Session 263 - Dwarven Screams

Finally! The anomalous subsurface environment itself!... and a hair bear

Session 263 - Dwarven Screams

New Backstory:
- Wormwood joined with a tyrant - Satan Himself - and became a fallen angel on Earth. Douchebags will trust you.
- Jeremy Wizard ganked and booted a noob from his guild in the styxtrix. It had to be done for the holy purpose of guild rankings! +1 Backstab

Loot:
- 6400 space-bucks in loose credit cards (6400 exp)
- Bloodstone set into a silver ring (200 exp)
- An antique bronze helmet (200 exp)
- Ancient smoke bomb
- 2 vials of rare Dwarven spice
Total: 6850 exp

Foes:
- A robo-sergeant (250 exp)
- 2 robo-guards (100 exp)
- 7 eyeless post-Dwarven beasts (525 exp)
Total:  875 exp

Events:

--- Moon Bear
- Tooled up and ready to re-enter the dungeon, the party heads back in.
- But first there is a surprise! In the cave before the true entrance they see something truly unexpected - a big black bear in a bubble helmet!
- Even more unexpected, he talks! Red speaks to it in Old Dwarven and they become friends, even sharing a bear hug. Looking around they realise that many of the rocky nodes and nodules in the cave are actually a kitchenette, a murphy bed, and other bachelor pad necessities!
- They leave him on good terms, even finding out that he knows the mythical card-delivering Moon Pig personally!

--- Finishing Off
- After a quick whip-round of the upper dungeon to really make sure they’ve explored the whole place, they go back to the room with the robot friends they’d met before. They’re scared of the boss robot beyond the door who’s been stealing parts from them for decades!
- They pile in through the door, finding a sergeant-bot and two guard-bots! Combat ensues, including some clutch robo-possession techniques from Wormwood and Red’s characteristic combat prowess.
- The guard-bots are quickly dispatched and the sergeant-bot gives up. He doesn’t want to die!
- Searching through the various footlockers in the guardroom, the party finds a bunch of treasure!

--- Entering the Subsurface
- They continue into the last place in the whole complex… a big door with warning symbols and “SUBSURFACE RESEARCH FACILITY” in big letters! There is a lever nearby showing a green light.
- They pull the lever and the lights go red, the ground shudders, something crashes distantly… and the metal doors open up to classic dungeon dressed stone and a long staircase going into dark depths…
- The robot friends say they’ll guard the door, but are forbidden from descending by ancient protocol.
- The party descends the stairs, hearing dripping water and the occasional whoop of some subterranean beastie.

--- Dwarf Evolution
- At the bottom of the stairs is a way left, a way straight, and a door of compressed moon dust on the right. They pick the door!
- Beepbox takes a picture with his polaroid camera to make a bright flash, and Red darts in!
- There is a wild scream and a horrible post-dwarven creature attacks!
- The party piles in to help and the wrestle the poor thing while Jeremy shanks it over and over again in the ribs. It dies!
- They take stock of the room - seeing a message written in blood in Old Dwarven saying “they have locked us in…”
- They also find a strange ancient smoke bomb and some rich spices! Nice!

--- Skull City
- They head out along the left-hand path, Red taking the lead, and find a room filled with many many bones. There is a clacking and rattling sound - evidently some sort of bullshit skeleton trap. Red uses some sort of suit vision mode to zoom in on some sort of skull-mounted box at the other end of the room, so boosts over towards it. Beepbox follows in his own space armour.
- The clacking sound stops, and as she lands they realise the truth - the clicking was coming from the ceiling! It’s the Dwarf things! They swarm down from the ceiling screeching to echo-locate the party!
- Beepbox wastes one with a shotgun blast but runs out of his last shell! The other Dwarf-things descend, some on Red and Beepbox, the others on Jeremy and Wormwood.
- Wormwood is nearly killed by one of their cripplingly loud screams, so Jeremy sends his bee off down the hall and casts Draw Aggro to get them away! Red slices into several on their end as those, too, head to kill a bee.
- The bee is soon destroyed, flying out of Jeremy’s nostril as it reforms. Thankfully it has drawn the remaining enemies towards Red, who summarily executes them with an anime super-move.

