Session 323 - Desperately Resting

Date: 21 August, 22 p.p.

Moon: New - Dragonwane
Zenith: Minerva

New Backstory:

- Peter Parabolus nearly died during an Indiana Jones-esque escapade. Luckily he saw the rolling boulder just in time, and leapt out of the way! +1 Awareness.

Events:

--- Crying Faces

- In the clanking darkness in the dungeon depths beneath within Fortress-City Fate, Peter Parabolus and Dorian "Ditto" de Mone pant as quietly as they can after their run-in with the tiger men and the demons. The sound of that battle can still be heard through the brass door.
- As silence falls once more, they take stock of their situation. Four, maybe five levels down into the Brass Hell. A corridor softly lit by Dorian's demonic glow. They hear the sound of sobbing from behind another door on the opposite side of the corridor. Maybe they should check it out?

- Dorian knocks. No answer, just more sobbing.
- They open the door and see two huge metal faces crying at each other from opposite sides of the room! Parabolus inspects one and finds multiple holes within the mouth.
- Alas! A trap! Crossbow bolts shoot from both faces, and the crying turns into a laugh!
- Parabolus, enraged, jams a rock into the laughing mouth of the face that shot him. It starts to weep... and having one laughing and one weeping opens the door out of the room! Lovely!

--- Surprisingly Chill Tiger People
- The next room is a guard room. Tiger people are lounging around. The leader of this little pack tells the pair that they must return to the demon chambers. It transpires that the tigers have a deal with the demons - they prevent anyone with emotions from leaving, and in return the demons get them cloned human carcasses to eat. A feast for a feast!
- Nevertheless, on discovering that the party is here to repair Fate, the tigers let them go onwards. It also turns out that these tiger-people are human minds who chose to be sleeved into humanoid tiger clones. They're furries, basically.

- Dorian and Parabolus take their leave, heading towards the roars which the tiger guys warned them about. Apparently the way down is over that way somewhere.
- They pass through the tiger-people's toilet room (smells bad) and go up another corridor. The walls shimmer with a rippling heat haze effect, though the temperature is still the same hissing warmth as ever down here in the bowels of the machine.

--- Cubic Sloth
- They continue onwards, almost walking straight into a few blue-masked demons! They are demons of sloth and take umbrage to the pair's blithe wanderings!
- A chase ensues, the Sloth field of the demons making their legs stiff and tired. The demons hunt them down and trap them in a dead end. The middle of the room has a big stone cube, rippled like jelly.
- A battle ensues with horrifying effect. The demons are strong! Attacks slap against their oozing sides with little effect, while their claws exact a heavy toll.
- Dorian rips the mask off of one of them and slaps it onto his own face. He is filled with strange demonic energies! It's not enough to protect him as a demon smacks him to the ground, and his return attack leads to his sword shattering into a thousand pieces as the energy courses through him.

- Nevertheless, the battle has hurt both enemy demons. Parabolus finishes them off, then crouches to help Dorian. He's an oozing wreck, legs failing to form and rich red ichor dripping from punctures in his clammy clay skin.
- Dorian scarfs down some fried snake and iron rations to rebuild his body, while Parabolus guards the entrance. They're both heavily damaged, even with Dorian managing to stand up again.

--- Night on the Cube
- They're exhausted and there's no easy way back up to the surface. They realise the cube might be their salvation, and assist each other in climbing up its rippled stone surface. In the claustrophobic gap between the cube and the ceiling, they finally get some rest.
- During their rest in the infinite hissing darkness of Fate, Parabolus briefly stirs in the artificial night. There's a slurping schlorping sound... and he peeks over the edge of the cube to see a slime digesting the demons' corpses.
- Later, there are some tiger people sniffing around, wondering where the Sloth demons are. Apparently they were meant to be patrolling this area, and they missed a couple of check-ins.

--- Beyond Human Burger
- Somewhat healed up by their rest on top of the cube, but out of food, Dorian decides on an excursion to the tiger-people to see if he can rustle up some food. He's got the Sloth demon mask, after all.
- After a fair amount of negotiation where Dorian persuades the tiger-boss that he needs to feed his slothful minion some food so he can continue to be sinfully slothful, he bags one of the clone corpses that the tigers feed on.
- He hurries back to the cube and they swiftly cook up some "Beyond Human Burgers" using clone-human meat, loads of marmite, and some mysterious embyros they found somewhere in the Meatlands. They use a bunch of Nullifier Spice though, so there won't be any downsides from eating man-flesh.
- They gobble the passable meal down, but the smell attracts a tiger-man!
- They buy him off with a burger... but then the fire sets off a fire alarm and water starts gushing from the sprinklers above! This wets the rest of the tiger-man's tiger party and, yowling, they run off to where it's dry. Safe for now!

--- Mushroom Muushroom
- They keep going and hear a sound like chickens clucking somewhere. Two and two are put together - that stone cube must have been a gelatinous cube that ate a cockatrice! Best to avoid those things.
- They head into a room that's a bit like an abandoned school cafeteria. Huge purple mushrooms glow with a faint light, countless suppurating holes peppering the caps that look unsettlingly like they're breathing.

- The mushrooms SCREM!

- Growls and yowling of a bunch of tiger-people come towards the pair. The mushrooms attracted them!
- The pair flee up a corridor, finding a barricade, and swiftly shimmy up and over before the tiger-people can get them.
- The roar of some great beast, closer now, roars out, sending ripples through the strange heat-haze distortion along all the walls. The tiger-people leave, assuming that whatever that is will eat our heroes.

--- Snake Stuff

- They look around the little room they've ended up in. The machinery of the walls has been smashed up and battered so it resembles a whole room made up of snakes. The door, covered in snake pictograms, has been smashed in.

- The next room once had mighty pistons between floor and ceiling, and these too have been battered until they look like snakes. There's snake poo on the floor.
- Since there's probably a snake in there, we wrap up for the night...

