Session 225 - Big Smash in Angel Town

Session 225 - Big Smash in Angel Town

Date:
14 years after the End.

September

Characters:
- Andromeda, Level 5 Laddite Cleric / Kitty - Red, Level 5 Fighter / Timothy - Praise-God-For-He-Gave-His-Only-Son-So-That-We-Might-Be-Saved-From-Damnation Snels, Level 5 Snelsman Cleric / George
- Dustin "DJ" Johnson, Level 5 Intergalacticist Cleric / Charles
- Zulu Snakebite, Level 4 Barbarian / Ollie

Character Backstories:
- Zulu: Got into a fight with a bully who was way tougher than her - Andromeda! One thing led to another and a fight erupted, leading to the burning of the pub. At least, that’s how Zulu tells it... +1 to hit a more powerful foe.
- Red: Blames herself for Gatsby’s relatively tragic para-dimensional death - if she hadn’t brought him with her, he might still be alive (or well, “alive”). When your actions result in the death of someone you’ve known for at least 3 sessions, gain +2 to hit for 10 minutes.

Salvage:

- A whole stack of useful angel metal (1000 exp)
Total: 1000 exp

Murder:
- Three walker angels (300 exp)
- Fourteen base angels (700 exp)
- Charlie the Angel (0 exp)
Total: 1000 exp

Dungeon Exploration:
- 1 Wandering Monster group rolled (50 exp)
- Explored 5 dungeon areas (100 exp)
Total: 150 exp

Events:

--- The Resurrection of Charlie
- Inside the brassy interior of the crashed Seraphim, the party checks out their options. They stand in an empty hangar, facing empty angel deployment racks. Red is drawing a face on the deactivated angel in front of her. She has named it Charlie. Zulu is here too with the giant antelope mount she apparently brought in from the African World-State Reality.
- There are two smoothly curved corridors from here. One leads to a repair hall, the other to a damaged communication chamber of some sort. Andromeda checks out the repair area. It’s got a full 20 angels in there, but she also spots a dodecahedron lying among a bunch of smashed up angel metal. The legendary Control Module!
- She casually walks into the room, gets scanned by one of the angels, and when they fail to attack she just strolls over the the Control Module and grabs it! “Good shot marm!” says McCoy, over her shoulder.
- The angels FREAK OUT! McCoy the loader-skeleton is Chaotic, and they hate Chaos! Andromeda grabs the control module, slings McCoy over her shoulder, and bolts! Beams ricochet down the corridor behind her.
- Red rolls Charlie the broken Angel into the repair hall, hiding behind “his” spherical bulk, singing out something about him being in need of repairs. They scan him and arms come down from the ceiling to make the repairs.
- Unfortunately this reveals Red, and the angels begin charging their lasers! She pegs it back to the rest of the party, beams zipping overhead.
- Soon enough a repaired Charlie is returned to the rack by overhead rail, but he can’t be deployed to the wing due to a rail misalignment. Andromeda presents him with the Command Module and he unfolds to accept it! The Module itself unfolds into a seat, and surprisingly intuitive controls allow him to be piloted like a mech!
- Red holds McCoy back while Andromeda pilots Charlie into the repair room and uses him to shunt all the valuable angel-metal from the smashed up control modules to the entrance. That’ll do for now!

- McCoy is sent back to camp with the valuable metal, led by Zulu’s giant antelope. With those two out of the way, only soulless Red is an issue for the Angels!

