Session 453 - Battenburgivore

Date: 9 July 1626

Zenith: Oberon

Moon Phase: Waning Crescent

Moon Face: Dragon Face (Tidelocked)  

New Characters:

- Arry Arlow, Once a desairologist (corpse beautician) and ex-Necromancer, he fell out of the game when he realised that he was better at stabbing people than raising the Dead. 

Events:

--- Return to the Worm

- Our heroes are outside the mouth of the huge multicoloured (and increasingly obviously tumourous) worm.

- They head back in and follow their previous route back in. The Nonanists briefly pray and discover that the God today is Oberon, +3 to Ranged.
- They try a new chamber (marbled indigo) and find themselves face to face with a couple of newly renamed "Virospidos", the 10-limbed spidery creatures with the whip-neck and a jagged poisoned beak.

- They are swiftly dispatched by Hammer Hatmaskerson and Arry Arlow, but not without Masnavi-y-Manavi getting stung by one of their poison beaks. He's now intoxicated and staggers behind.

--- Battenwurm

- There are several exits, but one smells of cake so of course they go that way.

- Within a hollow of iridescent puce they see a big fat honest-to-gods Battenburg cake fighting against that sort of worm-bodied wall-burrowing creature with a swiss-army knife of medical equipment for a mouth. They name the worm creature a Battenburgivore.

- The enormous battenburg is thrusting out yellow squares, punching away the Battenburgivore. Hammer and Arry run in to protect the cake, but Arry gets a slingstone to the back of his head courtesy of Mother Flotsam who forgot about the whole shooting into melee thing.
- Masvani slings his fishing rod to molest the far sphincter-door and causes it to close up over the Battenburgivore's worm body! The head squeals!

- The cake takes the opportunity to crush the worm monster with a couple of rapid punches from its pink squares. Victory!

--- Let Them Speak Cake

- The cake opens its innards and speaks warmly from within. Its name is Rudyard and he is from the Gardens of Ynn. His mind, once enveloped by the Idea of Thorns, is now converting to the Idea of Wheat. He thanks the party for their help and tells them that he is here to help reformat the worm.
- They speak with the cake. His entrance was via a tear in the worm that led from the Gardens of Ynn, and his cake-senses tell him that the worm's heart, its core, its cortex, is 6 "rooms" or blisters to the south.

- Masnavi uses a Shape Flesh spell to turn a Virospido from the previous room into an autonomous shield mounted on his walking crab throne.

--- Millions of Sleeches, Sleeches for Me

- The next room is globules upon globules of fluid. Gelatinous Sleeches slither along the walls. These are not renamed because it's a pretty good name. Treasures glimmer in the cracks.
- Mother Flotsam summons up something that is certainly not magic and is surrounded by thousands of flying blades of steely force. She strides forth and the sleeches pop around her, spraying the area with pools of quick-drying glue-blood. This bogs her down fairly swiftly.
- Hammer twists his hand as he releases his sling and spins the slingstone Wanted-style, whipping round the room and killing and/or hurting the remaining grubs.

- Mother Flotsam is covered in clear glue, but she keeps her feet.
- Hammer wades in to finish off the last of them and his victory coccoons him in quick-dry sleech guts. He's basically entombed in resin.

- Masvani has the answer - Embalm! This niche spell turns dead creatures' innards to formaldehyde. The sleech-goo is transubstantiated into pungent yellow liquid, dripping off our stunned and slowed compatriots. A true success for a supposedly useless incantation!

- Squeezing out the Treasure

- There is an abundance of stuff enfolded within the creases of the sleech room.
- Mother Flotsam discovers two wens filled with gold dust, and a highly elastic piece of skin 1' wide.
- Hammer gains Sleech nodules which are worth money, a globule of carmine humour which causes Bleed in a radius when popped, and a Bronze Seed that is forever nice and warm like a hot water bottle.
- Masvani gains a tight-knit fragment of fleebrweb which acts as a fine sieve, eight small crystals worth 20 obols each, and a chunk of scabrous gold-flecked scab worth 170 obols.

--- Heartbound

- They decide to run forth. Several chambers are in their way, but they follow the low heartbeat until the reach the heart, the cortex.

- They enter and see a transparent heart pulsing. Within the heart, dancing and drawing unknown shapes upon the atria, is an Elf with huge horizontal ears, a simple shift, and eyes that leak blood.

