Session 412 - What Does This Button Do?

 Date: 24th June 1625

Moon Phase: New Moon

Moon Face: Pocked Face

Zenith Deity: The Scorned

New Characters:

- Lazy Lie, a Fighter who looks remarkably like a big blue dragon in a moustache... but that can't be right surely??

Revealed Backstory:

- Sulphur gave generously to Bulgur's funeral! +2 Charisma

- Nostradama knocked on a scary old door in a scary old house in the hopes of converting the scary old woman to the light of Nonanism! +2 to doing something everyone says is a bad idea

- Gaius Julius Drusus ate the biggest human he'd ever seen to prove his bravery! +2 Strength

Events:

--- A Long-Prophesied Return

- The party, seeking snacks after their battle with the massive Terran, enter the dungeon pantry.

- Within they find a big blue dragon who says he's a Fighter, and a returning character from long ago! Gaius Julius Drusus, alleged Roman Emperor and Halfling!

- Sulphur cooks a delicious beef and black pudding wellington. It's genuinely amazing.

--- Mysterious Seating Arrangement

- They hear the knocking of an encounter at an external door, but they'd cleverly countermanded it by opening just the inward-facing airlock doors.

- Still, maybe not that way.

- They come to a large mysterious cube-shaped room. Padded seats with rollercoaster-style braces are gimballed to the walls.

- Maxwell draws a Talk-Electricity rune to communicate with the electronics. The vibes are good, so the electricity does him a solid and flips out a big console with a big red button on it! It also has two keys at either end which give that "turn these simultaneously" vibe.

--- Strap In

- Maxwell is enamoured of the big red button. What could go wrong with pressing a big red button?

- Everyone else straps into a seat, and one of the seats swings down for Maxwell.
- He pressed the button and...
- BOOOMM!!!! Massive explosion! Everyone's seats rock and their stomachs drop as they fall!
- After several stomach-lurching seconds there's a great crash. The seats worked perfectly though, everyone's unharmed.

--- You Maniacs, You Blew It Up!

- They spin the door open and beyond is... a disaster. It's all gone. They're inside a great spherical impact crater. A whole lower section of Drudgespar above has been broken off above, a huge spike aimed ominously downwards. The glooping stuff of the wastes leaks in around it. The dungeon itself is just... gone.

- There is a great tearing, cracking sound as the rest of Drudgespar shears off. The blue goblins, the blue whale balloon, and all the other balloons that were trying to float Drudgespar can finally take the weight!
- Bits of giant scorpion rain down to Manrat's horror. He'd just paid for that!

--- Dwarf Defence

- Before they can truly work out what to do next, hatches open up around the circular smooth surface of the bottom of the impact crater. Dwarves pop out along with mounted repeater crossbows!
- They are wearing slick black armour with clear bubble helmets and they are, for fairly good reason, absolutely livid.

- Battle is joined. The crossbows (and importantly, hatches) are arrayed around the room in a big circle, so the party splits into multiple groups to charge in!
- Maxwell has a solo battle with a Dwarf on the long ladder that leads down from the hatch, firing beams at each other. He gambits to hook the Dwarf with his fire axe and sends it down the shaft, before doing another gambit to swing down after and gut it!
- He lands and finds himself surrounded by Dwarves, but they're all holding back in fear of this demon who blew up the world then murdered their compatriot with a flaming axe.

- Meanwhile Sulphur has been punching (and Last Breath collecting) his way down one of the hatches. He slurps up some sputum and engages Soul Vision which lets him see souls, and due to a faint soul-energy in the stone he can see in the dark. He spots the souls of Zeppelino and co and starts running the corridor.
- Speaking of Zeppelino and co, the "co" here being Manrat and Nostradama, they've slid down the hatch ladder and are currently under assault by a whole squad of Dwarves. After eating a few close calls, they decide discretion is the better part of valour and bug out. Zeppelino brings up the rear, his talking shield biting undies to protect them from below.

--- Corpse-Punch!

- Sulphur sees the others escaping and slips through that room while the Dwarf squad is firing up the shaft. Stealth!
- He keeps going, seeing Maxwell ahead and the souls of the cowering Dwarves.

- Maxwell sees Sulphur coming and with a great burst of strength throws the corpse of the Dwarf he killed towards him! Sulphur sees what's coming, brings back a fist, and flash-steps into a Corpse Explosion Punch!

- The corpse explodes, showering the surrounding Dwarfs in shards of bone and jagged discs of solidified blood! Maxwell and Sulphur escape while the Dwarfs scream in pain and shock.

--- Safety Box

- The various party members arrive up top to find that Gaius and Lazy Lie have managed to mount a repeating crossbow onto the "fighter" dragon's back, which again is suspicious. Gaius has mounted the other's back and created a sort of biological technical. He gives cover fire as the others run back to the safety of the cube!

