Session 371 - BIG SLUG

Date: 2 April

Moon: Waning Gibbous

Zenith: Dispater

New Backstory:

- Divinity pulled off the greatest prank anybody had ever pulled - pretending to be a boy all the way through school until she revealed the truth at her graduation! Once per session, someone completely believes a vaguely plausible lie.
- Randall has a tragic backstory - his parents were devoured by a horrible airborne monster known only as Jonathon Toast. He's on a quest to destroy Jonathon Toast. Once per session, someone you hurt must tell you the truth.

Events:

--- Sydney's New Flatmate
- Sydney, in a mile-wide circle of destroyed plantlife on normally verdant Venus, is sucked into a portal and deposited back where they started - in front of a horrible demonic vulture person!
- Luckily they've spent their time reading through their (very heavy, pure silver) book of demon names, and knows the the vulture demon is called XORTHREMIUTH. This allows them to make binding deals!
- Sydney makes a binding deal with the demon - live in the extradimensional flat, keep it tidy, and obey one request per month. Unfortunately Sydney mispronounces the demon's name (it's "-uth" not "-us") and now the demon has full access to the flat and no bindings. Hurrah!

--- Past the Seal

- The rest of the party have been waiting in the big hall with the living statue of a psychopomp, and it kindly decides not to obliterate Sydney due to the killing of the vampire which the statue so hated.
- They all troop off to the next floor down, passing the Blood Seal that once blocked the exit.

--- Treasure Cave

- At the bottom of the stairs, gems! Loads of them! They're fairly valuable on their own, and have a strange property where they get melty in your hands. Hagan eats one and hey! It heals!
- They explore a little and find a cave full of... flying rats with beetle wings and one long tooth! Hagan declares these to be sloppily reskinned Stirges and tells everyone to run! It's too slow though, and Divinity gets mobbed by a load of rat-stirges which manage to burrow into her leg hard enough to fracture it!
- Sydney wafts in with a Cloudkill and wipes out almost all of the rat beetles! Divinity heals herself up a bit with godly magic and grabs the sack of gems in the middle of the room. Value!

--- Return to the Flat

- Sydney summons the Safe Space and ushers everyone in to heal up after the rat bites.

- Inside is a VERY coked up vulture demon. He got into the cocaine hearts! Sydney's heart falls.
- Divinity makes a deal with the devil (pronouncing the name right and all). The vulture demon agrees to become her new leg, vulture head poking out of the knee.
- Sydney grudgingly cooks dinner.

--- SLUG

- The next day they exit the flat and wander further. They hear voices and - lo! - it's some Halflings! They're gathered around a corpse tied to a stalagmite.

- They're friendly enough though. Randall loots the corpse, then peeks into the next area. There's a HUGE slug with a big green pustule on its face, which pops to spit acid! Also a hole dubbed the New Greasy Tube. The acid damage is no joke - 6d8 damage!
- Randall sprints through the room into another chamber. He's nearly killed by Piercers, but escapes!
- Sydney impresses the Halflings by using a Beam Fire glyph, but when they're distracted the Halflings attack! What a shocker! They leap onto Sydney and Divinity's backs and try to mind wrestle them into submission!
- Worse, the slug teleports! What the hell! It's also branded with the symbol of Terms Termax!
- They attempt to shake off the Halflings. Randall runs for the New Greasy Tube, seeing a bunch of bones in a sort of cool ossuary formation down the passage that the slug came from. He slides down and finds himself in a sort of hotel lobby! A stone Dwarf lady polishes stoneware.
- The others follow, Sydney stopping briefly to Magic Missile the Halflings to death with a snap of the fingers.

--- Friendly Bartender

- When Sydney arrives sweaty and shaking, the others are already at the bar. They're talking to the bartender.
- They discover that the Slug was an experiment in immortality by Terms Termax, that the passages tend to loop back around, and the way down has "Dwimmerdragons" in the way.

- Eris is indeed imprisoned below in THE GOD PRISON. Below that is the "Old City" but the bartender doesn't know much beyond that.
- Sydney wants this room, so casts Stolen Sanctum! It works... but anybody who comes into this room of the flat must fight the bartender first before she'll make you a drink!