- She turns at the sound of our heroes entering her domain. She rejects beauty, and is from the Gardens of Ynn. Her existence, so long overtaken by the Idea of Thorns is being subverted by the Idea of Wheat. She hasn't had a name for it before.

- She is very much a potential boss fight, and so we end before it gets complicated.

Total: 7000 exp

Foes Defeated:

- A couple of Virospidos (100 exp)

- A Battenburgivore (75 exp)
- An abundance of Sleechers (300 exp)

Total: 475 exp

Treasures Claimed:

- Gold dust in two plump wens (350 exp)
- Stretchy Fleebr skin
- 4 Sleecher nodules worth 80 obols together (80 exp)

- A further 4 Sleecher nodules worth 80 obols together (80 exp)

- Glob of carmine humour creates Bleed Poison zone 20'.

- Bronze Seed is forever warm

- Fragment of fleebrweb acts as fine sieve

- 8 small crystals worth 160 obols together (160 exp)

- Gilded scab fragment (170 exp)

Total:840 exp

OOC:

- Carter the Chronicler and Paymaster (200 exp/level)
- Ratman the Caller (100 exp/level)

- Kitty the Vanguard (100 exp/level)

Exp Totals:

- George / Hammer Hatmakerson, Level 5 Fighter: 20678 (Level up at 32000)

- Carter / Masvani-I-Manavi, Level 5 Necromancer: 19164 (Level up at 36000)

- Kitty / Mother Flotsam, Level 4 Magic-User: 13494 (Level up at 18000)

- J Gregory / Arry Arlow, Level 2 Fighter: 2050 (Level up at 4000)
*LEVEL UP!* +1d8 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 to Hit! +1 to Crit/Fumble! +Backstory!

Session 452 - Lo! 't Is a gala night

 Date: 26 May 1626

Zenith: Deusix

Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous

Moon Face: Dragon Face (Tidelocked)  

Revealed Backstory:

- Hammer Hatmakerson sought revenge against Celebus after being comprehensively mogged. I have no idea what these words mean. When you die, roll on the Cosmic Horror table.

- Mother Flotsam ran into the woods in her youth, following a red riding hood storyline. Alas she met he Devil himself who brought her to deeper knowledge. Witchcraft is in your bones.

--Events

--- Certain Ideals

- Our heroes are at Mt Grumblebelch after at least one night of boozing.

- They question the Dwarfs and discover that they've delved too greedily and too deep.

- They hear of two easy options - kill a big worm that has infested the layer between the stone and the flesh, or enter a strange temple unearthed recently.

- They take the worm option.

-- A Mouth Luminous

- It takes hours but they eventually end up in front of the lips of an extraordinary worm. The Dwarves basically just say "yes that's it".

- The lips of the worm sparkle with colours heretofore unseen. Saturated colour from hot pink all the way though to dull grey.

- Our heroes enter.

-- Gold Devourer

- Hammer Hatmakerson, truest hero, strides forth into the maw. Fronds in the worms' throat reach into his backpack and trousers, fritzing him for gold objects. Alas, they find nothing of value.

- Masnavi shudders as the fronds start to lick up his gold coins. With a flick of the capitalist wrist, he converts his gold into obol tattoos. Somewhere Julgoor cackles.

- Hammer tickles the fleshy fronds before him and they sigh apart.

--- Totally Tubular

- Chambers are explored despite Charles' admonitions that this worm doesn't make sense from a biological perspective. It's mutant and growing, I swear.

- They reach a (the?) fleebrweb and Benito lobs a molotov into the mess of strands. Everything burns.

- This horrifies the host worm. The floor shakes. Everyone other than the extremely powerful Hammer Hatmakerson falls to the wormy ground.

--- Worm Time

- Benito sees a worm flexing forth and (roll roll) takes it over with his mental prowess. It's a tube of gristle wrapped around a long line of technological surgical equipment. It obeys him nevertheless.

- I draw some eyes on my hand and Zoë pack-bonds immediately.

- They stroke open the next door and find themselves in a fleebrweb! There are many fleebrs. Benito chucks a molotov and the fleebrs are all but gone.

--- Stinging Being

- The next cavity contains a ten-legged thing whose legs surround a disk-shaped body. It's awful. Beneath its body is a scorpion tail.