Total: 8000 exp

Loot Acquired:

- Ramen packets and olive oil (10 exp)
- Dwarf "space suit"

Total: 10 exp

Enemies Defeated

- Loads of Dwarves (1000 exp)

Total: 1000 exp

OOC:

Charles the Chronicler (100 exp/level)

George the Expedition Leader (100 exp/level)

Carter the Cartergrapher (100 exp/level)

Nick the Vanguard (100 exp/level)

Tim the Triage (100 exp/level)

Kitty the Chef (100 exp/level)

Exp Totals:

- George / Manrat Snels, Level 7 Ratman: 109973 (Level up at 112000)

- Charles / Zeppelino, Level 7 Goblin: 88475 (Level up at 128000)

- Carter / Maxwell, Level 7 Specialist: 64632 (Level up at 112000)

- Zoë / Nostradama, Level 6 Cleric of Nonanism: 37359 (Level up at 72000)

- Kitty / Sulphur, Level 4 Boo-gilist: 12494 (Level up at 18000)

- Timothy / Gaius Julius Drusus, Level 3 Halfling: 7031 (Level up at 8000)

- Nick / Lazy Lie, Level 1 Suspiciously Dragon-Shaped Fighter: 1288 (Level up at 2000)

Session 396 - Rats in the Basement

 Date: 28th January 1625

Moon Phase: Waning Crescent

Moon Face: Clean Face

Zenith Deity: Alaunus

Returning Characters:

- Brie van der Hells. Necromancer. Surprised to find her party at an actual party.

- Bulgur, Son of Borgar. Barbarian. On a comedown.
- Manrat Snels. Ratman. Recently looted the chillout room.

- Nines. Inheritor. Quietly cloning the dead.

Events:

--- You Wake Up at a Rave

- It's the chillout room in the Visco City club, and our partied-out party are emerging from the post-party funk. Bulgur confessed that he wasn't a real king last night, but Manrat disagrees and swears fealty. It's very sweet!
- Manrat and Brie are once more emotionally entangled due to his insistence that he and Brie share a mother. Saves affect both. Bulgur and Nines, meanwhile, need some space. +1 to rolls when the other is far, but not out of sight.

- They leave the chillout room and pass through the 24 hour rave to the club entrance. They get stamps on their wrists, and their weapons back.

--- Shopping and Fortunes

- They leave into the torchlit light of debatable dawn - it's hard to tell underground.
- The shopping district is here, past the deep slime puddle that contains the goop goblin now dubbed Sloppy Giuseppe.

- The Goblin Market is a sort of popup market with a load of shops. Manrat and Brie see a soothsayer and stop in for fortunes - "A Stray Quail Will Bring Hungry Dogs" and "A Red Eye Will Go Blind" respectively. Hmmm.

- Brie finds a Jade Merchant and buys a comically oversized greatsword made of jade! It's fragile, but looks so cool that it adds to Reaction checks.
- Nines finds a snake merchant and buys a venomous snake that he intends to milk for his mushroom head. Indeed. Bulgur buys a fried boa constrictor as a snack. In it's belly... a quail!

- Manrat, who is at the rat-infested-basement weapons shop they heard of from a rumour, throws the quail down the stairs. Indeed, hungry dogs are attracted! The prophecy was true!

--- Gravity Rats

- They send the nasty fox in (previously gained from a pumpkin patch) and hear YOWLS AND GROWLS! Is the fox dead?!
- Manrat investigates to find a dark slimy room and the fox, who has multiple stab wounds! The door hangs off its hinges, and rats swarm on the ceiling. He sends a rat of his own up there, and about halfway up the gravity inverts and the rat treats the ceiling as the floor! How mysterious! The other rats run off.
- The room itself is one large shared warehouse for all the shops upstairs. Ladders (rope or metal) hang from beside trapdoors above.
- Brie strokes the fox one last time and snaps its neck, collecting the Last Breath. She also takes the tail and adds it to the hilt of her jade greatsword, so cool!
- Manrat crawls up the wall and discovers that he, too, sticks to the ceiling! He's rat enough to stick! He hears the rats whispering from their upside-down dens... an enemy is coming.

--- Rat Tails

- Bulgur enters and is attacked! It's some sort of huge worm holding a dagger! It stabs at him while something grabs his legs from the darkness.
- He breaks free and smashes the worm. It's actually a rat tail! Holding a dagger! The black slime rat-shape connected to the tail collapses, but the tail continues to writhe. 

- Brie sucks in a Last Breath and sends her skeleton and (fast) zombie to attack! They tear at it, then Nines leaps onto the table and kills it with a weapon polish based firebomb.

- It becomes evident that the real creature is the tail, and the rat is merely some sort of slimy simulacrum of a rat!

--- More of Them are Coming

- There's more to this place. Visco City is itself built on the city that came before, building upwards to escape from the ooze. The collapsed streets form tangled networks of psuedo-tunnels, several of which lead away from this shored-up warehouse.
- Manrat, on the ceiling, picks a direction and crawls. In the wide-necked tunnel he spots more of the rat-tail-things. He shoots one, hitting the tail, which writhes in pain while the rat-shaped ooze body doesn't even react. They scurry into the warehouse to attack!

