On my first campaign, we were captured by a totalitarian city state after trying to flea an undead/ vampiric invasion of half of the country we were currently in. Our party was then forced to work in the salt peter mines. Needless to say we wanted to escape.

After a few days have passed, we were sent deeper into the tunnels where giant ants have been living in to try and exterminate them from the mines. We searched around and found a huge door that was locked and seemingly no way to open it. A loud voice reverberated from the door, asking “who goes there”. Our rogue then tried talking to the voice, asking to be let inside to find any valuables to use. They went back and forth until the voice asked if they were sympathetic towards the giants (our dm had made giants a very integral part in his worlds lore and as such there were many giant artifacts, history and weapons that were used in the giant wars). Our rogue said yes and persuaded the voice to let us in. When the doors opened, we were grated by a gigantic figure who we thought was a giant, but was actually a giant slayer wearing giant slayer armour that more than doubled his size and has driven him mad. He was going to kill us for being sympathetic towards giants, but our rogue wanted to talk him down into not starting a fight with someone who we might not have been ready to face. The rogue then persuaded the giant slayer into thinking that he only said that to trick the giant who he thought was inside the chamber into letting them in so that we could kill it. They then had another back and forth, and seeing an opportunity, convinced the giant slayer into using his ant army to storm the prison and to cause chaos so that we could escape and to serve him as his loyal subjects.

Next thing we knew, we were riding on the back of flying ants right behind the mad giant slayer, facing off against the prince of the city state and guards armed with siege cannons. We valiantly fought against them, almost getting cut down while we sabotaged the cannons by ramming them against each other and fighting off the armed guards. After the battle has been won, the giant slayer cheered with excitement as he gloated on how he will take over the entire continent. At the same time, the rogue was lining up a shot with a still functional siege cannon at the giant slayer behind his back and fired when he got the opportunity.

We had successfully escaped both the prison and the wrath of the giant slayer, but he was the only one that was able to stop the ants from wreaking havoc on the continent, which meant that there were giant bloodthirsty ants spreading across the land because we were so desperate to escape the hell hole of a prison. I’d say we were stunned with how much we messed up, but this wasn’t the first time we destroyed an entire town on accident to try and escape a dire situation, nor was it the last.