- Benito spins food towards it. It grabs, grips, and devours.

- They chase it into another room where it is assailed by a red worm. Both beasties battle to the death.

- Fear of Assailaints

- Tremors abound. Our heroes avaunt into a side room, closing the fronds behind.

- They decide to cook a meal they call "Slimy but Satisfying" created from Sleech, cored-out red worm, and wheat. It's way better than you'd think!

Total: 8000 exp

FOEs

- A couple of red worms (200 exp)

Total: 200 exp

Exp:

- George / Hammer Hatmakerson, Level 5 Fighter: 18628 (Level up at 32000)

- Carter / Masvani-I-Manavi, Level 4 Necromancer: 17114 (Level up at 18000)

- Charles / Benito Brazil, Level 4 Halfling: 15911 (Level up at 16000)

- Kitty / Mother Flotsam, Level 4 Magic-User: 11444 (Level up at 18000)

- Zoë / Goblinda, Level 3 Goblin: 7597 (Level up at 8000)

Session 451 - Wrath of the Glitch King

Date: 5 May 1626

Zenith: Alaunus

Moon Phase: Waning Crescent

Moon Face: Dragon Face (Tidelocked)  

Bonus Shrub

Revealed Backstory:

- Goblinda was a devoted leader to her friends and collaborators in her textile business. Give an order once per round - if they obey they get +2 to the action.

Goblinda's Guild Crest

Events:

--- First We Mine, Then We Craft..

- We return to our heroes as they huddle behind a curtain. The room they just came from is silent, despite the many glitch-dwarves they just fought in there. They peek back and confused glitch-dwarves pop back into existence! Look away, and they're gone.

- They turn and look into the corridors deeper in. A spinning tetrahedron - a d4 - is spasming in the centre of the fork.
- Benito touches it and ZAP! It burrows into his head, and Benito's arms and armour get all square and blocky and glitchy, just like the glitch-dwarves!

--- Two Guards

- There are two directions at the fork. One sounds like people talking, the other has a rustle of cloth. They go towards the cloth sounds and find another hanging curtain, this one has two crosses woven onto it.
- They pull it aside and are confronted with two glitch-dwarf guards in front of a door! One always lies, the other always tells the truth. Benito asks "why tho?" and the dwarves grow larger!
- Masvani tries the door and gets pummelled by a glitch-fist! He manages to spit the blood onto the door though and flash-cast Coffin Knock, opening the door!

- The guards are defeated and shrink away, but not before Benito and Masvani give their shrinking forms a kicking.

--- The Glitch King

- Technically there was a clever trick to that door, but the whole point of Knockspells is overcoming arbitrary door-shaped obstacles!

- Within they find a room of pillars and weird spacial distortions. Rolling towards them is an enormous cube! Each face has a different Dwarven face in a different pixelated style.

- The party bid him halt! They have questions. The Glitch King shall answer.

- It is as Hammer suspected. This "Mountain God" was a fragment of the Old Miner which was ejected for being too buggy, a corrupted shard thrown free before it could corrupt the rest of the whole.

- Benito crouch-jumps at the side of the Glitch King until he clips through into the treasure room. He has time to grab one object (a rifle with a crying dwarf carved on the side) before the exploit is patched out.
- Masvani decides to join the Glitch Religion after hearing that it's about individualistic trendsetters who carve their own path and don't need no man. His Faith Bonus means his weapons gain Glitch until he does the same thing as someone else in a round.

- The Glitch King allows the party to go in peace. His people will let them pass so long as nobody attacks anybody else.

--- The Pointless Maze

- They head back the way they came and try going the other way towards the voices. They come across another glitchy platonic solid (this one an icosahedron - ie. a d20) and Benito grabs that too, spreading the glitchiness to all in the party!
- Each turn has a rustle of cloth or voices just in the next room. Each time they choose the voices, and each time there's some rotating platonic solid. Benito grabs them all and eventually grabs one that cancels all effects.
- Finally they reach... a cafe! Two glitch-dwarves eat scones and argue over whether jam or cream goes first. Benito and Mother Flotsam line up with plastic trays, eyeing up the last slice of red velvet cake.

- Hammer Hatmakerson smashes the cash register, sending cash flying, and the room disappears!