Total: 8000 exp

Enemies Defeated:
- Two Sloth demons (200 exp)
Total: 200 exp

OOC:
- Chronicler and Treasurer: Kitty
- Vanguard and Expedition Leader: George

Exp Totals:

- Kitty / Dorian "Ditto" DeMone, Level 6 Inheritor: 39481 (Level up at 72000)
Level Up! +1d6 HP! +1 Meat Point! +1 Mutation Limit! +2 to Save! +Backstory!

- George / Parabolus, Level 4 Specialist Ventriloquist: 12972 (Level up at 14000)

Session 322 - Tubular!

Date: 21 August, 22 p.p.

Moon: New - Dragonwane
Zenith: Minerva

New Backstory:
- Peter Parabolus had a surprising turn of good luck, having a pleasing and low-stakes adventure... until karma took its toll and a vampire waylaid him and dropped him at the top of the Dharga. After you fail a roll, +1 to your next roll.

- Peter Parabolus had a baby with someone! In some horrifying way, the kid is within the ventriloquist's dummy he holds so tightly...

Events:

--- Not player do not kill
- After eating a fried snake to heal up, Dorian and Parabolus walk around the kobold market LARP to see if they can find a moderator. They find an old gaunt goblin in a moderator sash who offers them some of the ketamine beer... which they turn down.
- After they tell him that they're planning to head down into the dungeon to physically fix the data stacks, he gives them some bright orange sashes that say "non player - do not kill!" on them.
- He also introduces them to Jim who is a woman, secretly a member of the Sabateur faction of the Maintenance Crew game. She makes it clear that she doesn't actually sabotage anything, it's more about hiding sabotage tokens in designated machinery and the good guys have to find them in time before it "blows up" and the Sabateurs get points. All that aside, if the party can actually fix the problems on the lower levels (and maybe restore her save state which is getting corrupted) she'll hook them up with some loot boxes.

- Using the power of the sashes they easily avoid encounters, bypass the level boss, get directions from a guard post (who also mention that this dungeon has ten levels), and find the stairs going down.

--- Goblin Nonsense
- The next floor down has a couple of (real!) hobgoblins and their goblin buddies. Some of the goblins are having a bunny eating contest, the others are interrogating a rat.
- Peter throws his voice to a doorway, saying he knows the location of the rat's cheese! Three of the goblins run off after it!
- They enter the room and the hobgoblins take note of their sashes. These guys are guarding the way down to the lower levels, because it's actually dangerous down there. All the LARPing is on these upper floors, and even this level can be a bit hardcore because the goblin buddies don't really understand that the game is for pretend.

- While the cheese-searching goblins somehow return with a wheel of brie, Dorian and Parabolus explain that they're here to actually fix things here. The hobgoblins let them through!

--- THE TUBE

- Downstairs there's a pool of dirty water with a squeaky brass cube. They find a silver holy symbol in the water - it's of Dispater so it's in the form of a brittle bone. There's also the sound of rushing wind, like breath blown over a bottletop, coming from somewhere nearby.
- They follow the noise and find a tube. A brass tube covered in many fist-sized holes, from which fresh-ish air is blowing.
- Dorian decides he must enter THE TUBE. He turns into glorp and schlorps into the holes... finding himself shlooping down to a lower level with a grate. He reforms into a person and calls up his findings to Parabolus.
- Using rope and the discovery that the top of the tube is simply open and easy enough for Parabolus to climb up and into, they both arrive on the grate level... then jump up and down on the grate until it breaks and they fall through!
- Another level down but they've reached the limit, the air is pumped in here by tubes so small that even Dorian in gloop form wouldn't be able to get into without becoming a long sausage.
- Dorian exits the tube via the normal holes and begins working on freeing Parabolus... but there is a sound from behind! Purple-masked and pot-bellied demons! And is that... Tyler Lockheart?

--- Gluttonous Shenanigans
- Guessing that these are Gluttony demons, Peter Parabolus tempts them over by saying he's been stuck in the tube for daaays and he's sooooo hungry. All in the room start getting hunger pangs... they need to eat.
- Luckily Tyler Lockheart still has loads of sausages from the Meatlands and hands them around, satisfying the demons who are soon filled by the gluttonous sausage-lust on display. As they feast on the feasting, Dorian manages to unscrew the bolts holding the tube in place and lifts it up enough for Parabolus to squeeze out from under. Success!
- The demons, big round bellies full of tasty gluttony, wander off waving their thanks.

--- Waking the Werewolf
- There are roars coming from one direction and nothing from the other... so they go away from the roars.
- They come to an area with four hotel-style doors. One has a Do Not Disturb sign hooked on a door handle.
- They try one of the other doors and find small premier inn-style rooms. They search all the others and find various shampoos, little soaps, slippers that have seen better days, etc. In one there's a fancy poofy ballgown though! Dorian puts that on.
- They knock on the Do Not Disturb room and a werewolf opens it. He's angry at being disturbed!
- He attacks, Dorian responds with a flamethrower mutation then Parabolus follows up with a doll/knife attack! Dorian brandishes the holy symbol he found earlier and the werewolf retreats into the room to lick his wounds. They shut the door.
- The werewolf puts the door on the chain and opens it a crack for an awkward post-fight convo. He's a bit sorry.

--- Wrathful Trickery
- They follow the corridor round and note a magical-looking eye painted on the ceiling.
- A gang of five red-masked demons approach. They clearly want to make the party angry, so Dorian explains that they'd be REALLY ANGRY if they were shown the way down to the next level.
- With lots of annoying "huh, that make mad? Huh??" the demons lead them to the stairs.
- The source of the roars! A huge hydra with three heads! It's in a pit in the middle of wide circular hall with wide stairs at the western end and portcullises and a blue-masked Sloth demon looks down from a balcony above!
- The Wrath demons are chuckling... the stairs go up not down! Irl the players are frustrated! It worked!
- They barge the party into the room, saying "haha you mad? Attack us! haha you so mad!" and trying to bait the party into fighting them. The Sloth demon above gets lively and starts exuding a Sloth field of some sort.
- Better get out of here! They sling sausages at the hydra heads, distracting two! The third head snaps at Peter Parabolus as he runs past!
- The Wrath demons give chase, and we're off to the chase mechanics! Dorian drops caltrops, slowing the demons, and they escape! The portcullis clangs down behind them.