Total: 7000 exp

Treasure:

- 18 healing gems (180 exp)
- 3 bloodstones (1500 exp)
- 3 sardonyx (150 exp)
Total: 1830 exp

Kills:

- A couple of "innocent" Halflings. (200 exp)
Total: 200 exp

Exp Total:

- Carter / Sydney, Level 8 Magic-User: 159094 (Level up at 288000)

- George / Hagen the Heretic, Level 6 Dwarf: 47642 (Level up at 64000)

- Ollie / Divinity, Level 6 Battle-Cleric (Fighter 3/ Cleric 3): 46838 (Level up at 72000)

- Tom / Randall the Vampire Slayer, Level 4 Fighter: 11270 (Level up at 16000)
Level Up! +1d8 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 to hit! +1 to crit/fumble! +Backstory!

Session 370 - Vampires, Vultures and Venus

Date: 26 March

Moon: Waning Gibbous

Zenith: Oberon

New Characters:

- Verling Dingo the Venerable, a wizard so old (486 years old in fact) that he forgot all his experience. His familiar, a vulture, circled ominously overhead. He wielded a stuffed cat.

Events:

--- Loot the Room!

- After last session's late-run battle against the vampire babes, we return to Divinity and Sydney in the grand curtain-lined hall in the depths of Dwimmermount. Kill the boss vampire and they can get past the Blood Seal to the lower level.
- Arriving in the room, out of breath, is a stranger! This is Verling Dingo, a wizened old wizard, come to join the party after hearing of their heroic deeds.
- Conveniently for Verling, the treasure from last time is unlooted!
- The others throw aside the curtains and stake the hearts of the vampire babes as they recover in their coffins. Beneath each is a blade.
- One, shaped like a rat's head, is the Ratman's Edge. The other, formed of pitted steel, is the Sword of Ages. Both are claimed!
- In the vampire lord's coffin is... a body! It resists staking because on closer inspection it's a hollow statue made of sapphire. It also has breathing holes in the nose (Verling stuffs them with stuffed cat fur) and behind it in the wall is a grille - the vampire must have escaped again!

- Sydney summons the Safe Space and loads it up with loot - coffins, big red curtains, sapphire statue. They all rest, despite knowing this means the vampire will probably have respawned by morning.

--- Divinity Divines the Way

- In the morning Sydney goes to their Red Elf Heart collection and scarfs one down to enable another round of rebirth. The hearts are also made of pure cocaine, so Sydney is alert and AMPED!
- They head around the hall, hoping to find wherever the grille leads. They warn Verling that the statues around here can and will laser Chaotic beings such as they. Divinity, Lawful by aura, heads to the empyreal God to re-up her blessing and ask some questions.
- It seems that the only way to easily permanently kill the vampire is to bring it into this room. The psychopomp's sheer Lawful aura will turn it to ash!
- The God grants Divinity its anti-undead aura again, and reminds her that it can restore level drain once a week in case the vampire does bite her.

--- Verling the Venerable's Vivisection

- Divinity rejoins the party to see Sydney with massive pupils babbling about a business venture. Verling takes the lead into the next room for some reason.
- It's a guardhouse. There are cells (one of which contains a Halfling) and several zombies, naked other than roman helmets, sitting around the place. Two are behind a counter, another two are staring at cards like they were playing a card game.
- The zombies suddenly look up, eyes flashing red! They speak and demand to know who goes there!
- The Halfling in the cell introduces herself as Merry Proudfoot and says she's hiding from them in the cell. They've eaten brains and are now Ravenous, which means they've got about ten minutes to eat another brain if they want to retain consciousness.
- Verling turns back to the zombies and THEY'RE ON HIM! His throat is torn out instantly, and as the vital lifeblood of his 486 year old body pours onto the floor he feels claws start to prise his head open.
- His vulture familiar erupts into its original demon form! It's a horrible floating squid, spores glisten from its rubbery pores! The zombies let go of the corpse and face this new foe!
- Divinity charges in with her great-axe to avenge the old man, while Sydney casts Magic Missile and... something goes wrong. The spell goes awry! The magic slips out of their grip and everything they own turns to pure silver! Sydney cannot move easily, the thick silver foil of their robes limiting mobility.

- Divinity fumbles against a zombie, sending her axe spinning away across the floor. She unsheathes the Sword of Ages... what does it even do? She tries it out and discovers it does more damage the older they are, and these zombies are very old indeed! Zombies fall to the Sword of Ages.