They see favourite returning character
THE MAN OF DIRECTIONS
Welcome back Man of Directions!

- They find themselves where they were at the start of the session, behind the curtain that leads into the room full of glitch-dwarves. This time the Dwarves, when they render in, let them through. Any scion of the Glitch King is a scion of mine!

--- Mt Grumblebelch

- They finally leave and head to Mt Grumblebelch itself. An extremely recent Dwarf Hold by anyone's standards, having been formed as a business venture only a couple of decades after the Poisoned Years.

- It's open and welcoming. The Dwarves all wear classic Dwarf gear, chainmail and axes over leather jerkins. Proper honest Dwarf stuff.

- There is, however, a protest in the cavernous entry hall. Humans from the Nightsoil Guild are complaining. Mt Grumblebelch's current main business is mining out the flesh beneath the Wheatlands (née Meatlands) and replacing it with good, honest stone. The is cutting off the Nightsoil Guilds' access to fertiliser from their bumwells. As the stone comes in, the wells stop producing. It's cutting into their profits!
- Ah well, the politics don't really affect the party. They head to the pub and.. hey! It's a Guido! Looks like he is indeed the bartender at every pub!
- They listen around the pub for rumours:
>> The town of Bell, east of the Broligarchy, is haunted by witches that returned when the forest re-emerged.

>> The denizens of New Moondin will watch any outsider very carefully. Only approach if you know someone there.

>>If your village is under attack, consider giving a tithe to Cutfester. Their grizzled warriors are hardened against Dhargaspawn and more horrors besides.

>>Goblins will listen attentively to anyone who follows the Goblin Religion like me. There's something about their expression that makes me think they're mocking me though...

>>A group of Unorthodox Cultists is roaming the lands, warning of war with the Ayatollah of a far-off empire.

--- Carousing in Mt Grumblebelch!

- Goblinda, Benito, Mother Flotsam, and Hammer decide to get hammered!
>>Goblinda Caroused! +1000 exp
>>Benito Caroused! +4500exp
>>Mother Flotsam Caroused! +4000 exp
>>Hammer Caroused! +500 exp

- Hammer has fallen in love with a "goth baddie" named... Willie Justice?? Can't read the Remembrancer's words sorry! We'll find out tonight I guess.

- Goblinda heads to the kitchen and cooks up "Pot de Peur" consisting of wine, anteater, dinosaur, crab and elk. All claimed from the mysterious Caveman Zone (recap tbc). It's... palatable! But no bonus alas.

- Our heroes settle down in Mt Grumblebelch for the night and have quite a nice sleep.

Total: 7000 exp

Loot:
- Mysterious Crying Dwarf Rifle

Foes:

- The glitch-dwarf guards, technically (150 exp)

Total: 150 exp

OOC:
- Charles the Chronicler (100 exp/level)

- Carter the Expedition Leader (and Artist) (200 exp/level)
- Kitty the Vanguard (100 exp/level)

- Zoë the Artist (100 exp/level)

- George the Chef (100 exp/level)

Exp Totals:

- George / Hammer Hatmakerson, Level 5 Fighter: 17488 (Level up at 32000)

*LEVEL UP!* +1d8 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 to Hit! +1 to Crit/Fumble! +Backstory!

- Carter / Masvani-I-Manavi, Level 4 Necromancer: 15874 (Level up at 18000)

- Charles / Benito Brazil, Level 4 Halfling: 14871 (Level up at 16000)

- Kitty / Mother Flotsam, Level 4 Magic-User: 10204 (Level up at 18000)

*LEVEL UP! +1d4 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 Mana! +Free Spell! + Backstory!

- Zoë / Goblinda, Level 3 Goblin: 6257 (Level up at 8000)

Session 450 - Glitch Mob

Date: 5 May 1626

Zenith: Alaunus

Moon Phase: Waning Gibbous

Moon Face: Dragon Face (Tidelocked)  

 

Revealed Backstory:

- Mother Flotsam blames herself for her child dying too young, which is why she's such a motherly presence on the team. If someone nearby would die, you can take a crit from what killed them instead.

Events: 

--- And We're Back!

- After a Lost Episode in the Liminal Zone (Episode 459.5 coming soon?) wherein much treasure and strange cave-men were fought and befriended, we return to regular programming!
- The party are, via some contrivance, at the foot of Mount Grumblebelch. Before them is the Sepulchre wherein lies the Mountain God. Theorised to be related to the Old Miner by Hammer Hatmakerson, and reportedly served by a small army of Dwarven worshippers.

