Jones

During Under the Bus, Jones played Malachi.

Jones's play as Malachi produced a recurring combination of impatience, stubbornness, and practical solutions—sometimes with unintended consequences.

Campaign Anecdotes

Just Tie Up the Horse First

During the battle against Deskin, Malachi came riding furiously toward the tavern where the fighting was taking place.

Upon arriving, however, Jones calmly had Malachi dismount and tie his horse to the hitching post before joining the battle.

Even in the middle of an emergency, apparently there was no reason to leave a horse improperly secured.

Paying to Make the Bureaucracy Go Away

When the party first arrived in Toreon, they encountered an enormous amount of bureaucracy: registration, fees, weapon peacebonding, housing arrangements, library expenses, and other administrative requirements.

Jones responded by paying for most of it.

Although Noel contributed significantly toward the party's rent, Malachi covered most of the other expenses, including buying everyone year-long passes to the library and renting a private research room for the year.

Jones's motivation was not entirely generosity. He wanted to get through all of the bureaucracy as quickly as possible so the party could finally get back to some action.

As the contemporary campaign recap observed:

"alas, it did not work."

The Healing Fight

During the pursuit of the werewolves, TJ and Jones—the party's two primary healers—somehow ended up separated from everyone else and engaged in what the contemporary recap described as a "healing fight."

Thus, while the rest of the party was fighting the actual enemy, both of their healers were off by themselves healing each other and leaving everyone else to fend for themselves.

The surviving recap does not provide enough detail to reconstruct exactly how the situation developed, but it was memorable enough to be included among the battle highlights.

Everyone Please Shut Up About Mounted Cover

During the same battle, Ray, Noel, Nate, TJ, and Rob became embroiled in an extensive rules argument about how using a Ride check to take cover while mounted actually worked.

Jones wasn't participating in the argument.

It was simply driving him nuts.

The argument eventually ended when Ray convinced Rob that Ray's interpretation of the rule was correct—only for Ray to immediately announce that the rule was broken and he didn't want it to work that way after all.

Losing His Paladin Abilities

During the massive werewolf assault on the Tower of Plinth, several of Nate's followers were wounded and unconscious. This led to a heated argument between Nate and Jones. Nate wanted Jones to heal two followers who were dying, while Jones argued that he did not have enough healing available to keep healing everyone.

Eventually Noel yelled at everyone to shut up, and Jones grudgingly healed one of the followers.

Shortly afterward, Malachi saw an opportunity to use Sound Burst against a large group of attackers. To catch the maximum number of enemies, however, the spell would also have to hit one of The Chosen and one of Nate's followers, potentially stunning them and leaving them defenseless against the werewolves.

Rob warned Jones that Malachi, as a paladin, would not deliberately harm his own allies that way and that doing so would violate his paladin code.

Jones's emotions were still running high from the earlier argument. He said that he was sick of people telling him how to run his character, argued that using the spell was for the greater good, and cast it anyway.

As a result, Malachi lost his paladin abilities.

He later sought an Atonement from Dew Gooder. Dew required Malachi to swear that from then on he would protect those less capable of defending themselves before protecting himself. Malachi agreed, and Dew performed the Atonement that restored his paladin status.

Free Antitoxin

After the party killed the enormous wyvern that had killed Beldin's mother, both Bo and Malachi had been poisoned twice.

The party had been given antitoxins specifically to help against the creature's poison.

Ray eventually drank his.

Jones decided to be "tough" and refused to use his.

Malachi would have failed his secondary poison saves if Ray had not succeeded on his Heal checks to treat the poison.

Jones considered this a success.

After all, he now had a free antitoxin for later.

Jones vs. Locks

Jones occasionally favored a direct approach to obstacles.

While exploring the ancient library in Aegea, the party discovered a locked door next to a suspicious thousand-pound brass statue. Everyone suspected something was wrong with the statue.

Jones tried moving it.

The statue promptly began moving on its own because it was actually a Brass Golem and attacked the party.

After the party survived the resulting fight, the original problem remained: the door was still locked.

Malachi solved that problem by attacking the lock with his sword until it broke.

Much later, while trapped inside a dead-magic church with Cain's vampires outside, the party discovered a wooden box with a cross-shaped lock but once again had no rogue available.

Jones smashed that one open too.

Skeptical of Divination

When the party was struggling to determine where they could find The Aegisstaff, someone suggested using divine magic to seek guidance.

Jones was reluctant. Based on experiences in previous campaigns, he believed spells such as Divination generally didn't provide useful information.

The party eventually convinced him to try.

Malachi cast Divination and asked how the party could best find and acquire the Aegisstaff.

Demmazon's answer directed them toward the End of the World, providing the party with the lead that drove the next major stage of the campaign.

Favoritism

After leaving The Chosen, Bo and Malachi were eventually offered the opportunity to work for the organization as paid mercenaries.

There was, however, one indignity.

Actual members of the Chosen received a 10% discount when purchasing equipment through the organization. Former members working as mercenaries did not.

Ray wasn't bothered. In fact, Bo subsequently donated his entire share of the party's treasure back to the Chosen.

Jones had a different reaction.

Malachi regarded the "favoritism" represented by the members-only discount as further evidence that leaving the organization had been the right decision.

Campaign Impact

Jones's eventual move to Duluth was one of the real-world factors that contributed to the end of the Under the Bus campaign.

His relocation made maintaining the existing gaming group and regular sessions more difficult and was part of the circumstances that caused the campaign to peter out before its intended conclusion was fully played.

Unverified anecdote: One of Jones's characters apparently had a habit of drinking acid in an attempt to build up an acid tolerance or immunity. It never really worked. The surviving campaign reports do not establish which Jones character this was.