--- A Mysterious Box
- With the enemies defeated, attention turns to the mystery box. Some minor experimentation sees it destroying any bones placed in the box when another bone is placed on the pedestal.
- Beepbox uses his “talk to anything” miracle to talk to one of the skulls on the floor. Clever! It helpfully says that the box requires a green skull of some sort to power, and if said green skull is placed on the pedestal anything in the box will be irradiated with magical power.
- Beepbox thanks the skull and punts it into the hall. Cold gratitude right there.
- With Wormwood in a sorry state and the first attempt at getting deeper into the dungeon in hand, the party returns to the surface and Shrub Nigeria’s nan’s granny flat. Next week, to glory!

Total: 7000 exp

Exp Totals:

- Tim / Red, Level 7 Duellist Fighter: 89488 (Level up at 128000)

- Charles / Jeremy Wizard, Level 6 Magic-User: 39837 (Level up at 72000)
Level Up! +1d4 HP! +1 Mana! +1 Free Spell! +Saves Improve! +Backstory!

- Ollie / Beepbox Strawberry Stars de Moor, Level 6 Cleric of the New Eden: 29268 (Level up at 56000)
Level Up! +1d6 HP! +1d6 Healing Pool! +1 Faith! +Backstory!

- George / Wormwood, Level 4 Inheritor: 10408 (Level up at 18000)

Level Up! +1d6 HP! +1 Mutation Capacity! +1 Meat Point!

Session 263 - Abotination

Session 263 - Abotination

New Backstory:
- Wormwood, as an Inheritor, gave of his body to those in need during a terrible famine. Everyone gets +1 HP from eating to heal when you're around.

Loot:
- Spools of gold wire (300 exp)
- 2 emergency healing kits
- Book #280 - On Wine (100 exp)
- Scroll #345 - Ward Against Magic (100 exp)
- Jugs of hydraulic spinal fluid
- Dwarf necklace (750 exp)
- More spools of gold wire (200 exp)
- A string of blue quartz set in copper (300 exp)
- 500 Dwarf credit chits (500 exp)
- Shard of crystal dragon-core (100 exp)
- Head of a morningstar that smells meaty
Total: 2350 exp

Foes:
- 15 robots (1125 exp)
- Giant robo-abomination (1000 exp)
Total: 2125 exp

Events:

--- Shrub Nigeria’s Nan’s Flat
- Back at Shrub Nigeria’s shack, the party ask him if there’s better accommodation than just lying on the floor. There is! His Nan’s granny flat is upstairs! It’s all tacky old person decor and carpeted bathroom chic, but it’s comfy.
- They buy some bits and pieces and rest up for the delve ahead.

--- Beep Boop
- They return to the dungeon and head back to the goop room where the flying “bread” creatures were last time. Unfortunately they’re back! Ratman tosses a rat in and sees it explode on the goop. Bad news.
- They back up and go elsewhere, finding a room where a full 15 robots, almost all with parts replaced with bone, root through various long-dead Dwarf skeletons for spare parts.
- Wormwood looks a bit robotesque due to absorbing the electric ghost last time, so he walks through the room no problem even after greeting them with a “beep boop” or two.
- Red, looking a bit robotesque in space armour, does the same. All good!
- Jeremy and Ratman the Ratman look very much not robotesque and are attacked! The party rush through the room and bottleneck the robots at the door. After a stretch of combat the robots decide it’s all a bit much and flee.

--- Subsurface Training Area
- Hearing a voice from one of the directions they can go, the party heads towards it to find a hologram of a Dwarf muttering something gutturally. After a bit of AI translation nonsense, the Dwarf has transformed into a much more audience-appropriate man-like being who speaks English. Nice!
- He is a virtual guide who does a bit of a presentation about the facility then directs the party to follow some arrows to the training centre.
- They do so, ending up in a mock-up of a dungeon complete with chest and a simple puzzle. They complete the puzzle and open the chest to find a false gold black labelled “congratulations!”. Training complete I guess.

--- Wormwood’s Shite Lockpicking
- Rather than follow the arrows as requested, the party decides to complete their exploration of this dungeon and noses around the rest of the facility.
- One room has a rather obvious secret door, so Wormwood steps in to try and fiddle it open. He succeeds only in knocking the power and getting electric shocked, then tries again and gets zapped again. Some locksmith!
- Eventually he realises that he can just use his electric ghost powers to possess the door and open it! He does so, and the loot within is claimed!
- Jeremy uses some magic nonsense in the next room to get the power back on… but sees that the shenanigans have attracted a horrifying monster! A great robot made of twisted metal and Dwarf bone and loot! Flee!