- Without further ado, they approach. A curtain blocks a cave mouth, upon which is stitched a squareish minecraft-ish looks-a-bit-like-a-dwarf symbol. They approach and from thin air two Dwarves appear, textures shimmering into existence. They have emerald green priestly robes and swords which shiver and jitter.

- They speak the tongue of Ur-Kalladh, common to the Dwarves of Mt Grumblebelch, and despite some initial digital spasms are quite intelligible for those who know the language.
- They offer entry into their holy mysteries for those who wish to partake. Their faith is one of non-conformity. Benito gives one of them a line of Notcoke and dives past, while the rest of the party follow more sedately. Nice chaps really.

--- Cyberattack

- The tunnel inside is smooth-floored but the walls jag and zigzag unnaturally, carved by some weird force. It ends at another curtain with a similar symbol of a Dwarf face. When pulled aside, the Dwarves within load in. They seem to have experienced a discontinuity of consciousness.

- Talks are attempted but denied, there are a number of similar green-robed Dwarfs, who declare that they wouldn't necessarily fight if their priest was defeated. The priest is at the back of the room in resplendent black-soaked green, on his head a helmet containing two rotating six-sided dice on gimbals.

--- Near Impact
- Masvani fishes the leader's hat straight off his head! Whatever mystical power it possessed is unmoored.
- The party rediscover the art of Opportunity Attacks via failed attempts to get past the front row and kill the priest.

- Mother Flotsam casts her new spell - Babbling Curse - on the leader and he begins yammering hypnotically, all who hear him look on in hypnotic shock unless they pass a save. The leader begins speaking of the infinite labyrinth, of conspiracy, of the truth of the world. The party cover their ears, but Hammer is too late and is stunned too!
- Goblinda attacks Hammer to break his curse and it works! Unfortunately this breaks the curse for everyone not just the individual, and the party is now fighting for their lives.
- Goblinda stands tall and Opportunity Attacks all comers, but...
- The vengeful priest strikes Goblinda across the face, leaving a scar down her cheek.
- She staggers back into the glitching sword of a Dwarven attacker, who aims high then glitches and strikes low, ripping through the celery-like tendon that Goblins have instead of a hamstring. Goblinda is down, drawing artistic flourishes in the sap oozing from her xylem.

--- Alas and Alack

- Masvani activates his backstory power and lies (vaguely plausibly) to the priest boss, who vanishes. The few surviving Dwarfs stand down.
- Masvani casts Livor Mortis, counteracting Goblinda's bleeding, while Mother Flotsam performs first aid and closes up her internal bleeding. Benito feeds her a potion of healing and she's out of the woods. The hamstring will take longer to heal.

- They pick Goblinda up and hustle her through the next curtain which is stitched with a sort of square design, coming to an unlit corridor. As the curtain swishes closed behind them, the dwarves within despawn.
- A throwaway line haunts their minds - is this the infinite labyrinth?

Total: 5000 exp

Foes Defeated:
- A fair few glitch-dwarves (450 exp)

- A glitch-priest (100 exp)

Total: 550 exp

OOC:

- Carter the Chronicler & Cartographer (200 exp/level)

- Jahms the Expedition Leader (All foes gain 1 level permanently no take backs)

- Charles the Paymaster (100 exp/level)
- Kitty the Vanguard (100 exp/level)
- Zoe the Chef (100 exp/level)

Exp Totals:

- George / Hammer Hatmakerson, Level 4 Fighter: 15558 (Level up at 16000)

- Carter / Masvani-I-Manavi, Level 4 Necromancer: 14044 (Level up at 18000)

- Charles / Benito Brazil, Level 4 Halfling: 12841 (Level up at 16000)

- Kitty / Mother Flotsam, Level 3 Magic-User: 8374 (Level up at 9000)

- Zoë / Goblinda, Level 3 Goblin: 4527 (Level up at 8000)
*LEVEL UP! +1d6 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 Goblin! +Backstory!