--- Greed and Tigers

- After catching their breath they try another door and it's... even more demons! These wear gold masks with jewelled foreheads, and they're arguing over a map with half-tiger half-men!
- The tiger-men, seeing the party enter, yell that they've been betrayed! 
- Parabolus and Dorian distract both negotiating parties while Tyler sneaks around to another door, shimmying past sightlines. He finds a room with a mancub-skin rug, beds, and a chest.
- On his return he's spotted! He tries to surf over the table to safety, but fails and lands on his back! He gets clawed by one tiger, but the other's crit fail has it biting a gold-masked demon. It's chaos!
- The table tips over towards Parabolus and Dorian, and Tyler rolls to safety as the tiger-men and demons start fighting and yelling. Dorian hits the tiger-man chasing him with a stun dart and they shut the door behind them, then bolt down another corridor...
- Session over, but at least it's not mid-battle!

Total: 8000 exp

Loot:
- Floofy ballgown (400 exp)
- Various little soaps and little bottles of shampoo+conditioner+bodywash (10 exp)
Total: 410 exp

Enemies Defeated:
- Gluttony demons, ate their fill. (300 exp)

- Werewolf, apologised (100 exp)
- Tigerman, 
Total: 400 exp

OOC:

- Chronicler & Paymaster: Kitty

- Expedition Leader & Vanguard: George

Exp Totals:

- Kitty / Dorian "Ditto" DeMone, Level 5 Inheritor: 35181 (Level up at 36000)

- George / Parabolus, Level 4 Specialist Ventriloquist: 8672 (Level up at 14000)

Level Up! +1d6 HP! +2 Skill Points! +2 to Saves! +Backstory!

Session 321 - Return to Fate

Date: 21 August, 21 p.p.
Moon: Waning Crescent - Dragonwane
Zenith: Oberon

Events:

--- The Fated LARP

- The party are in Fortress-City Fate and it's much like old times, except that the brass-and-clockwork city is now full of clay-based maybe-demon people downloaded from the data stacks in the city's core. Other than that it seems normal...
- They ask the guards about what's going on in the city, major factions, that sort of thing. The current Fated Queen is Madame Black who won the throne after the previous incumbent was found to be having an out-of-character affair. She's part of the Masquerade faction, one of three "serious roleplaying" courtly drama types along with the Council of Viziers and the King's Men who are all in factional conflict.
- Other factions are having a bit more fun with it, like the deeply non-serious superhero LARP over at All-Prayer or the kinda-roleplaying-kinda-not Maintenance Crew who are doing a plotline and trying to work out why the data stacks are breaking down in the deep city.

--- Superhero Time

- The team take the train to All-Prayer to check out the superheroes. They're in luck! As soon as they arrive they see The Conductor, an electric supervillain, capturing POWERMAN in a magnet cage! Another hero called Devilman shows up too!
- Jojo decides her superhero name is Future Girl and she can see the future!
- Future Girl fights The Conductor and wins, getting him in a headlock! Guards turn up in an anachronistic Guber and take the villain away. POWERMAN and Devil Man invite the party to a party later - up on the walls is where people hang out when they're out of character.

--- What's In This Drink?

- They head up to the party and it's pretty cool! You can look down over the city from above, and they serve a bunch of drinks which are variants of the same thing - some kind of pale liquid clay.

- Dorian, being a demon made of clay himself, tries some of the stuff...

- It's basically watered down clay plus Alterket - the ketamine analogue - and it fucks him right up!
- The clay, it transpires, is from the body of the enormous demon that exploded into the city all those years ago, raining demon obols down on the place and splatting right down onto the former farm sector of the city!
- Dorian is mostly blob by this point, and happily follows the others along burbling away.

- They take the outer circle line to Verdance and its many stairs.

--- Demon Goop

- Dorian blobs down the stairs going wheeeeeeee.
- It transpires that the demon clay is what the people of the city are formed from now. If killed, they just chuck your kara back into the mud, upload your mind from a backup, and there you are! Low stakes all round for the people here.
- They borrow a barrel and bloop Dorian into it. He's pretty happy in there.

- Parabolus is pleased to discover that while there are farms, they're all set dressing and don't actually grow anything. Wheatlands monopoly continues!

- They decide to head back into the city via boat, then change over to the deep city line and check out what's going on with these data stacks. It's probably the only "real" adventuring to be had in the city, since everything else is a larp.

--- Enter the Dungeon

- The reach the deep city and head down towards the gatehouse, then on into the Brasshell dungeon beneath. According to the guard at the gatehouse, the first floor of the dungeon is for dungeon LARPers, then it gets progressively more dangerous and real the deeper you go.

- They check out a room that just has a spooky speaker playing canned evil laughter, then check behind a door that sounds like a ringtone. Parabolus keeps yelling out that they're real and not playing the game.
- Behind the ringtone door there's a wheel of fortune! Jojo spins the wheel, gets a sad face result, and gets hit by a minor curse that makes her worse at rolling! Dorian tries it, gets a happy face, and earns a free reroll in the dungeon! Parabolus spins it, gets a sad face, and gets hit in the neck by several thin darts.
- Another room is explored, there's a statue of the OG Fated King in a dry fountain. Jojo fixes it, and finds that it could have been set to spew noxious fumes! Instead she sets it to water, which begins flowing.

--- Kobolds
- At a crossroads they see a whole bunch of people dressed up as dog-like kobolds! Between Jojo's incendiary bolt and an alarmingly successful gambit combo from Dorian and Parabolus, it doesn't go well for the kobolds.
- The "kobolds" morale breaks and they decide to call it a day. Jojo fist-bumps the strongest looking kobold and Charms him. He says his name is Shishlak aka Brad, and he tries not to break character.

