Session 219 - Abducc the Bus

A flawless kill! With some luck and some careful planning, the biggest grub anyone's ever seen - the Bus - is destroyed by might and magic!
New Moondin shall feast well!

We also had a proper Dungeon Masterchef cook-off to my delight, and a visit from a mongrel from overseas! What a time!

Maps:

Charles' Map! Bunker depicted in an excitingly eastern direction.

Session 219 - Abducc the Bus

Date:
14 years after the End.
April.

Characters:
- Andromeda, Level 3 Laddite Cleric / Kitty
- Dustin “DJ” Johnson, Level 3 Intergalacticist Cleric / Charles
- Red, Level 2 Fighter / Timothy
- Praise-God-For-He-Gave-His-Only-Son-So-That-We-Might-Be-Saved-From-Damnation Snels, Level 2 Laddite Cleric / George
- Sophia, Level 2 Brackenfrau Elf / Carter
- Zulu Snakebite, Level 1 Barbarian / Ollie
- Brian, Level 1 Ratman / Gregory

New Character Origins:
- Brian: The world’s strongest Ratman, apparently. He is a cultist in a cult which worships POWERLAD but insists that he was a Ratman, to the chagrin of the group’s HyperChurch worshippers. Comes with a single rather worried looking rat.

Character Backstories:
- Andromeda: Forced out of the man-farming business when a flood (possibly of poison) washed through the farm and wiped out her herd of enslaved alt-timeline POWERLADs. Any time something of yours is accidentally lost or broken, automatically pass the next save you roll in the session.
- Dustin Johnson: DJ’s father was a violent alcoholic, giving him a lot of practice dodging empty whiskey bottles and instilling the vicious streak that allowed him to survive in the mines. +1 Dexterity.

Valuables:
- 1112 rations-worth of fresh Grub meat (1112 exp)
- 17 iron rations total (850 exp)
- A musket (800 exp)
Total: 2762 exp

Overland Exploration:
- Found Shielded Campsite (50 exp)
- Explored 1 Hex (50 exp)
Total: 100 exp

Murders:
- One Big Grub (1500 exp)
Total: 1500 exp

Events:
--- Pre-Expedition: Gearing Up!
- While the rest of the party rests up after their expedition out to the POWERLAD skeleton, Sophia spends her time at the library researching some spells. The fruits of her labour - a trifecta of spells she names HammerSpace, SpookyDoll and WinterSphere.
- Andromeda starts a trend - the customised skeleton Loader-Porter. Program: IF holding unloaded gun THEN reload held gun ELSE follow Andromeda. It has a wicker basket in the ribcage to carry her stuff, and has gunpowder horns like actual horns on its head. Very cool. Others follow her lead.
- Red hides a strange secret - Ephraim Gatsby regenerates in the night and talks to her in the dark. They get on pretty well, but he makes her cut his head off every morning to not arouse suspicion. Sophia, who knows full well that his now-fleshy head had rotted down to a skeleton before, is suspicious.

- Red takes the head to the Necromancers to ask if they could install the head of Gatsby on top of it - very possible! They just swap out the head, easy peasy. Gatsby winks.
- A new expedition is planned for April. Goal: Kill the “Bus”, the enormous grub at the bottom of the bluff to the south-east. They’ll leave on the sixth so that Sophia gets boosted powers from the waning crescent moon.
- Food is procured - turnips and onions from the Goblin Bank’s surplus supply. Barbed spears, ropes and grappling hooks too - the plan is to harpoon it like a whale.

--- Expedition Day 1: Ever So Slightly Lost
- It’s been Hazy for days, so the party heads off along the Tooth Trail on the sixth as planned. The mists are fairly dense but nothing to worry about… or so it seems. After a while they crest an unfamiliar rise and find themselves looking down a long slope towards a spouting red-tinged geyser. They’ve lost the trail!
- The air is nastier than normal - there’s a taste of blood in their mouths. Stay too long and they’ll start to take some real damage. There is a silver lining though - as they turn back to follow their own tracks back to the Tooth Trail they spot a deep cave! Brian the Ratman sends his rat in to scout - it’s safe and dry! Perfect as a Shielded Campsite.
- They retrace their steps and soon find the trail again. The detour cost them nothing but time, and the rising sense of exhaustion that comes with breathing in the stinging Haze.
- They soon reach the top of the bluff they found before. The haze is thick, and they can’t see the bottom of the cliff. Andromeda suggests heading to the bunker and resting up for the night - they’ll be closer to the grub that way anyway!
- The trail leads straight to the bunker - it’s just how they left it! On the approach they see the enormous silhouette of a dragon out beyond the edge of the Storm-Shell. Andromeda falls to her knees - POWERLAD is with them this day!
- Red opens the hatch and tries to make friends. Zulu’s not having any of it, but Brian seems happy to hang.
- They descend into the bunker and discuss dinner options. Sophia suggests a simple stew, but Snels and Zulu have a more outré meal in mind involving human flesh!