--- We Need to go Deeper
- There’s still a hope that there’s somewhere in this place that will turn the angels friendly, and to do that the party needs to go deeper! They decide to sneak through the repair room, Red piloting Charlie to use him as cover, everyone else is Lawful (even Zulu the Barbarian).
- It kinda works! The Angels are very confused because they sometimes pick up Red in their scans, but when they re-scan there’s Angel in the way. They huddle in the exit from the room, hiding Red from the scans, until the exit door eventually irises open.
- They hurriedly bundle Red through the door and check out the next chamber. A large hologram floats in the centre of the area depicting the outline of the Seraphim. Twelve orbs float about the outline, one on each of the six wings and six on the main dome. Each corresponds to a wing-petal, and messing with them changes the gravity in that segment. Very cool!
- Best of all, smaller glowing dots within the hologram represent the location of each of the Angels inside the complex. There are 72 in total, and the party’s location in the complex can be ascertained by walking Charlie in figure-eights and finding that particular dot!
- A deep voice sings through the complex when the gravity is fucked with. Those who understand Angelic Binary know that it’s saying “Intruders Detected - Destroy all non-Angels”.
- The party turn to look back into the repair chamber and see the angels charging their beams! Thankfully the door chooses that exact moment to iris closed as the rotating internal layer rotates away.

--- Self-Destruction
- The door opens again a few minutes later, showing a different area. Angels rearrange the plugs on some great machine full of flashing lights and golden cables. They sing in circles, constantly requesting repairs.
- Red saunters in, keeping her head down, and takes Charlie towards a door with a large angel-eye sized iris. The door opens! Too easy!
- The Angels in the main area sing out “Self-Destruct Room opened! Destroy intruders!” and reconfigure into combat mode!
- Red drives Charlie in and the door closes behind her! Inside the room is a long console with two golden keys spaced far apart, each with its own red button labelled “α1” and “α2”. A gold button labelled “Ω” is in the centre beneath a glass shield.
- The door into the room opens, and the angels pile in! Red charges on Charlie, trying to break straight through, but only gets halfway through the mob!
- A tense battle ensues, Red atop Charlie, attacked from all sides by the angel foot soldiers who have all manifested hammer limbs! She parries and counters and thrusts and dodges, world’s greatest duelist!

- The beam cannons of the higher-tier angels sizzle through the air, targeting Red amongst their lesser brethren. They don’t care about firing into melee - their beams will just bounce off their minions.
- She parries a blow badly and falls back against Charlie’s console, stasis beams fizzing around her, and takes a solid blow from an angel’s hammer. Her armour is bashed and scraped, it’s just a matter of time until she’s overwhelmed…
- Charlie sees her plight and in a feat of backstory bullshit he lifts a hand and smacks his own self-destruct button! Red is ejected from his back, the explosion sending her flying up through a convenient vent and away from certain doom!

--- A Visitation
- In the gravity hologram chamber, the party watch Red walk into the next room, look around, and… suddenly the door between them hisses shut! Red’s trapped!
- They look at the map and see that the ship’s internal layers are rotating past each other. This is going to be very tricky to map.
- There’s no time to worry - singing from another exit portends the arrival of two standard-model spherical angel on the hunt for intruders! Damnation Snels walks to stand before them, telling them there’s nothing to worry about here officers, and they attack him!
- They slap at him with their ordinary non-weapon hands - without a second-tier angel to command them they don’t bother to change to effective weaponry. He stumbles back under the onslaught!
- Zulu unslings her beam rifle and lances a shot downrange towards the angels. It bounces off - they’re immune to their own beams! Not well impressed with modern tech, Zulu lobs her spear instead and deals a direct hit!
- DJ flubs a bowshot and Andromeda rushes in with her electrified rune-hammer, smacking one and denting its armoured shell! There is an explosion of lightning before contact with the Angel deactivates the glyph, but her followup strike smashes it to pieces anyway!
- Snels strides in with a close-combat pistol shot, supported by DJ’s giant ball-peen hammer-bong which ends up panel-beating the dents out of the angel’s shell.

- Zulu dives at the angel with the power and agility of a jungle cat, trips, and falls into it sending both sprawling! Andromeda, mildly amused, smashes the shit out of the surviving angel with her hammer. Too easy!
- With the angels easily executed, the party is surprised when Red falls out of a vent and rolls to a stop in front of the gravity hologram. She’s back! And bruised! Dustin Johnson immediately touches her arse and heals her back up.

