Session 197 - The Assumption of Styx

As Styx gains more and more godly power, the rest of the party get tantalisingly close to the reservoir of raw azoth under Dwimmermount!

But as they continue to suffer from the slow attrition of long hours in the depths, will Zena's reappearance be enough to let them survive to claim it?

POWERLAD worries about killing mushrooms
Andromeda steals a kiss
Zena goes all out
Dumbledorris finds a heart
Is not Styx the Lord Your God?

Session 197 - The Assumption of Styx

Campaign Date:

Friday, 5 May, 1601

Moon Phase: Third Quarter

Zenith: The Dead God

Zodiac: Aries

New Backstory:
- Styx was hunted by the Witchfinders, but managed to skulk and sneak away from their notice with great skill and cunning. (+1 Stealth)

- When Zena returned from her long mission to kill six billion demons she showed all the heads of the great demons she had slain. Nobody had the heart to tell her that it was mostly random ugly animals and a weirdly big pigeon and other clearly-not-demons. (When you roll the worst possible result on a roll, everyone who sees it heals 1HP)

Treasure and Equipment:

- A bionic replicant heart (500 exp)
- 3 silvery jumpsuits

Total: 19750 exp

Enemies Defeated:

- False Flaming Fury (75 exp) - 12 roboskeletons (120 exp)

Total: 195 exp

Exploration:

- Explored 4 dungeon areas (80 exp) - First party to enter a Seraphim (500 exp)

Total: 580 exp

Events:

--- Flaming Fury vs Flaming Fury!

- We open with Flaming Fury in midst of deadly combat with… Flaming Fury. One has oil soaking her beard. They are screaming in rage. (50 exp)

- They clash again and again, picks clanging off their suits of chain. It’s hard to keep track, the blur building between them with every blow. (50 exp)
- One of the Flaming Furies screams as a terrible power coiled within her is made manifest, the other is lifted into the air on a plane of floating force! (50 exp)
- The other leaps from the platform, slamming down on her enemy Flaming Fury and sending them rolling across the floor. (50 exp)
- A hatch door slams open and Dumbledorris charges in! The scene before her is baffling, even for a shape-changer such as she. (50 exp)
- Flaming Fury throws off her assailant and levels her blunderbuss at her. BOOM! Shrapnel blasts into Flaming Fury and sets her beard alight! She screams! (50 exp)
- Dumbledorris takes a chance and slashes at the Flaming Fury who’s on fire - blinding her! The fire of her beard is getting into her eyes, making it impossible for her to see. Flaming Fury smiles in relief… but is that a hint of a smirk? (50 exp)
--- Zena Saves!
- POWERLAD stands up into a low crouch. He is in a dark room, hissing robo-skeletons surrounding him. Behind him, framed in the open circular doorway, Andromeda struggles to breathe. POWERLAD will protect her, even if it’s the last thing he does. (50 exp)
- He raises his fists and screams a battlecry… a battlecry that is echoed by Zena! She leaps over Andromeda and through the doorway, great sweeps of her halberd clearing space for POWERLAD to retreat! (50 exp)
- “Protect the girl!” she yells, and holds the robots back as POWERLAD gratefully withdraws to the doorway, slamming it shut as Zena backs out. What a heroine! (50 exp)
- He checks on Andromeda who looks up at him with admiration. “You saved me!”. Suddenly POWERLAD hears the sound of fire and screaming from down the corridor - that sounds like Flaming Fury! (50 exp)

--- Clone Combat!

- Now that the copy is on fire, it’s obvious which one’s which, no matter how much it pleads that they’re making a mistake and she’s the REAL Flaming Fury. (50 exp)
- Zena sprints round the corner and stabs it in the back of the neck! It screams and staggers around, blind and stunned! (50 exp)

- The fire finally goes out as Flaming Fury’s beard finally burns away completely, allowing the fake to see once more… it grasps at Zena and suddenly Zena is face to face with herself! … for a split second, before the damage the copy sustained causes it to crumble to clay. (50 exp)
--- Dumbledorris gets freaky
- Dumbledorris wants that shapeshifting power, so while Zena goes to check on Andromeda and POWERLAD she collapses into shifting digestion ooze over the doppelganger. (50 exp)

- While digesting it, she finds something strange - a bionic gem heart in its core. She can feel that she could assimilate this heart and become just like them at the cost of most of her powers… or merely steal a limited version of their shapeshifting ability. (50 exp)

- She takes the limited version for now, saving the bionic heart for later in case she wants to take it later. (50 exp)
- Zena’s taking a long time to get back… because she walked in on Andromeda and POWERLAD making out in the corridor! Oh shit! They pretend like nothing happened, but Zena KNOWS what she saw! (50 exp)