--- Expedition Night 1: Dungeon Masterchef!
- It’s on! Armed with pots, pans, salt, spices, and oil, the chefs get to work!
- Sophia prepares “Traveller’s Stew” - a stew made from turnips and onions. With the help of fresh ingredients and rare spices, it’s tasty! That’s enough to unlock the extremely fitting Dinner Perk - protection from weather effects even without wasteland gear. Perfect for travelling!
- Damnation and Zulu work together to create an… interesting meal. They can it the “Frankenstew”. Containing a heady mix of human foot, onion, turnip, rich wine, blood honey, and a freshly killed rat (courtesy of Brian), it’s… something. Something truly superb! Somehow they cook it to perfection, resulting in a Dinner Perk+ - minimum damage from lightning!
- The perks are both wildly appropriate for the dish, to the surprise of many. Traveller’s Stew to make travelling easier, Frankenstew to resist lightning. What a world.

- Everyone devours the Frankenstew, except for Sophia and Brian who just eat the Traveller’s Stew. Sophia looks in with disgust as DJ nibbles the meat off the heel of the foot. Yuck.
- They rest, and in the night Sophia disappears off to dance in the light of the crescent moon. When she returns a few hours later, she sees Red talking to the head and regrown lungs of Ephraim Gatsby while the others sleep peacefully.
- She sees Red cut the lungs off the head and try to hide it when she sees Sophia return. The lungs swiftly rot away to nothing, and Gatsby doesn’t stir when Sophia tries to talk to him.

--- Expedition Day 2: Hunting the Bus!
- The next morning they awaken to rumbling thunder. It is the Warning - a sign from POWERLAD that the omnipoison might soon roll in. They’re safe from the worst of it within the Storm-Shell, of course, but it’s still a nasty time to be out in the open when it happens.
- Zulu and Damnation Snels seem to have been adversely affected by their consumption of human flesh - they find themselves craving it, staring at the good meat on the bones of their fellow party members.
 - Leaving the bunker, they head back to the bluff. There is no rain during the Warning - merely looming thunderheads - and St Elmo’s Fire fizzes from the ends of staves and fingers. Pushing pieces of metal towards each other results in sparks and an audible fizzing crackle.
- They arrive at the foot of the bluff that leads towards the Bus and decide to split into two teams. One group - Top Team - will head along the top of the bluff, making their way to the F-shaped tree that marks the grub’s last known position. The others - Bottom Team - will travel along the foot of the bluff, and use the uneaten portion of Damnation’s preserved corpse to bait it out of the ground.
- Keeping in sight of each other, they set off. The bottom team soon comes across a long fissure blocking their path, but with the help of the top team’s ropes they swing across it easily.
- Sophia experiments with a Take-Lightning glyph and tapping a couple of coins together. It works! Lighting bursts from the coins and is immediately sucked into the glyph. The runes glow as the lightning contained within begins degrading into light.
- Soon the top team yells down the bluff for the bottom team to stop. They’ve reached the F-shaped tree. The Bus is close! They can feel the earth trembling. Lightning crackles across the Shell above.
- Damnation Snels rolls the preserved corpse off his shoulder and steps back. The rope tying him to the body spools out as he quickly retreats.


--- Fuck the Bus!
- The Bus bursts from the ground! It’s gone straight for the bait! It swallows the body into its grinding maw, the rope spinning round and round its circling jaws!
- It begins falling back down towards the soft earth… and stops. It wriggles and thrashes in mid-air, bathed in a column of pale light. Standing beneath the leaping grub, DJ Johnson has raised his arms to the sky! Galaxy Johnson has answered his call!