- Shishlak leads the team to the kobold market that they've got down here! Everything is mostly made from shaped clay, but there are fried snakes which are at least real food.
- Parabolus does a ventriloquist show to make a bit of cash, and then also borrows money off of Jojo to buy some weapons and armour.

- They also meet a mysterious stranger in the bar... they call him Trundler. His real name is Snorri Broadshoulders, and if the party can bring him 47 Dwarven Artifacts he can play a human as his next class. He can pay in premium currency!

- Seeing as it's relatively safe here, and Dorian is still feeling some of the after-effects of the ketamine clay, they decide to stay here for now and plan for the deeper levels tomorrow. Strike the earth!

Total: 7000 exp

Kills:
- A bunch of "kobolds" (100 exp)
Total: 100 exp

Exp Totals:

- Kitty / Dorian "Ditto" DeMone, Level 5 Inheritor: 30576 (Level up at 36000)

- George / Parabolus, Level 3 Specialist Ventriloquist: 4067 (Level up at 7000)
Level Up! +1d6 HP! +2 Skill Points! +Backstory! +2 to Saves!

Level Up! +1d6 HP! +2 Skill Points! +Backstory!

- Ollie / Jojo Fullbeard, Level 2 Muscle Wizard: 4067 (Level up at 4500)

Level Up! +1d4 HP! +1 Mana! +Free Spell! +Backstory!

Session 320 - Sightseeing in my Flesh Balloon

Date: 18 August, 21 p.p.

Moon: Third Quarter - Dragonwane
Zenith: Oberon

New Characters: 
- Jojo Fullbeard, Muscle Wizard daughter of Iskander who was once a Disaster Repairperson.
- Parabolus, a Specialist who specialises in... ventriloquism. Has a ventriloquist's dummy.

New Backstories:
- Suspiria attempted a forbidden spell and accidentally turned her entire school into an illusion. Countless lives lost and replaced by illusory simulacra. She went into hiding as a result, ending up as a taste tester at Ferfect Fried Chicken.

Events:

--- USS Abomination

- Negotiations have taken place atop the flesh tree Dharga. Aemilius will join the tree as Emperor - less a balancing force and more of an unhinged Emperor who will demand tribute and cause enough internal bickering that the Dharga will be reduced as a threat.
- Also, the Meatlands will be pulled back to the base of the tree, no doubt by merely cutting off circulation to the Meatlands proper. It's August, so the hot sun is sure to make the miles of gangenous flesh smell real good and tasty.

- Finally... they want a ship...

- The Unsightly Symbiotic Ship Abomination is formed!
- Featuring the dulcet tones of Jonathon Toast whose brain has been sacrificed and "upgraded" to form the ship's Awful Intelligence, the ship is huge and rather stupid. Suspiria's familiar loves hanging around the blowhole and pretending to be smoke from the engine. Most of the organs are in the rear, and there's a big Bucket Extrusion And Manipulation device known as the B.E.A.M. to transfer them up and down from the ship. It's... perfect!

- Swan the Swift retires to oversee the Wheatlands project. A wandering ventriloquist named Parabolus arrives conveniently.
- Iskander spends a little while in some sort of poorly explained time travel plot wherein Samantha Bread bears a child - JoJo Athena Fullbeard.

--- Neo-Spacedin
- After some time with all this, they set off on the USS Abomination! First stop - Neo-Spacedin.
- From above they can see the shanty-town that has sprung up around the crashed UFO. They land on the ship's retractable widdle  paws and disembark into what seems suspiciously like a quarry in Wales.

- There are a whole load of bright green blobs dotted around singing about how their god has come! As the airship takes off Parabolus throws his voice to make it sound like the airship itself is speaking and calling the party the emissaries of God.

- The blobs ask where the party is going and they tell them it's Neo-Spacedin. The blobs are all "oooh we can take you there! Help us get in so we can chill!". The party is suspicious.
- Nevertheless, the blobs do lead the party to town. A man in a watchtower holding a laser rifle hails the party... but warns them not to let the blobs in because they drank all the booze. The party get in, accidentally letting a blob or two in, and leaving the disappointed remaining blobs to wheedle at the guards.
- The party hits up the local pub, an extremely tacky reggae themed bar called the Rastaroid. They are, in fact, out of booze. The slimes drank it all!

--- Oven Pizza Horror
- The crashed spaceship is examined and the matter replicator is still stuck on hawaiian oven pizza mode. It turns out all the town's booze is pineapple liqueur made from the pineapple people pick off the pizza.

- [[[Extended jokes and several people crying with laughter here]]]

- There is extended discussion about whether they should try to fix the replicator, because what if they break it? Jojo manages to at least make the pizza come out faster so it doesn't start out reheated. The townsfolk are overjoyed and rename the Hawaiian pizza to The Jojo Pizza.

--- Other Residents
- In town there is a mysterious statue that speaks only in Psalms, worshipped by priests which dragged it here from the wastes. It's the original Snels!
- The Hyperchurch of POWERLAD is the town's main church. The grave of Flowers Penurious is here in the graveyard where grieving worshippers bench-press the gravestones.
- A house with darkened windows contains some vampire refugees. They are a bit pathetic, begging for blood. Suspiria decides against giving them some blood in exchange for a weapon.
- The vampire Luna tells them that Bertha still rules Mt Death Frost, and Cyrus has not been seen for years.

- Swan the Swift briefly arrives with an investment opportunity - the Wheatlands! Wheat beer to change up the pineapple liqueur, and non-pizza wheat products! Plus the vampires can have thrall serfs and be feudal lords! The townsfolk seem pretty pleased with the idea.

- A colony of Mod Cons still reside in the ship, where they have a gaming area set up. Each person in the party persuades a random Mod Con to come with them, from a dimmer bulb for Jojo to an electric toothbrush for Dorian!