---Just Fucking Die!
- The door opens again and it’s the server room Red was just in! The rotation reversed! Red, now fully healed despite her notched rapier, charges in and begins parrying and counter-attacking her way through the room, carving a path through the angels!
- Already damaged by her previous combat prowess and the explosion of Charlie, Red carves through a bunch of angels before they know what hit them! The armour-piercing beams of the walker angels sear through the air and force her back, only sheer luck saving her from an early grave.
-  It’s down to two walkers now. DJ calls on the powers of Galaxy Johnson and a pale light shines down on one of the angels, abducting it into the air! On the ground, Andromeda swings in at the remaining walker and staggers it while poorly aimed beams from the angel above sizzle through the air.
- Red and Zulu pile onto the walker angel to support Andromeda, leaping off her back and sliding around her legs to destroy it in a mighty team combo!
- DJ cancels Abduct, hoping to destroy the angel with fall damage, but it engages wing thrusters just before it hits the ground. It tries to boost away, but Andromeda’s got it with her whip! She yanks the whip back and shears a wing off, grounding it.
- Though wounded, it’s still dangerous. It fires a beam at DJ the abductor and nearly gets him in the head. Red, Zulu and DJ charge! DJ whangs it with his ball-peen to little effect, Red does a cool double-attack combo move and Zulu… falls into this angel too.
- The Angel and Zulu are scrabbling around on the ground, struggling to get up. Andromeda and Snels miss with hammer and gun as they try to hit it without hitting their friend. The thing scrabbles and rolls and shoots and nobody can fucking hit it!
- Its surviving beam cannon takes off a chunk of Red’s hair as she rolls under the confused melee and stabs it right in the eye! Finally, begrudgingly, the angel succumbs to the damage.

--- Power Ball

- Since they already know there’s a self-destruct mechanism behind the retina-scan door, they try to other way. There’s a large chamber with a massive plasma ball in the centre of it, thick brassy cables leading into the server hall.
- They go back to towards the gravity chamber and… it’s gone! The complex has rotated again! A walker and four base angels are approaching from an unfamiliar area. They see the destroyed angels and go into assault mode!
- DJ raises his bong-peen hammer to his mouth and breathes in, holds it, then blows it out in a huge vape cloud. The angels stand down, their massive central eye gets bloodshot, and they begin analysing their hands.

- DJ douses them in “friendship oil”, a classic move, arguing that since they’re robots they should love oil. When the chill-mist dissipates he lights up the oil and the party legs it for the plasma ball room!
- The angels scream in confusion and roll into the main chamber at speed, stop-drop-and-rolling to put out the fire! They sing in confusion, unsure of what happened.
- There is a crack of gunfire and one of the base angels is destroyed as the musket-shot smashes through its eye and pings around inside it! Red ducks back into cover as return fire fizzes past.
- The base angel engage hammer-limbs and the deep voice sings out - “activate counter-sniper mode”. The lights of the complex dim into darkness, while the room the party’s in remains lit by the plasma ball.
- Andromeda suspects trickery. She lights up a blunt and takes a deeeep drag. Feels good. She peeks out around the wall and sees… nothing. It’s regular darkness! She barely dodges the beams

--- Fish in a Barrel
- There are certainly sounds of angels moving about out there, singing quietly to each other. DJ puts his filter-mask helmet on a stick and pokes it out from behind the wall. Beams blast straight into it!
- Andromeda flicks her whip out and waggles it around to draw fire while DJ smashes an oil flask in the entrance then back-hands an oil bomb into the server chamber. They’ll try to bottleneck them here.
- Beams lance out from the darkness but fail to hit the thrown bomb, and a pool of fire splashes into existence! Unfortunately the beams seem to have cracked the glass of the plasma ball. Energy crackles around the cracks.
- Bottleneck plan seems like a bad plan now! Zulu quickly decides she doesn’t want to be anywhere near that if it explodes! She chucks her fancy cloak onto the unlit oil to prevent slipping, then pelts out of the corridor before the beam angel can recharge!
- WHANG! The two base angels hiding on either side of the doorway smack her with hammers! She staggers back as DJ and Red slide past, parrying away the opportunity attacks.
- Andromeda’s last out. She grabs the oil-soaked cloak from the ground and slaps it over one of the angels,  then flicks her blunt at it and should have said “420 blaze it” but we somehow missed that good good one liner!