- Nines, near the soothsayer's section of the warehouse, finds a jar of prophecies and throws it, wracking the rats with futures!
- Brie forms a flesh minion from the much-abused corpse of the fox and sends it into battle too.
- Manrat throws his electro-bomb and Nines activates two of the prophecies - "Something Blue Will Harm You" and "Follow the Crow to Find the Way". The electricity is blue. The Crow is an oblique reference to the afterlife. The rat-tails swarm towards the electricity and ZAP! Almost all die!
- The last one flees, but with a single heft of his spear Bulgur nails it in the tail! It dies!

--- Ooze Test

- They check out this black ooze that's been coating the floor, from which the rat bodies of the tails was formed.
- It phases through living material, but clings to the inanimate. Very odd.
- Nines uses his ground-firming abilities to firm up the surface of the ooze, making it sticky but walkable. Live rats bubble up from beneath, now standing on this terra firma-ish surface.

--- Alas, Meat Minion

- Brie scouts ahead with the meat minion, and as with the fox before this doesn't go super well. They hear a meaty "oh no" and the shlorping sounds of rat-tails slithering.

- One of Manrat's rats, scouting separately, reports that the Meat Minion is under attack from dagger-wielding rat-tails who live up on a sort of shelf of collapsed undercity.
- Nines sneaks in and uses his massive mushroom head to spray poison into the room, then runs off. Behind, the rat-tails are terribly weakened.

--- Looter Shooter

- Manrat and Brie, meanwhile, have looted the warehouse. Manrat grabs a ball filled with iron filings that points north, Brie finds a rainbow bomb.
- They run back in to GLORIOUS BATTLE! The poison has weakened the rat-tails, making them (amongst other things) far more susceptible to Gambits!
- Carnage ensues. Bulgur charges up the incline, slicing back and forth with his spear. Brie does the same, but breaks her new jade greatsword (better for showing off than killing, alas).
- Nines hits a rat-tail with another, smashing them into each other.
- Brie kills the last one with a knife. The rat tail dies, and the slime-body tries to run away before collapsing into goo.
- Nines takes his sword and coats it in ferrofluid from a nearby stream of the stuff. It's really cool.

--- "What the Hell's Going On Down There?"

- Some Goblins ask this, poking their heads down through a trapdoor.

- Upon discovering that the "rats" have been killed, there is much rejoicing! The merchants can access their stuff again!
- Various things are gifted and traded, including a new jade greatsword for Brie (who had been taking the jadesmith to task for the poor quality). She also has her rainbow bomb identified - it reverses meatoid sexuality within 50'! Useful! (?)
- Further along the rat-tail den, Bulgur and Manrat are approaching the end. There's a boiling nest of rat-tails... next to a pile of shiny stuff! Hexagonal holes appear on the necks of the ooze rats.
- Manrat assumes they're adapting, like the Red Elves, and presents his Martian Bible.
- In voices copied from others, one of the rats speaks! It's willing to trade this treasure... for the sweet Red Cream.
- Done deal, Manrat trades it in, and the rat-tails scurry off through smaller holes and away.

--- Loot!

- The shiny treasure is, in fact, shiny treasure! silver coins, pouches of gems, all the rest!

- Everything is pocketed and shared.

--- Ominous

- They turn back and consider what to do next. Deeper in? Or leave this place?
- From deeper in, they hear an ominous clanking.
- Back towards the market, worried murmering and deep thumps from above...

Total: 12000 exp

Treasures Taken:

- Spherical Compass
- Gay Bomb

- 2 Crates full of Rare Spices (2500 exp)

- Barrel of Lubricating Oil

- Satchel of Unrefined Gold Ore (500 exp)

- 976 silver (976 exp)
- 4 pouches of saffron (3000 exp)
- 3 large Lapis Lazuli (900 exp)

- 5 glimmering Quartz (250 exp)
Total: 8126 exp

Enemies Trounced:

- A load of Rat-Tail ooze monsters (500 exp)

Total: 500 exp

OOC:

- Kitty the Chronicler and Paymaster (200 exp/level)

- George the Expedition Leader (100 exp/level)

- Ollie the "Cartman" and "Rolly Guy" (200 exp/level)

Totals:
- Carter / Nines, Level 6 Inheritor: 39192 (Level up at 72000)
Level Up! +1d6 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 Meat Point! +1 Mutation Limit! +Backstory!

- Kitty / Bulgur, Son of Borgar, Level 6 Barbarian: 34592 (Level up at 64000)
Level Up! +1d8 HP! +1 to Saves! +Barbarian Power! +1 Rage Attack! +Backstory!

- George / Manrat Snels, Level 5 Ratman: 26825 (Level up at 28000)

- Ollie / Brie van der Hells, Level 5 Necromancer: 23825 (Level up at 36000)
Level Up! +1d4 HP! +1 to Saves! +Free Spell! +1 Mana! +Backstory!