- Suspiria, at a blob's behest, kicks it and catches the smaller blob that comes flying out in a bottle. It's a familiar in training! The smoke familiar is immediately jealous.
- Finally, Parabolus asks about the emergency transmission they picked up in Enoch. It was a transmission from Neo-Spacedin to encourage refugees from the growth of the Dharga and the fallout of the diamond dome being destroyed. They are taken to see a special guest... Grumpy the Dwarf!
- He's rocking slowly on a bed next to a stack of uneaten pizza, occasionally mumbling about having lived a thousand thousand lives. Sometimes people emerge from Fate far above, and they're compos mentis but have no memories, and integrate into the community. Grumpy is a little different though, and they don't know why.

- Sounds like someone should investigate Fate!

--- Ascending to Fate

- They return to the ship, satisfied that Neo-Spacedin is going alright and has some interesting stuff going on.
- Ascending back to the ship in the BEAM, they realise that some of these blobs have clung to the bucket! They're stuck under the bottom of the bucket for now, but they might escape...
- Suspiria installs the Mod-Con Playstation in the Hollow Deck. It only has xbox games but who knows what the future might bring? 

- They ascend into the evening sky, turning towards Fate, and blimp their way up and up.
- Lights glimmer below. Fearing air defences, they kick a blob off the ship... nothing. No lasers, no defensive turrets... just light and the faint sound of chatter and music.
- The blimp docks at the only place it really can - the top of the spire of the central sundial-shaped palace! The crew BEAM down, to loud gasps from the crowd below!

- It's just like old times. The steam and cogs of the great Fortress City, the streets filled with hurrying masses, the crowds in clothes from before the end of the world!
- Guards show up in sundial hats, of course. The entry was not exactly subtle. They demand to know who authorised this flesh balloon in the simulation! The party asks them to take them to whoever's in charge.

- Suspiria, hiding behind her mask, is nudged by someone in the crowd. She's been mistaken as a member of the Masquerade faction... but fails the secret codephrase and the person vanishes into the crowd.

- The guards take them through an official looking door and into a sort of backstage area. It turns out Fate is all a big LARP! They meet the LARP coordinator for this area and she's baffled that the party, and the airship, came from outside, she thought everything out there was meant to be dead!
- Suspiria casts Old News, causing everyone within a mile to think that the party's arrival is old news. Known, but not remarked on much any more. The party have entered the LARP...

Total: 6000 exp

Treasure:

- Mod-Con Dimmer Bulb
- Mod-Con Playstation 1 w/ xbox games
- Mod-Con TV Remote
- Mod-Con Electric Toothbrush

Exp Totals:

- Kitty / Dorian "Ditto" DeMone, Level 5 Inheritor: 28109 (Level up at 36000)

- Tom / Suspiria, Level 3 Magic-User: 6184 (Level up at 9000)

- George / Parabolus, Level 1 Specialist Ventriloquist: 1600 (Level up at 1750)

- Ollie / Jojo Fullbeard, Level 1 Muscle Wizard: 1600 (Level up at 2250)

Session 319 - Boss Battle at the Dharga's Heart!

Date: 13 August, 21 p.p.

Moon: Waning Gibbous - Dragon Face
Zenith: Dispater

New Backstory:

- Aemilius Princeps lost a lot of money, incredible amounts of riches in fact, after the Empire was invaded by hordes of barbarians. Once per session, somehow work out the general location of something that used to belong to you.

- Suspiria was starving to death, and when she saw a beggar drop a crust of bread she ate it without any guilt at all. Get maximum health when you eat to heal.
- Dorian made the first romantic move with a lover in the painting dimension and had a long, beautiful, imaginary relationship. Once per session, cause someone to make a romantic advance upon you.
- Swan the Swift confronted the wizard Merlin, who locked him in a coffin for 1000 years before he emerged into the present day! At will, cause a creature to prioritise you.

Events:

--- Final Battle
- They are at the elevator once again. The elevator that will take them all the way up to the final boss room. In the centre, the glowing orb of a Save Point shimmers.

- They hit the orb and their HP is reset! Definitely a pre-boss battle save zone!

- With that, the elevator rises. Up into the beating heart of the Dharga, then up and up further until they finally reach the crest of the flesh-tree. The world is laid out before them. The huge presence of the dormant Fortress-City looms in the centre of the shattered dino-dome. Distantly, the rippling forcefield over New Moondin shimmers.
- Nestled in the huge peristaltic flesh of the tree, arranged evenly around the elevator, are three platforms of black glass, bulging meat, and a wide shallow cup wreathed with grapevines. Upon each is a monstrous manifestation of one of the entities that make up the Dharga - Sir Robyn, Styx, and Dargo himself.

- And finally, also here to pester the party, are the Valkyries! The witch with the boiling cauldron, the hotheaded redhead guy with TWO razor shields now, and bow-wielding prepubescent girl who is totally a thousand years old.

--- Battle is Joined!

- The battle begins, and dice are rolled to generate what happens each round... this time it's the huge Styx being teleported into the central elevator, along with a gang of the dressed-up ratmen and ghouls from below!
-Styx declares that using "programmarie" he can program the Dharga to do whatever you want! No need to destroy it! The party quickly indentify the flaw in this plan - they'd have to trust Styx.

- The anime witch magics Dorian and a skeleton into her cauldron on the black glass zone, bone soup! They take damage from the boiling potion, and random spells begin erupting from the cauldron.
- The skeleton turns to bone-mush, but Dorian uses his demonic power to shlorp out of the cauldron and attack the witch with his stirge-borne mosquito proboscis! The witch is being drained of blood!
- Suspiria begins shaping spells unbound and throwing them into the combat. Magic missiles hit the bow-wielding Valkyrie, despite her position on top of the extendo-lance!
- Celebus is under attack from the other Valkyries AND Styx! Luckily they only destroy one of his companion skeletons.
- Swan finds himself in an embarrassing life-or-death struggle for survival against... a fake ratman. He just keeps bungling the wrestle rolls. Iskander stifles a laugh, decapitates a ghoul-woman, and spins gracefully through the air to combo into the bow-wielding loli cleave her in twain!
- But oh shit she was older than she looked... and was pregnant! Iskander tries to grab the falling foetus, fumbles it, and squeezes it out of his hands like soap. It lands on the metal surface of the shallow cup-platform with a splat.

