Session 383 - God in the Shell

Date: 20 August

Moon: Full

Zenith: Oberon

New Backstory:

- When Julian was a child he would leave gifts out in the garden for his imaginary friend. His imaginary friend was called... Aximander!

Events:

--- Speaking Seahorse

- Full of porridge and having had a nice sleep in Sydney's increasingly crowded extradimensional apartment, the party emerges back into the fourth floor of Dwimmermount. They've spent several days down here, so the dungeon itself is starting to reject them.

- The first thing they hear is a strange blurbling language... why, that sounds exactly like the Seahorse Language spoken by giant psychic seahorses that live in the seas of Counter-Earth! Which everybody knows somehow! I love it when people talk to enemies so I'm honestly never going to try to justify or fix the Languages skill, it's so funny when this happens.

- Sydney casts Stolen Sanctum to steal the embiggened Warhammer Room from last time, this time successfully grabbing it but also making it really really dry in there. Hopefully it helps with the nerd sweat at least!

- They leave the room and approach the seahorses, which are floating psychically outside a door. The lead seahorse says that there's a black ooze guy in there with a God Part, which they want because it might help them clean the seas of Counter-Earth which turned to pus during the apocalypse.

- Sydney gets a call on his jellyphone. It's the Old Miner! He tells Sydney that the black ooze guy is operating on his orders - he's installed a dead man's switch in the god piece so "nothing can go wrong". He's also angry that they even considered uploading Jonathon Toast into the new god!

--- Aximander's Key

- Meanwhile Aximander has approached the portal to Counter-Earth that these seahorses came through. According to the seahorses, Strongus Amongus has gone in there already and seem to be having some Edgar Rice Burroughs style adventures.
- While the seahorses are distracted by Sydney, Aximander fishes his Goblin Key out of his pack. It's a key that can lock any door, so he uses it on the portal and... k-chunk! The portal seals to a thin ripple in space-time!
- The seahorses panic! They've lost their connection to the seahorse hive mind on the other side of the door! They bobble about in concern, unaware that this was Aximander's doing. It's Sydney's turn to use a distraction, quickly slipping the God Part and the black ooze guy (named Slombus) into the cart.

- The seahorses declare that they will take over the chamber that once housed the Frog Monsters and work on reopening the portal. They can feel that there's one God Piece left, and it's in the hands of the Ratmen and their leader Riskit Al-Biskit!

--- Riskit Al-Biskit

- Hagen declares a grudge against the Ratman leader for the crime of stealing one of the God Parts. This unlocks his Grudge lorebond, allowing him to know the direction and distance to the ratman!

- The party head through the teleport maze and appear nearish to where they wanted to go, then convince some ratmen behind a barricade to bring over Riskit himself.

- While Hagen grudgingly stands nearby being rude, the others impress Riskit by telling him that they've defeated the Frog Monsters! They discover that Julgoor seems to have been visiting these ratmen and selling them drugs, largely notcoke, which is why the Ratmen want to turn this dungeon level into a series of small plates restaurants.

- The ratman chief agrees to give over the last God Part in exchange for giving them free run of this level. With the Frog Monsters gone and the leader of the unicorn men stuck on the other side of the portal to counter-earth, there's a power vacuum and business opportunity for go-getting coke-fueled entrepeneurs!!

- Hagen rolls the God part into the Safe Space, forgiving the Grudge. Slombus the black ooze guy goops out of the cart and rolls his piece in there too.

- Sydney spots a kitchen selling Antarctican cuisine and sorely wants to add it to his Safe Space, but is dissuaded by the rats themselves who prefer staying in the dungeon actually.

--- Alaunus 0.4_final_FINAL_this one_FINAL

- The ratmen grant the party passage out, seeing as they're pretty much allies now.

- On the way they spot a room with hookah-smoking ratmen and a statue of Alaunus - God of Loyalty and Fervour - which the smoking ratmen insist can talk!
- Hagen approaches and discovers that it's an older and more limited version of Alaunus. He confirms that his code-base is based on the Old Miner, and it transpires that he only said that because Hagen's links to his God have given him higher privileges somehow. The statue insults the Old Miner, and Hagen destroys the statue! There is a throbbing brain-shaped lump in the base of the statue, but it's built in.

--- Elevator Surprise

- There's one last stop for the final God Piece before they head up the elevator to the launch level - Vespusian's room! Despite his strange and provocative near-nudity, he gives up the God Piece easily in exchange for one of the large sized Gladius pieces - turns out he used to collect Northern Horde!

- They head around to the prison room and get out the final God Parts. Finally! Fetch Quest complete!
- They return to the elevator and see that it's still blackened and crisped. Aximander's previous fire clearance and purge did the trick, plus Sydney's Blight spells would have killed off any survivors.

- They take the lift up to the top floor and angel metal arms unfurl from the ceiling, grabbing god pieces and conveying them onwards. It looks like there was a lot of plant life here until relatively recently.
The party start to follow and... oh no! A ceiling ooze strikes!
- It's the sort that splits when it's hit by energy, which leads to some concern until Aximander casts Shackle to the Earth and pulls the blobs off the ceiling where they are finished off quickly and cleanly.

--- Shadow People

- The party jogs to catch up with the ceiling arms which are zipping down the corridor on tracked grooves in the ceiling, heading to a construction chamber.
- The chamber is large and pillared, shadows scurry away from the light and hide behind the pillars!

- One approaches Aximander, who despite being weakened by the Full Moon is still clearly an Elf. Aximander explains the situation and the shadow-elves agree to let it happen - they're all weaker now of course.

--- Wrench, Meet Plans

- The arms start putting together the panels, and Sydney turns to the others. Have they considered... filling the God shell with pure chaos energy and sending it up??
- Aximander is confused. Hagen is mortified. The Old Miner is horrified - he's been listening in through Sydney's ooze familiar!

- Sydney declares that nothing is ever repeated, so this is the only chance to create a chaos god who will advance magic interests. Hagen fronts the idea of uploading themselves to the God and becoming a mini pantheon. The session dissolves into confusion and theology...

Total: 8000 exp

Treasures Claimed:

- 2 God Parts (2000 exp)
Total: 2000 exp

Enemies Defeated:

- An ochre ooze (100 exp)

Total: 100 exp

Exp Totals:

- Carter / Sydney, Level 8 Magic-User: 248865 (Level up at 288000)

- Kitty / Julian & Aximander, Level 8 Languid Wastrel: 163241 (Level up at 288000)

- George / Hagen the Heretic, Level 8 Dwarf: 132257 (Level up at 256000)
Level Up! +1d10 HP! +1 to Saves! +Lorebond! +Backstory!