- The angel bursts into flames! The other tries to smack Andromeda but stumbles, then pursues. DJ runs into the darkness to flush out the sniper angel which keeps firing and displacing. He feels something whoosh overhead as he runs - he dodged an attack!
- Andromeda and Zulu finish off the other base angel as DJ lights his lantern in the darkness on the other side of the chamber - there are two left! The beam angel and a last base one!
- Red sprints over and slides in front of DJ to protect him! They both dodge under beam-fire from the walker angel… and the beam lances straight through the door to the plasma ball! The glass cracks and there’s a rising whine as something begins to overload!
- Zulu throws her bedroll down over the fiery oilslick over the exit, determined to Walter Raleigh the party out of here before the plasma ball explodes. Andromeda rushes to the others and helps them finish off the last base angel - it’s time to go!
- They flee for the exit, beams scything overhead as the walker angel fails to get a target lock, and dive through just in time! The plasma ball detonates, filling the server room with arcs of fizzing fingers of energy! The remaining walker angel explodes!

- In an unfamiliar corridor intersection, in an unfamiliar segment of an unfamiliar angel complex, the party decide where to go next. At the very least they know there are only fifty-four more angels in this place...
Total: 2650 exp

Team Bonus:
- Aggressive Negotiations bonus
- Balls to the Wall bonus
- Better Part of Valour bonus
- Brutal Kill bonus
- Classic Charles bonus
- Dramatic Battle bonus
- Dramatic Escape bonus
- Henchman Abuse bonus
- Heresy bonus
- High as Fuck bonus
- I Immediately Regret This Decision bonus
- Kill It With Fire bonus
- Leave a Man Behind bonus
- Master of Disguise bonus
- Michael Bay bonus
- Pundemonium bonus
- Ridiculously Bad Rolling bonus
- Split the Party bonus
Total: 900 exp

Individual Bonus:
- Chronicler (Kitty / Andromeda - 100 exp)
- Expedition Leader (George / Damnation Snels - 100 exp)
- Cartographer (Kitty / Andromeda - 100 exp)
- Paymaster (Timothy / Red - 100 exp)
- Quartermaster (Ollie / Zulu - 100 exp)
- Vanguard (George / Damnation Snels - 100 exp)
- Triage (Timothy / Red - 100 exp)
- Chef (Ollie / Zulu - 100 exp)
- Art Attack bonus (Tim, Ollie - 100 exp ea.)
- Attacco d’Arte bonus (Tim , Ollie - 100 exp)
- Hummous Hero bonus (Ollie*2 - 100 exp ea.)
- JÜGBRINGYR bonus (Tim, Charles - 500 exp ea.)

Exp Totals:

- Kitty / Andromeda, Level 5 Laddite Cleric: 22370 (Level up at 28000)

- Timothy / Red, Level 5 Fighter: 18370 (Level up at 32000) - George / Praise-God-For-He-Gave-His-Only-Son-So-That-We-Might-Be-Saved-From-Damnation Snels, Level 5 Snelsman Cleric: 18070 (Level up at 28000) - Charles / Dustin Johnson, Level 4 Intergalacticist Cleric: 13625 (Level up at 14000) - Ollie / Zulu Snakebite, Level 4 Barbarian: 12566 (Level up at 16000)

Session 224 - Coming Out of the Shell

The first trip outside the Shell! The team travels through the grey mists and persistent rain of the post-apocalyptic Autumn, brushing off a couple of ambushes from a few tasty scavengers, and finds their way through to the crashed Seraphim.

