unable to compete with the weak, but tricky, creatures we were forced to leave, only to return two days later with shiny new weapons and 8000 g each lighter.

By this time, our DM had had it with us. He realized he couldn't beat us with sheer numbers; he couldn't even make us bat an eyelash, really, and he hadn't spent the time preparing intricate strategies that could prove to be a challenge. As you can imagine, this thoroughly pissed him off. When we opened the door to the other plane, our DM informed us that the sleeping Tarrasque lay just inside.

We quickly and quietly closed the door.

Two of us, Emmriel and Kitty, happened to be carrying Bags of Holding. When they crossed the barrier between dimensions, these objects caused a rift to be opened to the Astral Plane. The monk Pois usually served as a scout because of her high movement rate and was the only one who was not pulled into the Astral Plane because she was too far ahead. You can imagine her surprise when she looked back: no companions, only glowing swirling rifts. Lucky for the other members of the group, Pois had a magic item that allowed her to move freely about between the Astral and normal planes and was able to pull everyone back.