--- Styx and the Twelve Disciples
- Several hours later due to split-party chronology shenanigans, Styx and his six goblin buddies head out towards the upper angel level. With them are Ilda’s party of six NPCs. Twelve disciples, following a goblin who can talk to God. (50 exp)
- The walk back to the elevator is uneventful… until Ilda nearly walks straight into a wall of ooze! (50 exp)

- Her compatriot Zam is not so lucky, getting pulled into the gelatinous mass! Break attempts to help, but is pulled into the ooze too… (50 exp)
- Inside his robot shell, Break knows fear as he sees the ooze working its way in through the seams of his suit. (50 exp)
- Styx and the rest of his disciples slash at the ooze with wild abandon, freeing Zam and then Break, reducing the cube to a puddle of sticky jelly. Too easy! Nobody’s even stunned! Truly a miracle. (50 exp)
- Styx takes a sample of the gunk and opens the door onto the main corridor and the elevator entry. He is halted by the angels guarding the door, and he attempts to get through them with a complex logical reasoning. (50 exp)
- The angel guard locks up, confused, and bumps the question up the chain to the superuser. A hologram projector flickers on from its central eye, and Styx is once again in direct communication with the Dead God. (50 exp)

- Styx tells him that he plans to grab a control module and then become an earthly intermediary between the Gods and the Drakencults. Permission granted. The Dead God cautions Styx to CONSTANT VIGILANCE! (50 exp)

- With his disciples in tow, Styx gets onto the elevator and ascends upwards to the angel level of Dwimmermount. Ever onwards! (50 exp)
- Thinking with portals
- Now safe and a little rested, the main party grab the control rod and go to test out the portals in the portal room. Three alcoves, arcane symbols, all that good stuff. (50 exp)
- Flaming Fury waves the control rod near an alcove and the sound of machinery can be heard whirring up before a flickering grey fog swirls into shape and reveals a portal! (50 exp)
- Testing each in turn, it seems that one goes to the main entrance, another goes to an unknown cave chamber with an oozing yellow-green slime in the centre, and the last goes to a small room with a Dwarf corpse. (50 exp)
- POWERLAD tests the portal by climbing through into the Dwarf room. The body is clutching its heart, but is otherwise a perfect statue. On the ceiling is a dark glass panel, and the door out of here is a sort of frosted glass mounted in a steel frame. (50 exp)
- Flaming Fury tests the portal - it only stays open as long as Flaming Fury is close to it, and even then only on the near side. POWERLAD can only vaguely see the way back as a greyish discolouration on the wall. (50 exp)
- Zena steps through to help POWERLAD pry the glass door open. Beyond is brushed-steel floors and the sound of battle between forces shouting in old Dwarvish. Not knowing how deep they are, the pair leave well enough alone and retreat back through the portal. (50 exp)
--- Disrespecting mah authoritah

- They head back to the roboskeleton room, Flaming Fury holding the control rod aloft, and open the door. Flaming Fury calls out a command to obey her… but the roboskeletons ignore her and move in to attack! (50 exp)

- Zena begins her grim harvest. With lithe grace she skewers one skeleton after another, spinning smoothly past their fumbling repair-tool hands and leaving bones and gears rattling to the ground around her. (50 exp)

- All the rest can do is gape as Zena disappears into the darkness beyond their torchlight, sparking machines giving a strobe effect as she butchers her way through every single roboskeleton in the room. (50 exp)
- When they finally reach her they find her surrounded by shattered bones and battered gears, she barely even broke a sweat! (50 exp)
--- Space Suits

- They continue through the hatch into the next area and find a large room with a couple of black-stained metal tables built into the floor, empty shelves, lockers, and a big reinforced hatch with window that looks out onto a sea of unrefined Azoth! (50 exp)
- Three of the lockers aren’t empty - containing one-piece jumpsuits with silver collars connected to a strange silver lozenge at the lower back which is plugged into a valve on the inside of the locker. (50 exp)
- They’re extremely baggy, but when put on and activated they mould to the wearer’s shape. Very strange! Even stranger they project an overlay over the wearer’s view, giving numeric readouts and highlighting parts of machinery. (50 exp)

- Zena, wearing a suit, tries to open the reinforced hatch to the lake of azoth - no such luck. The HUD overlays two strange symbols, one similar to an empty battery symbol previously seen and another that says I/O, and a red line comes from each leading to the south. (50 exp)
--- Styx is assumed bodily into heaven