We also try some new Rebuild mechanics and I think they're working pretty good! Yay!

Andromeda gets grabbed by a crab. Private Barrett leads from the rear. Damnation Snels executes a Styxian. Red tries her hand at programming. DJ tries to sneak some man-meat. Grumpy becomes the team cook.

Timothy supplies the first Spider Papal Bull of the new world. It seems somehow directed at a specific sibling of theirs...

Spider Papal Bull of the Year Of Our LAD 14: Thou shalt move out and not live on thy Brother's Couch Thou shalt not go on month long benders with thy idiot friends Thou shalt be more careful with money, thy siblings are not a bank Thou shalt get a real job "Adventurer" is not a real job It is decreed that Dad is a Lawyer, not an "adventurer" Verily the Holy LAD was a humble crossbow mechanic and later a High Priest "World's Greatest Duellist" is not a real job either Neither is "Face-stabbinator" Go forth from this house and annoy someone else for the rest of the day Here endeth the sermon

Carter's response in the recap to the Bull

And here's the current state of New Moondin for any interested.

Next season is Winter - no standard Rebuild effects trigger, so no resources or builders! Basically Winter is about surviving through to Spring. There's enough food to do that, so all good!

Session 224 - Coming Out of the Shell

Date:
14 years after the End.

September

Characters:

Character Backstories:
- Barrett: During the fall of the Witch Pirate’s fleet, Barrett was caught in an ambush from the Loegrian Navy and commanded the counterattack. +2 to party’s first round initiative when you’re at the back of the marching order.
- Damnation Snels: The Lord found Snels in a tale reminiscent of Jonah involving a non-euclidean whale. Double first fleeing roll after failing a Stealth check.
- Grumpy: When he first left his Dwarven arcology, Grumpy had one last kiss from his forbidden love. When you first kiss a willing person, gain +1 HP/level for the rest of the session.

Salvage:
- 18 obols in tattoos and trinkets (18 exp)
- 37 steaming lumps of cooked stoneshell crab (37 exp)
- 6 arquebuses with shot and powder (360 exp)
- At least 1 rationsworth of human flesh??? (? exp)
- Misc angel metal (100 exp)
Total: 515 exp

Murder:
- 6 filthy scavengers (30 exp)
- 6 stoneshell crabs (150 exp)
Total: 180 exp

Overland Exploration:
- Explored the overworld (100 exp)
- 2 random encounters (100 exp)
- First party to climb the High Hill (100 exp)
- First party to glimpse Battlefortress Fate (500 exp)
- First party to travel beyond the Shell (500 exp)

Total: 1300 exp

Dungeon Exploration:
- First party to enter the Crashed Seraphim (400 exp)
- 1 Wandering Monster group rolled (50 exp)
- Explored 3 dungeon areas (60 exp)
Total: 510 exp

Events:

--- Rebuild Phase: Summer
- We open with the shiny new Rebuild Phase mechanics, with a new focus on building up settlements! New Moondin has some unique stuff, but it basically hinges on building Farms and Commercial areas.
- Summer brings quick-build buildings, so farms are swiftly built to put New Moondin’s surplus population to work! Unemployment is at an all time low!

--- Rebuild Phase: Autumn
- Autumn brings bumper harvests before the winter! Enough surplus is stored to feed the population over the coming months, and the excess is put towards more Farms. New Moondin will be thriving in the new year!

--- Pre-Expedition: Planning the First Trip Out of the Shell

- The party stocks up for a trip out to the crashed Seraphim - an angel dropship - just outside the Shell. Thankfully DJ finds Andromeda’s stuff amongst the wreckage of the Hot Box. Hurrah!
- Tents are checked over for damage and surplus food is purchased - the town’s new farms have increased the available ingredients - bread, beans, potato, turnips and something called Low Truffle. A bunch of them are purchased for the trip.
- The plan - take the road to the Saviourbone Mine, head up the High Hill and try to see where the crashed angel dropship is exactly, then head for the dropship itself. Sounds easy enough!