--- Battle Against the Monster
- Wormwood uses his last meat point to possess the robot with electric ghost bullshit, run it into the goop room, and zap out again. The robot starts fighting the flying bread monsters while the party doubles back the other way.
- The next room they look in is evidently the abomination’s nest! They loot all the things… but then the robot monster comes home! Red murders it, weakened as it is by the fight against the breads, and they loot its body.

--- Friendly Robots
- Moving swiftly on, they go through a couple of rooms including a locker room with old classic adventuring gear like rope and daggers in the lockers.
- They come to a room with robots, and of course without Beepbox to translate they can’t talk to them! Red’s suit can translate into English, if not back, so she can hear that they’re worried about the robot abomination she just killed.
Jeremy offers them a big metal bar they looted from said creature, and the happy robots reveal that it’s from a nearby secret doorway! Hurrah!
- The jubilant robots escort them from the facility, they are saved!

--- Books and Such

- The now-traditional reading of books at the end of the session begins.
- Red discovers that the Iounians of the Moon live in caverns.
- Wormwood discovers that Moses freed Humans from Halfling-dominated Egypt in the Bible.
- Jeremy discovers Shrub Nigeria’s nan knows how to make Iounian Wine from the creatures.
- Ratman discovers that there are wine bars on the Moon, but they’re not popular because there’s no atmosphere (much booing ensues)

Total: 8000 exp

Exp Totals:

- Tim / Red, Level 7 Duellist Fighter: 85806 (Level up at 128000)

- Izzy / Ratman, Level 7 Ratman: 76105 (Level up at 96000)

- Charles / Jeremy Wizard, Level 5 Magic-User: 35655 (Level up at 36000)

- George / Wormwood, Level 3 Inheritor: 6726 (Level up at 9000)

Level Up! +1d6 HP! +1 Mutation Capacity! +1 Meat Point!

Session 262 - Ghost Murderers

A combat-heavy session, and our heroes prevail! The strange complex is explored further, ghosts are killed, and big radioactive bees are chopped up like loaves of bread. What will Wormwood do with his new technology-possession powers? Only time will tell...

Session 262 - Ghost Murderers

Date:

April. 15 years after the End.

New Backstory:
- Beepbox joined the gypsies when they rolled into town, becoming the comic relief in their pantomimes. +1 to reaction rolls with gypsies, troupes and other itinerants.

Loot:
- 1500 space bucks in deeds and bonds (1500 exp)
- Useful cabinets (500 exp)
- Valuable hub caps (6000 exp)
Total: 8000 exp

Foes:
- 7 robot ghosts (525 exp)
- 6 radioactive bugs (300 exp)
Total: 825 exp

Events:

--- Shop Nigeria
- The party rest up at Shrub Nigeria’s shack, and discover that he can turn loot into items! How convenient! They’re planning to fight ghosts, so Red, Jeremy and Beepbox load up with silver weapons.

--- Ghostface Killas
- They return to the dungeon and head straight for the ghosts they ran from last week. On the way there they enter a room where the lights fizzle out! Beepbox uses his polaroid flash and a shotgun to murder the fuck out of the robot inside.
- They continue into the room with the cabinets and robot ghosts, this time ready to fight! Jeremy nukes one with a Magic Missile, and Red abuses her ghost-attracting invisibility glove to make them all attack her, slaying many!
- Wormwood fucks up a ghost, but in its death throes it explodes into energy and knocks him down!
- Ratman the Ratman has a terrible time of it, missing constantly then seeing the electric ghost possess his futuristic armour! Beepbox gets it out with some applied engineering nonsense and finishes it off. Ghosts defeated!
- Beepbox runs over to Wormwood and heals him. Wormwood reveals his true Inheritor form and absorbs the remains of one of the ghosts - giving him the ability to possess technology!
- They loot the room, finding deeds and bonds worth a fair number of space dollars and a book on the Halfling Empire.