--- No Funny Business!
- The next round sees Sir Robyn swap out with Styx in the central elevator. He brings with him an ultimatum - Rules Lawyer mode! Only generic abilities can be used, and no funny business like gambits!
- Sir Robyn declares that if the party assist him he can destroy the Dharga. Legally it's not a person, you see. It's the only safe way.
- His raccoons attack, immediately devouring Aemilius' trained goat! Oh no!
- The shield-wielding Valkyrie is extremely annoying for Celebus, since he always blocks the first hit. Celebus wails on him regardless, despite consistently getting blocked by his shield technique.

- Swan flash-steps behind Sir Robyn and slices at his back, while Dorian continues to succ the witch to death as she struggles.

--- Dargo Returns
- Sir Robyn is replaced by Dargo, the origin of the very flesh of the Dharga! Grapevines erupt from where Sir Robyn stood and wriggle over the central elevator.
- Dargo declares that his desire is to be unbound! He will destroy the Thorns! Obvious drawbacks here, but then...
- Sir Robyn zaps Aemilius with an intelligence reduction beam from his platform, while on the central elevator Swan and Iskander do a combo attack on Dargo! Even Suspiria gets a look in, shanking the oozing form with a filleting knife.

- Dorian finally succs the witch into submission. She's bloodless, emaciated, and definitely dead.
- Aemilius tries to mind-control Dargo but is rebuffed. 

- Dorian looks up and realises that Styx has been back on the black glass platform for a few rounds now, and Styx is coming for him! Luckily Styx fumbles and stabs himself!
- Swan hits Sir Robyn with a Jim Beam beam... and makes him more powerful! Sir Robyn loves booze! How did they not realise from all the wine theme!? They neutralise Sir Robyn by passing him the wine cornucopia they found earlier, he's distracted!

--- Bosses Defeated

- Dorian and Styx are having a slugging match over on the black glass platform, with Styx rolling honestly terribly. A lucky between-rounds boss swap lets Iskander and Swan soften up Styx before he's returned to Dorian, who deals the finishing blow!

- The real Styx crawls out of the chest of the big ogre version, congratulating Dorian.

- Aemilius, after several attempts, finally mind-controls Dargo. Great success!

- The bosses are forced to the negotiating table by organised resistance.

- We end undecisively, since the pub is kicking us out early again. The broad choices are Destroy the Dharga with Sir Robyn, Unleash the Dharga with Dargo, or Control the Dharga with Styx.
- Aemilius immediately sees another ending... Merge with the Dharga.
- We decide to make a decision next session, after much between-session discussion...

Total: 6000 exp

Enemies Defeated:

- The Valkyries (750 exp)

- Dharga Entity Sir Robyn (1500 exp)
- Dharga Entity Styx (1500 exp)
- Dharga Entity Dargo (1500 exp)
- Sundry Mooks (250 exp)

Total: 5500 exp

OOC:
Chronicler: Charles
Expedition Leader: Kitty
Quartermaster: Ollie
Vanguard: Tom
Triage: Tim

Exp Totals:

- George / Swan the Swift, Level 7 Barbarian: 71190 (Level up at 128000)

- Ollie / Iskander Fullbeard, Level 6 Fighter: 57461 (Level up at 64000)

- Charles / Celebus Uppytus, Level 6 Necromancer: 57132 (Level up at 72000)

- Kitty / Dorian "Ditto" DeMone, Level 5 Inheritor: 26509 (Level up at 36000)

- Timothy / Aemelius Princeps, Level 5 Halfling: 16104 (Level up at 32000)
Level Up! +1d6 HP! +1 to Domination! +Backstory!

- Tom / Suspiria, Level 3 Magic-User: 4584 (Level up at 9000)
Level Up! +1d4 HP! +1 Mana! +Free Spell! +Backstory!

Session 318 - Castle of Giants

Date: 13 August, 21 p.p.

Moon: Waning Gibbous - Dragon Face
Zenith: Dispater

New Backstory:
- A terrible thing followed Aemilius Princeps back home one night... specifically because he'd dominated it with his Halfling powers and made it follow him back home. Once per session, cause the most terrible threat on the local encounter table to show up somehow.

Events:

--- The End of a Fantasy
- After years of fantastical war against the invading Turk, Dorian surveys his vast painted kingdom from atop the walls of a Constantinople that never fell. It is the end of the old age, and the start of the new. His unicorn, now grey around the muzzle, nuzzles his cheek. The world has been conquered, but now it is time to return to the real world and leave this place behind for a time.

- A small voice speaks in Latin. It's Aemilius Princeps and he is clearly more real than the rest of this oilpaint unreality. After a long time in a foreign land, the self-proclaimed Emperor of Rome has returned!

- They leave the painting, Dorian's crown melting away as they step down from the wall and onto the flagstones of the dungeon-within-a-dungeon Dorian entered hours ago, or years ago, depending on how you measure time.

- Aemilius' trained goat is here! As is Swan the Swift who still thinks he's a flesh golem, and to the mild disappointment of all the surviving manservant Jonathon Toast.

--- Guards! Guards!

- Just then, a vine-rimmed portal opens up! Out step two robot-shaped guards made from grapes. They demand that they are the Dharga's immune system and that the party must be ejected immediately!
- Aemilius explains that he's a tax collector, Dorian is obviously part of the Dharga so he's not a threat, and Swan explains that he is in fact obviously a flesh golem. The guards leave, saying they need to speak to their manager.
- Aemilius has the cunning plan to take the paintings as VR experiences and/or escape routes, so they are all rolled up and divided between the goat and Jonathon Toast.