--- Expedition Day 1: A Grey Autumn
- It’s the first of September when the group sets off in the direction of the Saviourbone Mine. The world is cloaked in a melancholy mist, softening edges and sapping the spirit.
- The new road to the Mine is easily followed, and after a few hours they are greeted by the priest Arnold Nonymous. His voice has changed in the Autumn… or something.
- He directs them to the High Hill, easily found since it’s only a mile away and looming over the landscape, and they continue on.
- From the top of the hill they can see for miles. The river passing through New Moondin clearly starts among the Gad Cliffs, they can see a lake formed by a dragon footprint to the northwest, and far away to the north they can just about make out Battlefortress Fate!
- More importantly, the crashed Seraphim can be seen a couple of miles to the northeast! It’s quite an easy walk since the hills dip down into flat fields for a bit, so they march off for the edge of the Shell.
- When they’re close enough they decide to set up camp and investigate the angel in the morning. Andromeda and Snels decide to forage the local area while Barrett sets up camp, DJ keeps watch, and Grumpy cooks up a nice meal. How civilised!
- Snels and Andromeda fail to find much food, but they do find some human bootprints leading off through the mist. A rarity in the end times! They decide to follow them.

--- An Ineffective Ambush
- They follow the prints into a copse of scraggly dead trees and see the figure of a man crouching over tying up a shoelace. He hails them as they approach. He’s wearing survival gear similar to New Moondin’s but more raggedy and patched up, a whole different vibe.
- They chat a little, but Snels hears a soft click from the right and turns his head in time to see someone raising a rifle! He dives into Andromeda, knocking them both to the ground, and the figure fires!
- Crack! A sharp report and the man they were just talking to gets hit right in the eye! There is a muffled “Oh shit” from the shooter, and other voices begin yelling, “what the fuck man you shot Sam?!”
- The people begin running, but Andromeda’s blood is up. She sprints after them, trailing her whip, and Snels unholsters his pistols and follows on. They run deeper into the copse, but Andromeda is faster. Her whip flicks out and snags one around the leg, but he trips and rolls and the whip is torn from her grip!

- Snels snaps off a shot with his pistol at another runner who turns and yells, “they’ve got guns too!” and ducks behind a tree, unslinging their arquebus and returning fire.
- Andromeda leaves the whip and rolls into cover, sending a shot from her beam rifle fizzing into that guy’s head. The stasis beam cores out his skull and he slumps twitching against the tree.
- Nearby, DJ and Barrett are sprinting towards the sharp reports of gunfire. Something’s going down!
- Snels pulls the trigger on his second pistol and it misfires! The gun goes flying off to his left. Seeing that he’s weak and needs to reload, he’s attacked by two of the ambushers. He fends them off, moving backwards, as Andromeda lines up another shot.
- Barrett arrives through the mist behind the more distant arquebusiers and takes out the first by kicking his leg out from under him. The gunner falls and brains himself against a rock. DJ takes a more direct route and stabs the fuck out of the other.
- Snels flips his pistols, holding the by the barrels and smashing at his foe’s face and chest with the heavy stocks. The man defends himself with his arms… and his head just fucking explodes. The body slumps to the ground, revealing Andromeda standing behind him with her bloodstained hammer.

- The last survivor on the ground rears up with a roar of anger! She tries to grab Andromeda from behind, but with an easy grab and roll Andromeda has her pinned to the ground by the throat. The fight goes out of her, and she starts sobbing and apologising.
- Damnation Snels calmly reloads his pistol while Andromeda interrogates the hostage and the others arrive to find out what’s been going on here. The hostage says that this band of scavengers has been preying on the general population for a while. They thought they could take two people - apparently they were wrong.
- They’ve been living in a hidden cave close by the Prepper enclave. She can show them the way if-
- Snels blows her brains out. He’d heard enough, and her constant Styxian blasphemies were too much for him to deal with. The others are aghast as he calmly collects his other pistol and walks back to the camp.