--- Waste Pipe
- They explore further, finding a room with shelves stacked with robot heads, and soon a large chamber with glowing green ooze in a massive vat-pillar in the centre. There is a catwalk near the top of the room with lots of controls.
- Ratman chucks some rats into the goo to see what happens. Most explode, but one grows huge and veiny and tries to attack its former master! It dies easily, but the party is now wary of the goo.
- Beepbox jump-packs up to the catwalk and reads the old Dwarven runes. He reads one that says “dump waste” and, after everyone is safely up the ladder or outside the room, twists the key. Green ooze pours out of the pipe… and flying green shapes whizz out!
- Wormwood is taken out by a flying bug-thing in the first round, so Jeremy casts Draw Aggro through his bee familiar to attract them away! He sends it into Red’s armour, who engages her classic Parry technique!
- She slices the bugs to bits as Jeremy runs to help. Bugs defeated!
- Looting the room they find some shiny hubcaps, some mystery moon-shrooms, and a book called “Those Who Dwell Amongst the Stars”. Fitting!

--- Reading Club
- They head back with all their loot, satisfied, and return to Shrub Nigeria’s house. They spend a bit of time reading the books to find out some tasty lore.
- Jeremy reads that there are intelligent beings on Mars other than the Red Elves.
- Beepbox discovers that the Red Moon behind the real moon is the work of the Eld.
- Wormwood is saddened to discover that the Halfling Empire actually happened in world history.

Total: 5000 exp

Exp Totals:

- Tim / Red, Level 7 Duellist Fighter: 82687 (Level up at 128000)

- Izzy / Ratman, Level 7 Ratman: 72986 (Level up at 96000)

- Charles / Jeremy Wizard, Level 5 Magic-User: 32536 (Level up at 36000)

- Ollie / Beepbox Strawberry Stars de Moor, Level 5 Cleric of the New Eden: 25586 (Level up at 28000)

- George / Wormwood, Level 2 Inheritor: 3607 (Level up at 4500)

Level Up! +1d6 HP! +1 Mutation Capacity! +1 Meat Point!

Session 261 - Railroad to Heaven!

With COVID-19 knocking on our doors, it's time for a long sought-after adventure - the Moon!
Flying up there in the USS Seraphim, the party is railroaded into a new adventure that'll be easier to run over video chat.
Seems to be ok so far!

Session 261 - Railroad to Heaven!

Date:

April. 15 years after the End.

New Characters:
- Wormwood, a shape-shifting torturer who tagged along from Earth.
- Mickey, a janitor on the spaceship feeling very out of place.

New Backstory:
- Jeremy Wizard used to think he was real good at Guitar Hero back in the Styxtrix. He entered a tournament to gain some much-needed premium gems, and the crowd went wild when he… completely lost the game! +1 Music skill

Loot:
- 1018 octagonal dwarf-gold pieces (1018 exp)
- Vial of holy water
- Self-Repair Shield
- Book #153 - “The Nature of Pre-Birth” (100 exp)
- Book #403 - “Ur-Gallukh, City of Tiles” (100 exp)
- 7 rusty old guns (700 exp)
- 2 ammo canisters (200 exp)
Total: 2118 exp

Foes:
- 8 robots (600 exp)
- A roomful of alien rats (50 exp)
- A robot ghost (75 exp)
Total: 725 exp

Events:

--- Moonshot
- With the situation in New Moondin solved, Red asks the Lady a question - can this Seraphim fly to the Moon??
- The answer is yes! After some brief retroactive purchasing in New Moondin, the party is off to space!
- They arc up into low-earth orbit and the Lady adjusts the Seraphim’s trajectory. It’s a pretty chill journey, and after an hour or so the Moon is bright before them!
- There is a pulse as something else comes into sight - rising behind the Moon itself is a second, red moon! The Lady screams as another pulse sends the Seraphim’s systems offline, sending the massive angel-ship crash-landing into the real Moon…
- Strangely the error messages seem to suggest that the Seraphim’s systems will be down for the length of the real-world coronavirus quarantine! It seems it’s the moon or nothing, now.