- Styx and his disciples reach the launch chamber despite a brief aside where the Specialist in the party considered stealing the gem from the holo-projector in the God room. (50 exp)
- There are tons of angels in here repairing the launch apparatus. The disciples cower, but Styx tells them “be not afraid!” and walks forward unimpeded. (50 exp)
- The angels let him through, but block any from following after. Styx walks to the centre of the launch chamber and ceiling above him irises open, bathing him in a shaft of light. (50 exp)
- And lo, before their eyes Styx rises slowly towards the angel above. He looks down at them beatifically as he ascends, and the disciples fall to their knees in praise! Truly Styx is the chosen of the Gods! (50 exp)

- He rises up all the way to the peak of Dwimmermount before entering the angel via one of its vast wings, dodging damaged angels being carried in and whole angels being carried out on rails. (50 exp)
- Gravity shifts to pull inwards towards the angel, and Styx finds himself in a large room lined with angels. They scan him with their eyes, but otherwise do nothing. (50 exp)
- Styx requests a control module and is quickly brought a large dodecahedron. Ask and ye shall receive! It’s large but goblin-portable, and Styx decides to get back out with the module rather than stick around and explore the angel’s interior. Maybe next time. (50 exp)

- He travels back to the shaft down into Dwimmermount and jumps, finding himself floating gently down with the control module in his hands. (50 exp)
- As he gets close to the floor of the cavern below he sees his disciples on their knees, worshipping him as he descends. Styx has returned! (50 exp)
- With great solemnity Styx presents the dodecahedron to an angel, and all witness its upper hemisphere open to receive it. It fits snugly and unfolds into a chair, sized for a Dwarf, and a strange control stick! (50 exp)
- Styx sits, and the angel pops open its four legs. Its wings rotate forward into cannon mode. Styx is in control of an angel, railguns and all! (50 exp)
--- Shroom Room

- Zena, Flaming Fury, and the rest of the party follow the red line overlaid over the suit-wearers’ vision. It leads south, into a room with many black-capped mushrooms of unusual size growing within. (50 exp)

- Zena experimentally prods one with her halberd and it pops! Spores spread rapidly through the air, but before she can breathe them in a translucent bubble deploys around her head! She notices a new HUD icon - a circle that ticks down ever so slowly. (50 exp)

- POWERLAD and Andromeda, suitless, back away from the room. Flaming Fury joins Zena and they each follow a different red line as they split into battery and I/O directions. (50 exp)
- Andromeda creates a Repel Life rune and activates it, killing the spores floating in the air. Spores dealt with! (50 exp)
- Flaming Fury follows the line to the battery room, spinning open the hatch and finding herself in a room with a confusing series of consoles, screens and buttons in a central machine. Pipes and wires lines the walls. (50 exp)
- As she approaches, her HUD projects various extra symbols and menus over the buttons. Using more guesswork than anything else, she manages to get the machine up and running! The red line on the floor turns green and the battery icon stops flashing! (50 exp)
- Zena, following the other line, enters another area where several large vertical pipes leak silvery unrefined azoth. Odd jellyfish-like plants seem to be feeding on the leaks, the floor a carpet of plant fibres linking the main slowly-pulsing jelly caps. (50 exp)
- Behind Zena, Dumbledorris uses rune magic to kill all the black spore mushrooms. No longer threatened by whatever it is the spores do, POWERLAD and Andromeda advance! (50 exp)
- Flaming Fury comes out to see what all the fuss is about, and sees the party planning to charge into the jelly-shroom room and smash it up. (50 exp)
- Flaming Fury and POWERLAD open with an ineffectual volley of crossbow and gunfire… but POWERLAD’s too excited and his bolt goes wild! It nearly hits Zena, and the recoil smacks back into a buckle of his armour, damaging it permanently. Arse. (50 exp)
- Somewhat embarrassed, POWERLAD charges in with Andromeda and Zena. As they run across the tendril covered floor the jelly-caps suddenly inflate and blast into the air! The web of tendrils below gathers the three into a big net of stinging stalks! (50 exp)
- It’s clearly poisonous, big red welts coming up on their skin wherever they touch the stalks. They largely avoid the toxins, but Flaming Fury gets a faceful of painful toxins and begins to shake. (50 exp)
- POWERLAD channels the power of Ninhursag to grow BIG!!! He doubles in size, tearing through the thick cords and allowing Zena and Andromeda to escape! The stinging sap that spurts from the torn tendrils hits his face and immediately begins a painful swelling. (50 exp)
- Zena doesn’t immediately leave the room, instead chucking oil and a lantern at the big jelly cap in the centre of the chamber. The blast of fire rapidly spreads… but it seems the hazard suit is highly resistant to fire! (50 exp)
- Framed by fire Zena leaps from the room, following POWERLAD and Andromeda, and they slam the hatch shut behind them. Hopefully the fire deals with those mushroom things! (50 exp)