--- Expedition Night 1: A Fortifying Meal

- When they arrive back at the camp covered in blood, Grumpy has prepared a nice meal for everyone! He calls it Fruits of the Earth - a sort of hash made from Potato, Beans, and grated Low Truffle. It’s truly superb! The Dinner Perk boosts speed during a chase, which might come in handy later.
- The night itself passes uneventfully as the mists give way to a sustained grey drizzle. Grumpy takes his time on watch to fix Damnation Snels’ broken pistol for him.
- In the darkness of the pre-dawn the party rises to travel towards the Seraphim. They follow Grumpy’s lamplight through the rain and, soon, through the Storm Shell itself.
- There is a feeling of crackling static when they pass through the Shell. The rain comes down harder, and there is a scrabbling sound from nearby.
- Dark shapes are moving in towards them! Grumpy plants his lantern-pole into the mud and takes out his glaive - it sparkles with runes, glowing white hot and hissing in the rain.

- They’re fast, somehow! Huge crabs wearing stone shells, they strike with their pincers to little avail. Andromeda gets nipped and grabbed by one of them and takes another follow-up strike to the belly, grazing her slightly.

- Red slips into a parrying stance with her new parrying dagger while Barrett attempts to evade their notice and dodge around behind them. Snels blasts away with his pistols, bullets bouncing off of their stone shells, and DJ drenches a couple of them with oil.
- Grumpy jumps forth and with a mighty thrust of his white-hot glaive cleaves straight through the stone shell of a crab like butter and cooks it from within! The oil it’s soaked in erupts into flames, and the other crabs flee!
- Red attempts to attack two of them as the flee and gets nipped in return, then gives chase! The crabs remain surprisingly fast though, and they quickly go to ground in the constant rain.
- Conveniently enough the crab Grumpy killed is already cooked! They turn it over, finding that it’s a sort of giant hermit crab in its stone shell, and harvest its delicious crab meat. 40 pre-cooked rations… lovely!
- Red and Andromeda chomp down on a few handfuls to get back up to strength and the rest is packed away neatly. Not a bad breakfast, really!

--- The Crashed Seraphim
- The soft glow of dawn is on the horizon as they reach the crashed angel dropship. When they were spinning overhead they looked something like metal flowers, petal-like arms radiating from a central hemisphere. Now, down here, smashed and dented, the crashed Seraphim looks almost squalid.

- Here and there, angel corpses lie on the bare earth. Brass arms and wings broken reaching out of slick mud. Barrett grabs some angel parts in the hopes he’ll be able to use them for something.
- They enter the Seraphim via a petal. The rails that once held countless angels are mostly empty now, dropped into combat in the end of days. The rails lead to the hub hemisphere and inside to a loading bay.
- The bay is huge, containing a wall rack in the opposite wall that once held more angels. There is only one there now. The floor slopes upwards at a gradient - the angel didn’t land straight-on - but strangely gravity points towards the floor. There is a low hum and a rumbling sound - the power’s still on!
- Red unwisely calls out in angel-song, which she apparently learnt from her dad, and there is a rising whirr of systems coming back online. The angel in the rack starts singing - it’s struggling to turn back on.
- Barrett understands it too, and works out it’s stuck in a boot loop. He climbs up and tinkers with it, somehow power cycling it so it works again. Success! A claw grabs it and tries to take it to the wing outside via rail, but gets stuck.
- Red and Barrett try to talk to the angel and put it in “friendship mode” but it doesn’t work. It’s one thing to know how to read a language, it’s a whole other thing to know how to code! The angel scans them but otherwise does nothing. Red tries touching it and is amazed at how all her money Tattoos disappear - that’s one to watch out for!
- Grumpy tires of this and follows the rails as they curve round to the right. He peeks into another large bay. Sixteen spherical angels are singing back and forth to four second-tier walker angels - the ones with the beam cannons. They’re in a maintenance room where trees of robotic hands await angels to repair.