--- Shrub Nigeria
- The doors hiss open, letting in the moon’s thin but surprisingly breathable atmosphere. The impact crater is green for some reason. A banana man in a rasta hat appears from a nearby hut and yells at them - they crashed on his astroturf!
- Yes it seems that the dumb meme legends were true - Shrub Nigeria, the stoner meme moon man born of an autocorrect mistake back in 2018, is alive!
- He informs them that they are being railroaded into a nearby megadungeon, that this dungeon hasn’t been touched in millenia, and that they should watch out for robot ghosts.
- They go, moon-hopping across the dusty lunar surface! Choo choo!

--- The Gatehouse
- The party arrives at the dungeon entrance - a hole in the side of the central peak of a massive crater - and enters the cave within. There is a large pool of silvery water, and an obvious door! They put some special astroturf on the weighing scales nearby and the door rubiks-cubes open.
- Inside are several corridors with ancient writing on them. Beepbox realises that he’s seen this language before - it’s an ancient Dwarven language! The signs say “Barracks”, “Emergency Generator Core” and “Subsurface Research Facility”. They head for the Barracks.
- They enter a room that has a bunch of robots in it! They seem confused and command the party to leave this protected facility. Beepbox chats a bit then backs off with everyone else.

--- Old Showers
- The room next door has toilets and showers! All sized for Dwarfs, naturally. Beepbox tries having a shower… and finds that it’s full of green slime! The slime plops onto him and starts to digest his head! Mickey the janitor tries to get it off with a broom handle but it starts digesting the wood! He chucks the slimy broom into the robot room and slams the door.
- Red shoots the slime off of Beepbox’s head, since his armour resists angel beams. They peep into the robot room and realise the slime doesn’t digest robots, damn!

--- Breach and Clear
- With the robots confused, Jeremy Wizard lobs some oil in there and Beepbox unloads with a shotgun! The robots are quickly destroyed, with the help of one of the robots themselves after Beepbox miraculously befriends one. The friendly robot dies too, sadly.
- They loot the room, finding a fair amount of stuff including a mysterious sconce with wires coming out the back.

--- Mirror Room

- Continuing on with a brief toilet break in an bathroom Mickey finds, they enter a room with a big floor-length mirror stuck to the wall. Very suspicious. A hole in the wall nearby is suspiciously shaped like the sconce they picked up just now, and rewiring it into the hole opens the mirror! Nice! - Before going into the secret corridor, Jeremy Wizard inspects a room they haven't checked yet. Inside he sees a creepy four-armed being made of bones and robot parts that croaks out "wherre... is yourr god... noww???"

+200 exp to Beepbox

- Jeremy turns and runs, slamming the door behind him.- Two rooms come off the secret corridor. One has alien rats in it - grey-skinned with big black eyes and no tails - and shelving. Beepbox goes to grab a shield he sees on one of the shelves, but when he does yellow mould goes everywhere! He absconds with great haste, coughing up a lung.
- In the other room is an ancient armoury! Old rusty guns and some ammo canisters. Ratman the Ratman picks one up and fires it… but it explodes in his hand! Red fires another and it jams. Great stuff.

--- Robot Ghosts
- They leave out the secret door on the other end of the secret corridor, coming out into a room with filing cabinets and swirling electric whirlwinds softly crackling around the floor. The drawers contain interesting science papers… but as the party looks through them the whirlwinds rise up into ghostly robot forms!
- Ghosts - even robot ghosts - are scary. Red engages invisibility mode… and finds that the ghosts can both see her and are angry! They pile on Red but most can’t get past her armour. She parries them away as she backs out of the room.
- Jeremy blasts a magic missile at one of the ghosts, blowing it apart, and slams the door. Piss off, ghosts!
- Thankfully the party is close enough to the exit to flee out of the door. They live! And have some stuff! A successful dungeon-crawl!

Total: 7000 exp

Exp Totals:

- Tim / Red, Level 7 Duellist Fighter: 80122 (Level up at 128000)

- Izzy / Ratman, Level 7 Ratman: 70421 (Level up at 96000)

- Charles / Jeremy Wizard, Level 5 Magic-User: 29971 (Level up at 36000)

- Ollie / Beepbox Strawberry Stars de Moor, Level 5 Cleric of the New Eden: 23021 (Level up at 28000)

- George / Wormwood, Level 1 Inheritor: 1042 (Level up at 2250)

- James G / Mickey, Level 1 Specialist: 1042 (Level up at 1500)