Session 449.5 - Caveman Canonicity Crashout

Session 449 - The Road to #DUNGEON_NOT_FOUND_ERROR#

Date: 28 April 1626

Zenith: The Dead God

Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous

Moon Face: Dragon Face (Tidelocked)  

New Backstory:

- Benito Brazil had a baby back in Brazil, which is one of the reasons why he fled across the sea to Loegria, and left the kid to be raised by the local Caramelo dogs. Your next character can be your son, who starts at half your exp.

- Hammer Hatmakerson reached the position of "naturally handsome" in the manosphere due to hammering his face bones or whatever. He was soon betraymogged by a rival and cast down. +2 to Con stat.

- Masvani-i-Manavi deceived the entire army into walking out of the city then locked the gates behind them, a brilliant prank! Once per session, someone absolutely believes a plausible lie.

Events:

--- Admin Adventures AND a Lore Drop

- We return to our heroes in Larger Pushell, where they are walking around and hearing rumours.
-- Gifflewim is offering discounts with code #GetCrunk

-- Dwarves are slowly replacing the Meatlands with stone

-- Grumblebelch Dwarves are famed for their unbreaking weapons

-- The people of Guzzle send their children into dungeons in the hopes that they'll be ensouled by a passing hero.

- Benito immediately heads to Gifflewim's shop and gets himself 5 doses of Notcoke as a gift-with-purchase.

- The others buy stuff from the local vendor, and Masvani gets himself a nice chair to fit to his new undead Stoneshell Crab. Much more comfortable!

- Gifflewim also informs the group that Elves have breached the vault of heaven, having travelled here after Mars suddenly vanished one day (who did that?). There is a war on the moon, but the Nine High Gods are preventing the fallout from reaching Earth. Spicy!

-- Heading Off 

- As they leave towards Mt Grumblebelch and the Sepulchre of the Mountain God at its base, they pass a Dwarf merchant offering to sell them some goods!

- They purchase some potions from a random grab-bag. A Potion of Growth for Benito, a Potion of Plant Control for Hammer, and a Potion of Spell Ward for Mother Flotsam. How nice!
- The Dwarf also tells them that the Sepulchre of the Mountain God contains Dwarfs who left Mt Grumblebelch to praise the Mountain God instead. They're all mad cultists in his opinion.

--- Uh Oh

- I try to load the dungeon and discover to my absolute horror that something's gone wrong with the SD card! Is everything gone?? I take 2d20 psychic damage and am Stunned for the rest of the session.

- We do some little social interactions while I try to recover, and Benito manages to free himself from his god-curse by sniping a Skip-Rat from 200 yards.

- Alas, my morale is broken, so we end here and George takes over for the rest of the session.
- Charles later fixes it so WE GOOD

Total: 4000 exp

OOC:

- Carter the Chronicler, Paymaster and Cartographer (300 exp/level)
- Kitty the Expedition Leader and Chef (200 exp/level)
- George the Vanguard (100 exp/level)
- Charles the Illustrator (100 exp/level)

Exp Totals:

- George / Hammer Hatmakerson, Level 4 Fighter: 14448 (Level up at 16000)

- Carter / Masvani-I-Manavi, Level 4 Necromancer: 12134 (Level up at 18000)

- Charles / Benito Brazil, Level 4 Halfling: 11331 (Level up at 16000)

- Kitty / Mother Flotsam, Level 3 Magic-User: 6964 (Level up at 9000)
*LEVEL UP! +1d4 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 Mana! +Free Spell! + Backstory!

Session 448 - A Few Crabs With the Boys

Date: 7 April 1626

Zenith: Oberon

Moon Phase: Waning Gibbous

Moon Face: Dragon Face (Tidelocked)  

Revealed Backstory: 

- Masvani washed away in his youth, yet still loves the water. +1 Piloting.

- Benito is a member of the Ronaldinho Club who supports any and all footballing Ronaldinhos in the hopes they win a purported future award of global significance. Find a fellow member in any city.

Events:

--- Screw This Place

- Despite Masvani's protestations, the group decides to leave the fungal hell behind. They check each others' necks for fronds just to be sure.
- Benito and Hammer shared food together and, apparently, pooped in the same hole after having similar gastrointestinal issues. They have a new understanding.

- They walk back to the road, wheat on the inland side, and find tracks that lead into the seemingly endless wheat! A multitude of heavy holes like sticks pushed down with great strength. Benito sneaks off the path, the others boldly stride forth.