- Barrett tries the other direction and finds a chamber with a large dead screen and some more angels singing about upgrade requests. They seem confused.
- He tries to sneak through the chamber to the door on the other side, but he’s spotted! The walker angel’s wing-cannons whirr into position and fire! He flees, stasis-fire zipping over his head and bouncing from the walls.
- Red tries to tell the repair room angel that “armour needs replacing” and they prepare to receive a damaged angel… but that’s all.
- Snels has had enough of this foolish experimentation and storms in, crucifix held high! One of the angels scans him, then ignores him. The doorway on the other side of the room whirrs open and three more base-model angels walk in.
- Grumpy walks in too, thinking it safe. He’s scanned by an angel and all the walkers train their cannons on him! He legs it, beams hissing past overhead and ricocheting down the corridor!
- The others in the entrance chamber see Grumpy stomp past on the way back to camp, saying something about how he’ll be making them dinner for when they get back out of the dungeon.

--- Chef Grumpy
To be fair, he does! Using a combination of potato, turnip, and stoneshell crab he cooks up “Neeps in the Deeps”. It’s not great, but he spends enough time on it to make it good! The Dinner Perk is a boost to Saves vs Law, appropriately enough for a meal cooked by someone who just ran out of an Angel!

Total: 2650 exp

Team Bonus:
- Absolutely Disgusting bonus
- Aggressive Negotiations bonus
- Balls to the Wall bonus
- Best of Intentions bonus
- Brutal Kill bonus
- Classic Charles bonus
- Dramatic Battle bonus
- Dramatic Chase bonus
- First Against the Wall bonus
- Holy bonus
- Ludicrous Gore bonus
- Masterchef bonus
- Pundemonium bonus
- Rebuild bonus
- Rumour Investigator bonus
- Tactical Fighting bonus
- War Crime bonus
- What The Fuck Guys bonus
Total: 900 exp

Individual Bonus:
- Chronicler (Carter / Grumpy - 100 exp)
- Expedition Leader (Carter / Grumpy - 100 exp)
- Cartographer (Carter / Grumpy - 100 exp)
- Paymaster (Charles / DJ - 100 exp)
- Quartermaster (Kitty / Andromeda - 100 exp)
- Vanguard (Tom / Barrett - 100 exp)
- Triage (Kitty / Andromeda - 100 exp)
- Chef (George / Snels - 100 exp)
- Art Attack bonus (Tom, Carter, Charles, George - 100 exp ea.)
- Attacco d’Arte bonus (Tom, George - 100 exp)
- Artapalooza bonus (Carter, Charles - 100 exp) - Fiction Fanatic bonus (Timothy - 100 exp) - Chippo Champion bonus (Tom*2, Charles*2 - 100 exp ea.)
- JÜGBRINGYR bonus (Kitty*2 - 500 exp ea.)
--- Juggo Multiplier (Kitty - 500 exp)

Exp Totals:

- Kitty / Andromeda, Level 5 Laddite Cleric: 21030 (Level up at 28000) - Tom / Privateer Barrett, Level 5 Specialist: 18133 (Level up at 24000) - George / Praise-God-For-He-Gave-His-Only-Son-So-That-We-Might-Be-Saved-From-Damnation Snels, Level 5 Snelsman Cleric: 16730 (Level up at 28000) - Timothy / Red, Level 5 Fighter: 16330 (Level up at 32000) Level up: +1d8 HP! +1 to hit! +1 to crit/fumble rolls! +Backstory! - Charles / Dustin Johnson, Level 4 Intergalacticist Cleric: 11985 (Level up at 14000)

- Carter / Granite "Grumpy" Ironjaw, Level 2 Forgelore Dwarf: 3727 (Level up at 4400)