Session 376 - Prime Rump

Date: 18 June

Moon: Waxing Gibbous
Zenith: Minerva

New Backstory:

- Rudolphus von Blitzenstrick fought a bully at university by the name of Heinrich von Poopenheimer. To everyone's surprise, Rudolphus won! +2 to hit vs higher level enemies

Events:

--- The Importance of Maps

- Our heroes are once more in the depths of Dwimmermount, after a near-miss last week where they were nearly locked forever in Sydney's extradimensional apartment.

- It's a familiar area, and thankfully Sydney has been keeping very good maps! It's the Azoth Cave level, and they've luckily dropped back in (courtesy of some shenanigans with Gifflewim and a teleport bead) right near the way down to the prison level.

- Sydney is on it! They guide the team round the corner, through the cavern with the sobbing cavewomen (and one very tired caveman) and to the heretofore unexplored stairs up to the Manufactory.

--- Gimik the Mimic

- The ascend the stairs and come to an entry chamber. The floor has a circuitboard pattern carved into it, running with silver.
- There are two statues flanking the door on the other side - one a human woman, one a double-wide Terran woman. Also, in the middle of the chamber, a treasure chest full of gold!

- Everyone is immediately suspicious, and that suspicion is immediately justified when the chest talks back! It is indeed a Mimic, calling itself Gimik. Grog approaches and when the Mimic tries to attack, he simply sits on it with his callipygian rump!

- Gimic surrenders and agrees to work for gold and "debt tattoos on the blockchain", joining the rearguard of the party under Grog's employ. 

- Rudolphus, meanwhile, attempts to talk to the statues. While clearly animate, they are tight-lipped. Razylymvaer, the dragon-mind that's also encamped within Sydney's head, reckons that they are statues of Babylon Snels before and after being given a Terran body. They probably guard the way down, so entering is fine.

--- Alcoves

- They pass the statues and continue down a long corridor. Regular alcoves contain black plinths with nothing on them, except for a pair that show a before-and-after of Terms Termax as first a cool wizard, and then a head in a jar on a roboskeleton body.

- They listen at doors, but eventually decide to follow the lines of circuitry towards the north.

--- Dust Dwarf!

- They open the door to find a circular room with a sagging muddy Dwarf-shaped creature turning towards them. Rudolphus approaches to talk to it, and gets punched in the mouth! It tries to reach down his throat!
- Sydney surmises that this is a Dwarf without the gems that give it shape, and lobs a gem towards it. The soil-dwarf snatches it out of the air and is granted a rudimentary voice! It declares that it NEEDS MORE GEMS!
- Aximander cracks the air with a Beam Fire rune overhead, and it punches Rudolphus straight in the groin! He doubles over, and just then Grog feels a sticky tentacle at his back! It's Gimik the Mimic, apologising for its nature while also trying to devour Grog from behind! "He's eating my aaasss!" shrieks Grog!

- It's a two-front fight now, dusty Dwarf monster from the front, Mimic from the back, the party trapped between!
- The Mimic overwhelms Grog and he's down too! He shrieks, flailing at the sticky mimic tentacles, and is badly burned by the acid!

- Sydney tries to lure away the Dwarf monster with gems, and when that fails they try a Magic Missile... which goes awry! Instead of killing the earth Dwarf it sucks a whole bunch of its earthy body towards Sydney, making Sydney grow far taller and making the Dwarf far smaller!
- Divinity's magic weapon is dealing big hits to the earth Dwarf, while others' attacks do little.

- Grog's skin begins to melt. He has deep tissue burns across his whole body, the mimic is digesting him alive!
- Hagan drinks a potion, hoping for something cool. He is filled with hope! Seeing Grog in trouble he does the most obvious thing... try to tempt it over to him with his dumptruck ass! Divinity assists, using her Unbuckling Sceptre to make Hagan's trousers fall down!

- It's too much for the buttock-obsessed mimic, who immediately leaves the (burned, bleeding, near-death) Grog and pounces towards Hagan's prime rump!

- Sydney tries another Magic Missile but this chaos bursts too... to great effect! The power of the Missile is doubled! The ensmallified Earth Dwarf is annihilated in a storm of dirt-enhanced shards formed from its former clay-flesh!

- Rudolphus staggers to his feet, looks Gimik the Mimic dead in the gem-eye, and says "I'm going to make a withdrawal". He strikes hard, and the Mimic collapses into melty looking treasure chest.

--- Grog Feasts

- Grog himself has collapsed into the pile of fleshy muddy ooze that makes up the true form of an Inheritor. Only his massive forehead protrudes from the mire. 
- They dump the Mimic's body onto Grog, who immediately begins to consume it. He heals, of course, but also absorbs a new ability - the Mimic's stickiness! He can now Wrestle like a Mimic, and has a constant sticky film all over his whole body.

- While they wait for the demonic digestion to finish, they poke around the room a bit. Lo and behold, a hidden hatch! They peer beneath and hear voices. One is wheedling, the other is laughing.

--- Dark Bargain

- They follow the voices and come to another room, this containing a big circular summoning circle containing a huge red demon! Before the demon is a wizard in circuitboard-design robes. Even his skin seems to have a circuitboard pattern beginning to form...
- The party approach civilly, with Rudolpho as the face. The wizard is called Roland McDoland and he seeks the demon's help to get to the Great Machine on this dungeon level. The demon, Draunanon, is driving a hard bargain for this. He himself wants to stay on this plane rather than getting dragged back into the Chaos realm.
- Deals are made. The party will help Roland get to the Great Machine (since they're going anyway). He tells them that he's met these Red Elves and seeks the Great Machine to find a way to shoot down their Red Moon. He also tells them that he's been fleeing crazy metal robo-Dwarfs who protect the Great Machine!
- In a separate deal Draunanon will become new skin for Grog...? In exchange, the demon only asks for a favour to be exacted in the future. At least Grog has skin for now! He's completely red, similar to when Aximander is at full power. Red skin buddies!

--- We Are the Dworg

- With all that under control, they try the only other exit and find a similar hatch upwards. Peeking through, they hear robo-Dwarfs talking in regular English, not a Dwarf language. It transpires that they're doing this in case their bosses are listening.
- As it happens, they're also all facing the other way.

- Too bad, bots! Sydney is here! He Mind Switches with one of the robots! Except Sydney's mind doesn't switch? Oh no, the dragon-mind of Razylymvaer has been swapped in! The robo-mind is in with Sydney now, and extremely confused! It tries to use his body to no avail.

- Dragon-Robot runs away down the corridor, cackling because he is FREEE! The other robots give chase, leaving our heroes alone for now...

Total: 8000 exp

Treasure:

- 50gp (2500 exp)

- 200sp (200 exp)

- Demon skin

Total: 2700 exp

Foes:

- A dusty half-formed Earth-Dwarf (1000 exp)

- Gimik the Mimic (750 exp)

- Several robo-dwarfs. (300 exp)

Total: 2050 exp

Exp Calc:

- Carter / Sydney, Level 8 Magic-User: 197352 (Level up at 288000)

- Kitty / Julian & Aximander, Level 7 Languid Wastrel: 109928 (Level up at 144000)

- George / Hagen the Heretic, Level 7 Dwarf: 85600 (Level up at 128000)

- Ollie / Divinity, Level 6 Battle-Cleric (Fighter 3/ Cleric 3): 57288 (Level up at 72000)

- Charles / Grog Greedy, Level 6 Inheritor: 41470 (Level up at 72000)

- Tim / Rudolphus Von, Level 3 Specialist: 4270 (Level up at 7000)
Level Up! +1d6 HP! +2 Skill Points! +1 to Saves! +Backstory!