- They come to a circle in the crops. In the centre, a pyramid of nine white stones an arms-breadth wide. Huge crabs relax and molt in the sun. They know of these beasts - Stoneshell Crabs! Caught in their molting!

--- Softshell Assault

- Benito lobs a molotov at the stone-pile, cutting the crabs off from their hermit shells. Hammer heaves in and slices into the soft and delicate shell of one of the crabs, while Benito's minion Wetherspoons Dave smacks himself in the jaw while attempting similar.

- Masvani casts Chattering Skull on a crab's barely formed shell because "an exoskeleton counts as a skeleton right?". Patch notes circle this decision. The crab is horrified by its armour gaining the semblance of life and is thus Dazed.

- Hammer picks the gap and scythes through one and slams into another! He doesn't quite kill it, but Wetherspoons Dave finishes the job with a swift slice! Masvani clinches the last breath with a flick of his wrist.

- The other crabs, shell-less and gummy, flee into the wheat. Another is hobbled as it tries to flee and snipped just behind the eyes. This kills the crab.

--- Aftermath

- Masvani slurps up his crab-flavoured Last Breath and raises a gummy softshell corpse as his mobile throne. Benito slices off the best bits from the dead.

- They all set off towards Greater Pushell, Masvani futilely trying to fish from the back of his crab-throne.

- They reach the Pus Crack, that great bloody rent in the fleshy earth, and debate how to fix it. They hear a cod-Scottish voice telling them to shut up, and look over to see a scattering of stone igloos.

--- Grumblebelch Tendency

- The party approach, Masvani humming a tune, and find a group of three Dwarves from Mt Grumblebelch hanging out and roasting various meaty chunks over a campfire. They're charmed enough by Masvani to welcome the party.
- They chat for a while, and the Dwarves pridefully speak on their arcology's mission to replace the meat of the meatlands with good clean stone. Personally, they're on their way to repair a sluice gate that's leaking fungus into the river. On hearing that the fungus situation has literally just been fixed the Dwarves are stoked! Party time!

- The Dwarves offer their beer, so Masvani cooks up a meal of Crab, Beer and wheat-based "popcorn", naming it Popcorn Crab. It's bloody good!

--- The Party Don't Stop

- The Dwarves' thick beer makes Hammer very drunk, and soon he's dancing towards the lights of Greater Pushell through the balmy night with his new Dwarven best friends.

- They're singing old songs of Ur-Kalladh when they arrive at the gates. The one guard meets them, having seen them crossing through the swaying grain in the light of the gibbous moon, and suggests they head to the Broken Crow because it's last orders soon.
- Benito and Masvani have followed, and Benito decides to get in on the party vibe. Masvani is, alas, too poor and doesn't want to end up in debt to a demon or something (that would be crazy right?)

- Hammer is totally fine! Alas, Benito falls out with the Dwarves because they took the opportunity to mock him for being even shorter than they. He is saved from his shame by an actual God! It's Oberon in the form of a white hare, who distracts for long enough for Benito to escape with his pride intact.
- Benito is tasked with a religious quest - shoot a creature from a great distance against the odds (ie. hit a creature when you need 17+ on the roll) within a month, or else no ranged attacks forevermore.
- A cock crows as dawn breaks, and Benito tries to hit the cockerel but misses terribly. His concern rises, for little does he know, but we'll be skipping the next couple of weeks...

Total: 6000 exp

Carousing:

- Benito Caroused! (600 exp)
- Hammer Caroused! (800 exp)

OOC:

- Carter the Chronicler & Chef (200 exp/level)

- George the Expedition Leader & Cartographer (200 exp/level)

- Charles the Paymaster, Vanguard, Artist & Chef (400 exp/level)

Exp Totals:

- George / Hammer Hatmakerson, Level 4 Fighter: 12123 (Level up at 16000)

*LEVEL UP!* +1d8 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 to Hit! +1 to Crit/Fumble! +Backstory!

- Carter / Masvani-I-Manavi, Level 4 Necromancer: 9009 (Level up at 18000)

*LEVEL UP! +1d4 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 Mana! +Free Spell! + Backstory!

- Charles / Benito Brazil, Level 4 Halfling: 9006 (Level up at 16000)

*LEVEL UP!* +1d6 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 to Mind Control! +1 to Cooking! +Backstory!