--- Brief Thief

- But what's this? Another new character so soon? Jumping from under the covers in a seemingly empty cell, a "generic Thief" type jumps forth! He charges into a zombie, sending both flying behind the counter, barely avoiding a ballista bolt fired from Sydney's Sudden Siege Engine!
- The ballista bursts the squid demon and one of the zombies, thudding into the wall behind.
- The final zombie cracks open the Thief's head, devours the brain, and absconds. Battle over!

--- Vultures, Vampires, and Venus

- Rolling out from under the counter where he'd been hiding is another new character! His name is Randall and Merry the Halfling informs him that they were part of the same party. He doesn't remember this, but he does have a sore spot on the back of his neck so maybe she's telling the truth?
- He also believes this to be a "level 2 dungeon" whatever that means, since he can't remember past the entrance.
- In any case, Merry Proudfoot joins the party too.
- They all head out into the corridor and hey! It's the other end of the grille! They peek round a corner and see the zombie that just absconded talking to a giant vulture monster that can only say "SCREEAWWW".
- Sydney Siege Engines them, and the ballista hits the pillar behind them... revealing that the pillar is hollow! Within is a coffin standing sarcophagus-style! The bolt bumps against the coffin but doesn't go through.
- More fast zombies are in there too, and they swiftly run away.
- The Vulture Demon flies at them, and the zombies who ran away were actually flanking! They burst in from another direction, and Sydney unleashes another Siege Engine... but the spell goes awry again! There is a flash of green and a whiff of vegetation and... Sydney is gone.

--- Elsewhere

- Sydney emerges in a strange alien forest, under a strange alien sky. A weird reticulated plant creature approaches and threatens. It says that this is Venus, and they kill all intruders.
- Sydney grins. Finally, a use for the spell they swore they could never use. The spell that kills all natural plantlife within a mile. Sydney waves their arms and casts the Blight.

--- Desperate Slayer

- It's Divinity and Randall against the world. Fast zombies from one side, barely fended off by Divinity. A vulture demon from the other, striking with beak and claws and razor wings.
- The vulture demon forces them to boast or suffer the consequences! Divinity resists at first, then acquiesces. Her pride sustains the monster. She swipes at it with a Smite, but it dodges back! Its counterattack fails, though, and it stumbles to the ground!
- Randall runs past as zombies rake at Divinity, sprinting straight for the ballista bolt that is inches from the vampire's coffin!
- He jumps, feet coming together to land a perfect spear-kick on the ballista bolt!
- It thuds home, cracking straight through the coffin and into the vampire's heart! There is a great scream, and a distant detonation!
- Divinity hears this and makes a fighting retreat, joining Randall on his sprint away from the zombies and the demon. They skid through the guardroom, past Merry who has now re-locked herself in the prison cell, and collapse into the safety of the Empyreal God's room!
- He feels the vampires death and thanks them profusely. Finally, his most annoying enemy has been defeated! He thanks Randall specifically - naming him Randall the Vampire Slayer.

--- Soon...?

- Sydney is surrounded by brown and withered vegetation. The alien stars burn bright. A portal reopens behind them, back to the lair of the vulture demon.
- Sydney believes that Venus is about a mile across. The planet must be dead. They turn to the portal, grin, and leave to a different fate.

Total: 9000 exp

Treasures Looted:
- Sapphire Statue (10 000 exp)
- 1000 copper coins (100 exp)
- Sword of Ages
- Ratman's Edge

Total: 10100 exp

Enemies Defeated:
- Several ravenous zombies (100 exp)

- A vampire lord (finished off)

- The planet Venus (?)

Total: 100 exp

Exp Totals:

- Carter / Sydney, Level 8 Magic-User: 154107 (Level up at 288000)

- Ollie / Divinity, Level 6 Battle-Cleric: 41951 (Level up at 72000)

Level Up! +1d6 HP! +1d6 Healing Pool! +1 Min Faith! +1 to Saves! +Backstory!

- Tom / Randall the Vampire Slayer, Level 3 Fighter: 6383 (Level up at 8000)
Level Up! +1d8 HP! +1 to hit! +1 to crit/fumble! +1 to Saves! +Backstory!
Level Up! +1d8 HP! +1 to hit! +1 to crit/fumble! +1 to Saves! +Backstory!