Total: 3400 exp

Misc:

- Absolutely Disgusting bonus (50 exp)

- Balls to the Wall bonus (50 exp)
- Best of Intentions bonus (50 exp)
- Better Part of Valour bonus (50 exp)
- Breach and Clear bonus (50 exp)
- Brutal Kill bonus (50 exp)
- Classic Charles bonus (50 exp)
- Diplomancy bonus (50 exp)
- Dramatic Battle bonus (50 exp)
- Dramatic Rescue bonus (50 exp)
- Holy bonus (50 exp)
- Kill It With Fire bonus (50 exp)
- Long deliberation bonus (50 exp)
- Ludicrous gore bonus (50 exp)
- Noblebright bonus (50 exp)
- Poison is OP bonus (50 exp)
- Pundemonium bonus (50 exp)
- Split the Party bonus (50 exp)
- What Could Possibly Go Wrong bonus (50 exp)

Total: 950 exp

Party Roles and Individual Exp:

- Remembrancer (Carter / Styx - 100 exp ea)

- Caller (Ollie / Flaming Fury)- 100 exp)
- Mapper (Carter / Styx - 100 exp)

- Treasurer (Charles / Zena - 100 exp)
- Quartermaster (Ollie / Flaming Fury - 100 exp)

- Guard (Kitty / POWERLAD - 100 exp)

- Tracker (Kitty / POWERLAD - 100 exp)
- Art Attack bonus (Charles - 100 exp)

- Chippo Man bonus (Ollie*2- 100 exp ea.)
- JÜGBRINGYR bonus (Kitty - 500 exp)

Active Businesses:

- Knickers Gloves Bodices. Risky. 1020sp. (Ratimir)

- Blood Honey Healing 4 U (Co-dependent businesses)

--- Honey Healing. Safe. 1095sp. (Bertha) +1%

--- Blood Honey 4 U. Safe. 10515sp. (Sir Robyn) +1%

Rumours:

-

Death Toll and Injuries:

-

Exp Totals:

- Kitty / High Priest POWERLAD!, Level 7 Muscle Wizard: 133437 (Level up at 144000)

-- Devotee of Ninhursag, Bond 10 (-50% exp)

--- Andromeda, Level 4 Muscle Wizard: 14306 (Level up at 18000)

---- Devotee of Ninhursag, Bond 5 (-25% exp)

- Charles / Zena, Level 7 Fighter: 65608 (Level up at 128000)  

- Ollie / Flaming Fury, Level 5 Dwarf: 27855 (Level up at 35200)

-- Devotee of Ereshkigal, Bond 3 (-15% exp)- Suzie / Dumbledorris2, Level 5 Inheritor: 18209 (Level up at 36000)
*DING!* +1d6 HP! +saves! +1 Mutation Capacity! +2 Meat Points! +backstory!
Exp Totals 2 - Styx and the Twelve Apostles:

- Carter / Styx, Level 7 Goblin: 65196 (Level up at 128000)

--- Break, Robo-Armoured Goblin Buddy
--- 5 more Goblin Buddies
--- Ilda, Level 3 Fighter: 7218 (Level up at 8000)
--- Lady Goth, Level 3 Necromancer: 4870 (Level up at 9000)
--- 4 other NPC adventurers: 0 (Will separate when they level)

Absent or Retired:

- Timothy / RJ, Level 4 Spider Fighter: 14190 (Level up at 16000)

- James / Ratimir, Level 6 Ratman: 33991 (Level up at 48000)   

- Henry / Witchfinder-Sergeant, Level 5 Cleric (Unorthodox): 14963 (Level up at 28000)

--- Erstwhile, Level 2 Muscle Wizard: 3105 (Level up at 4500)

- Andy / Carrie Meleste, Level 6 Termaxian Cleric: 52811 (Level up at 56000)

--- 4 Henchmen Undeserving of Names, Level 0 Bootlickers  

- Ollie / Synthia, Level 5 Inheritor: 24639 (Level up at 36000)

-- Devotee of Ninhursag, Bond 2 (-10% exp)

- Timothy / Sir Robyn, Level 6 Magic-User: 60599 (Level up at 72000)

- Kitty / Bertha, Level 4 Necromancer: 9931 (Level up at 18000)

- Kyle / Gimlass the Brave, Level 2 Dwarf: 2257 (Level up at 4400)

- Ollie / Tremendo Picante, Level 2 Ratman: 2654 (Level up at 3000)

- James / Raaf van Held, Level 4 Fighter: 14838 (Level up at 16000)

- James / William Fox-Shitt, Level 3 Cleric (Zeanist): 4571 (Level up at 7000)