--- Sacrifice
- They continue to explore, heading down some stairs into a chapel to Dispater. Those Bosnians last week definitely worshipped Dispater, so that makes sense. Swan digs up a bible from behind a pew.
- He prays to Dispater and hears the whispered words of He of the Subtle Knife. That Swan is a man, not a flesh golem, and that using the altar to sacrifice an animal will allow you to transform into the beast during a full moon. 

- Aemilius shields his goat from the party's avaricious eyes! Nobody wants to turn into Jonathon Toast so he's out too.

- Swan disbelieves the god about the flesh golem thing. He's obviously a flesh golem since he's obviously made of meat.

--- Joan of Bosnia

- They press on with an eye out for animals, coming to a round room with a big stained glass window showing Joan of Arc Bosnia. Aemilius investigates and discovers the glass is soft like skin. She implies that sacrificing someone on the altar will free her... but unfortunately Toast is carrying the paintings so they'll need to find a replacement loud dogsbody if they want to kill him.

- They continue, finding a room with loads of opulent yet giant clothing. They attempt painting-based storage solutions, but anything dropped on the painting simply gets added to the painting itself.

- They decide to come back later, and explore a few other rooms. One has been ransacked by Croatian ultras, and another has a mirror that shows your skeleton instead of your reflection. Swan's insistence on being a flesh golem starts to crack - flesh golems should be way more fucked up inside.

--- Guards! Guards!

- No sooner do they try to take the skeleton mirror outside for later pickup and sale, than more guards show up! Some 1s on the encounter table, finally! These are robotic like the grape guards, but made of wax!
- Tyler Lockheart shows up too! Presumably struggling free from the guards.

- This time the guards have checked with the manager and the party needs to be brutally arrested. Aemilius tries to summon the legal spirit of Sir Robyn but he's been recently involved in a magic-related incident and is no longer alive.

- Battle is joined with the wax officers while Tyler smokes a roll-up unhelpfully nearby.

- Swan wields the goat as a weapon while a guard smashes Aemilius' skeleton porter. Sad! He was the reloader! In revenge Aemilius Dominates one of the guards, sending it against its fellows while Dorian and Swan batter it.

- Soon only two wax guards remain, one of them dominated. Aemilius sends it off back to HQ to write up a report about how everything went fine actually.

- Dorian eats a guard to gain its waxy powers. Swan's iron stomach prevails as he eats another to heal.

--- Joan Returns

- They head back, dragging the skele-mirror and some of the heavy coats with them, only to find Joan scratching at the window, stretching the skein. Tyler tries to calm her down with a spliff, and Swan blasts her with a Jim Beam to get her drunk.
- It's all for naught however, since Aemilius tries to Dominate the Bosnian Saint and fails, enraging the glassy maiden. She shatters the glass and strides forth, free at last!

- The party flee because of course.
- A chase scene follows, with many twists and turns as they run through the hallowed halls. Very Scooby Doo.

- She catches up to the party in the painting room and battle is joined! Luckily Swan has a load of painful blade poison and slices it deep into Joan's leg. She roars in agony then immediately falls unconscious, shattering on the flagstones. Anticimactic!

- Aemilius scoops the shards into the painting of the giant fish, trapping her shattered body inside.

--- Some Giants
- Swan goes for a nap in one of the bedrooms and finds a giant lady, dead, on the bed. She's got a cool ring with a cabochon, and when Swan puts it on as a crown he finds that he's possessed by a presence that makes him feel fanatical and narrow-minded. Perhaps the spirit of Snels?!

- The giant is also wearing a glowing cloth robe, which Aemilius tears off a piece of and attaches to his floating moon rock to create a sort of glowing balloon.

- The next room has some dead inquisitor guys in buckle hats and a bunch of smashed coffins. Aemilius gets a hat for the goat, very cute. The inquisitors were clearly killed by a trapped coffin. One coffin remains untouched...
- Inside there's another dead giant, perfectly preserved. Her hands rest on a globus cruciger, a holy hand grenade looking thing, and when held in both hands negates magic. Swan takes it, since he's the least magic.

Total: 8000 exp

Treasure:

- 8 magic paintings (8000 exp)
- Giant clothes (10000 exp)
- Giant cabochon ring (1000 exp)
- Skeleton Mirror (2000 exp)
- Anti-Magic Globus Cruciger

Total: 21000 exp

Foes Defeated:

- Wax Guards (300 exp)
- Joan of Bosnia (200 exp)
Total: 500 exp

Exp Totals:

- George / Swan the Swift, Level 7 Barbarian: 69173 (Level up at 128000)
Level Up! +1d8 HP! +2 Barbarian Rolls! +Backstory!

- Kitty / Dorian "Ditto" DeMone, Level 5 Inheritor: 24492 (Level up at 36000)

Level Up! +1d6 HP! +1 Mutation Cap! +1 Meat Point! +Backstory!

- James G / Tyler Lockheart, Level 5 Specialist: 20834 (Level up at 24000)

- Timothy / Aemelius Princeps, Level 4 Halfling: 14087 (Level up at 16000)
Level Up! +1d6 HP! +1 to Domination! +Backstory!

Session 317 - Blood and Bosnians

Date: 13 August, 21 p.p.

Moon: Waning Gibbous - Dragon Face
Zenith: Dispater

New Backstory:

- Dorian is good buddies with Swan the Swift after their adventures together within this flesh-tree. +1 to each other's rolls when next to each other.

Events:

--- The Mirror

- Iskander and Dorian stand before the mirror that recently turned Swan into a flesh golem (in Swan's head at least) and try a bunch of ways to break it. Punching yourself does nothing. Hitting it reflects damage back. Curious "ghouls" and "wererats" look on in bemusement.
- The "ghouls" offer Iskander a bath in the scummy pool in their bodged-together "graveyard" but he declines. Washing off the poop would reveal his glowing skin.
- They're not aggressive, so the pair walk away to the exit, past the figure of Swan who is worshipping at the foot of a big meaty statue of a woman. Convenient timing for a player absence!