- As it slowly rises into the air, Red springs into action! She leaps off the cliff, falling towards the Bus! She lands pitchfork-first, landing on its soft flesh, clashing metal vambrace on metal, sending lightning sizzling out on impact! Its body shudders in shock, winding it!
- Others follow Red’s lead, Zulu and Brian sliding down the cliffside and jumping onto the Bus’s soft back. Zulu lands with her spear and rapier plunging into its flesh.
- Andromeda takes aim with her musket. It’s a big grub so there’s little chance of hitting a friend. She fires… a direct hit! The shot goes straight into its brain stem! The grub is right fucked up!
- Far above, Sophia has paused her lightning-charge test to torment Ephraim Gatsby. He’s still just a head, albeit on a skeleton body. There’s a little bit of oesophagus that’s regrown though. Sophia salts the newly regrown gullet… and Gatsby screams in pain! Got him.
- DJ chains another Abduction miracle - extending the duration. The Bus will make it all the way to the top of the bluff now! Those on top keep shanking it. Damnation Snels realises that the rope is starting to wind him in and goes for a finishing move…
- He pulls the rope and grabs hold as it starts winding him in. He spins round and round the rotating maw, finally letting go in the air so he flies up and up over the Bus! At the peak of his flight there is a boom of thunder as summons the mighty Storm-Hammer into his hands! He falls towards the Bus, trailing lightning, screaming “I’m seventy-three years oooooold!!!”

- The impact blows the Bus apart, chunks of steaming meat spraying everywhere… then continuing to rise. Grub-blood rains upwards. Just because you’re dead doesn’t mean you stop being abducted! Sophia looks on in horror - how are they getting these meat chunks home?

--- A Meaty Return
- Conveniently enough, the Bus has enough of an undestroyed carapace to act as a meat sled. They slowly drag the corpse home, pulling it with skeletons and muscle-power, over rolling hills beneath the thundering sky.
- As they get closet they notice something they missed on the way in - the field of white stones is gone. However there do seem to be triangular prints leading off the trail…
- They keep going and soon return to New Moondin! The people of New Moondin flock to see the massive amount of meat they will soon be feasting upon. Another successful expedition!
Total: 2000 exp

Team Bonus:
- Antagonist Annihilator bonus
- Balls to the Wall bonus
- Bookworm bonus
- Brutal Kill bonus
- Classic Charles bonus
- Dramatic Battle bonus
- Fame bonus
- Holy bonus
- Long Deliberation bonus
- Ludicrous Gore bonus
- Michael Bay bonus
- Noblebright bonus
- PETA bonus
- Pundemonium bonus
- Split the Party bonus
- Tactical Fighting bonus
Total: 800 exp

Individual Bonus:
- Chronicler (Carter / Sophia - 100 exp)
- Expedition Leader (Kitty / Andromeda - 100 exp)
- Cartographer (Carter / Sophia - 100 exp)
- Paymaster (George / Damnation - 100 exp)
- Quartermaster (Kitty / Andromeda - 100 exp)
- Vanguard (George / Damnation - 100 exp)
- Triage (Timothy / Red - 100 exp)
- Chef (Ollie / Zulu - 100 exp)
- Art Attack bonus (Carter, George, Charles - 100 exp ea.)
- Artapalooza bonus (Charles - 100 exp)
- Attacco d’Arte bonus (Carter, George - 100 exp)
- Hummus Hero bonus (Ollie*2 - 100 exp ea.)
- JÜGBRINGYR bonus (Kitty, Timothy, Gregory, Ollie - 500 exp ea.)

Experience Totals:
- Charles / Dustin “DJ” Johnson, Level 3 Intergalacticist Cleric: 6241 (Level up at 7000)
- Carter / Sophia, Level 3 Brackenfrau Elf: 5441 (Level up at 9000)
Level Up: +1d6 HP! +1 Mana! +1 Free Spell! +Backstory!
- Kitty / Andromeda, Level 3 Laddite Cleric: 5241 (Level up at 7000)
- Timothy / Red, Level 3 Fighter: 4641 (Level up at 8000)
Level Up: +1d8 HP! +1 to Hit! +1 to Crit/Fumble Table! +Backstory!
- George / Praise-God-For-He-Gave-His-Only-Son-So-That-We-Might-Be-Saved-From-Damnation Snels, Level 3 Laddite Cleric: 4441 (Level up at 7000)
Level Up: +1d6 HP! +1d6 Healing Pool! +1 Starting Faith! +Backstory!
- Ollie / Lulu Snakebite, Level 2 Barbarian: 2781 (Level up at 4000)
Level Up: +1d8 HP! +2 Barbarian Powers!
- Gregory / Brian, Level 2 Ratman: 1524 (Level up at 3000)
 Level Up: +1d6 HP! Max Rats: 4! +Backstory! +1 Rage Break! +Backstory!