--- Meat Zone

- They leave, and continue along the randomly generated dungeon path, emerging into a Dharga-themed meat zone. They pass through a chamber with a bone altar, continue through a room with lots of faceless dead bodies fallen in a sports-like competition.
- There are two exits. One has a chirping sound, and a quick peek through the dripping bone portcullis shows a bunch of dog-sized ticks feasting on more bodies! Not that way then. They go the other way and find some broken-open kennels for the ticks.

- No encounters, perfect! They continue onwards.

--- The Anal Fisher
- They enter a square-ish room with a big blood-filled anus on the floor. Charming. Fishing in the "pool" with a thin bone fishing rod is a man, who declares himself to be the Anal Fisher and he has inconsistent tests in each of the rooms off the four corners of this room!
- They pick the spike room and, discovering that the challenge is to press the button at the other end of a booby-trapped spike room, Iskander just shoots it. Challenge complete!

- The Anal Fisher says that they've earned the right to exit through the anus... but they demur and go through a door into an empty room. Iskander brings the Fisher along, in case he tries something.

--- 2D better than 3D
- He tries something! The room is large and has a bunch of those 2D redcap goblins in it! Iskander pushes the Fisher into the room and he dies of a thousand papercuts.

- Combat is joined, and after a few embarrassing rounds where everybody misses everybody else, the goblins are defeated! The bait in the middle of the room was three velvet bags, and they contain 770 obols in small red gems. Nice.

--- Ermagot
- The next room has bodies hanging from hooks on the ceiling. Iskander shoots one and the hook retracts up to the ceiling, which beats like a heart. In the middle of the room there is some delicious rye sourdough! They both have some, tasty.
- From all four doors, a gang of random people who are all hallucinating wildly enter! They congratulate the pair on becoming bread eaters, and the bread contains rye ergot! Iskander licks some of the dried turd covering his body and vomits up the bread, saving himself from ergotism. Dorian has eaten worse honestly.
- It's a fight! Iskander lobs a magnet bomb, forcibly removing the haemoglobin from the bodies of a whole group of them. Apparently I agreed to this??
- Dorian blowguns another foe for a single point of damage, which is just as useful.
- Luckily these guys are high as fuck the whole time, so keep on missing. Dorian's wrist spurs get an absolute workout, stabbing them through eye sockets and slashing achilles tendons while Iskander basically spins in a big circle murdering people.
- The final two fall to their knees and surrender! Their names are Jonathan Toast and Samantha Bread, and become questionably loyal porters. Samantha seems rather taken with Iskander... or she's just high as fuck.

- They loot the corpses of their new porters' former compatriots and find some pain blade poison and a Confusion Bomb!

--- Bosnians
- Since they've got guides now, they discover that they could skip all the way to the final zone! Since it's just the two of them, they decide to take a detour into a Gold Zone which has an actual specific map.
- A long corridor ends in a huge brass-bound gate with a broken lock, guarded by two very slavic men in knightly armour. Their faith is Enlightened, and thus they consider Iskander's Intergalacticism faith to be heretical.
- Iskander shanks one with a fish.
- It is discovered that Iskander actually speaks Croatian due to his Croatian grandmother, so he can understand these Bosnians quite well. Some time is spent looking up Croatian swearwords. Also it turns out that in this fictional game universe Bosnians have a mutual hatred with the Croats.. apparently irl they both hate the Serbs but that's by the by.

- Iskander's Croatian-swearword-powered swing demolishes the holy armour of one of these guys, even while they have the Backstab-boosting faith bonus of Dispater in zenith. Dorian follows up with his wrist-spurs, fumbles, cracks a spur, and hits the other!
- Killing one, he turns to the other who is about to cry out for help! Dorian is too swift though, clapping his hand over the man's mouth while Iskander sinks his blood-drinking fish into his belly.

- Dorian takes the armour from one of the guys while Iskander loots the flag of Bosnia & Herzegovina from the other.
- They pass through the gate and a strange energy washes over their psyches...

--- Dream Paintings
- They pass through the grand entrance hall, Dorian proclaiming that it will be a good palace for him. He boots open some double doors and enters a gallery, Iskander impishly following behind.

- The paintings shimmer holographically, and Dorian tries one that has a unicorn sleeping with ladies around it.

- Dorian has replaced one of the ladies! He is now in the dream-world, and jumps onto the back of the unicorn. He knows that the Turk yearns in his heart for Constantinople, and rides off into the distance on unicorn-back to assist in its defence!

- Iskander, meanwhile, enters a painting that depicts Bosnian Achilles locked in a duel with Croat Hector, Constantinople burning under the barrage of Ottoman bombards! He helps Hector win the duel, and turns to see the Samantha Bread, she of the face that launched a thousand ships, looking at him in open awe.

- Distantly, the sparkling flank of Dorian's unicorn leaps clean over the parapets of Constantinople and into Mehmed II's honour guard... the great city shall not fall yet!
- We leave the characters conveniently in the dream world, giving whoever shows up next week ample time to arrive...

Total: 8000 exp

Treasure Collected:

- 770 obols in red velvet bags (770 exp)
- A Confusion Bomb
- Blade Poison - Pain
- Bosnian Flag

- Heavy Armour

Total: 770 exp

Foes Defeated:

- The Anal Fisher (5 exp)
- A bunch of 2D redcaps (300 exp)
- A gang of ergotic crazies (250 exp)
- Two holy knights (200 exp)

- Imaginary Bosnian Achilles
- Potentially countless imaginary Turks

Total: 755 exp

Totals:

- Ollie / Iskander Fullbeard, Level 6 Fighter: 55444 (Level up at 64000)

- Kitty / Dorian "Ditto" DeMone, Level 4 Inheritor: 17017 (Level up at 18000)