Session 281 - Red Dead Reception

It's been pointed out before, but ever since Red joined the party we've had far too many plays on the Red Dead Redemption joke in these session titles.
This time is no different.

An actually fairly cordial visit to a glass witch results in Jeremy Wizard getting some glass gimmick spells and Beepbox being replaced by his slightly better adjusted mirror-world analogue.
Welcome (back??) to the party, Kandy!

Within they find mostly pranks, and a quite a fun value inversion where knee-deep gold gets a "meh" reaction while a pantry full of food gets people celebrating!
Alright this is late as usual so I'm sending it off. See you folks tonight!

 

Session 281 - Red Dead Reception

New Backstory:
- Poison Phil ran away from home with a group of con artists in his youth. +1 to Reaction Rolls with outsiders, troupes, and other itinerants
- Kandy Toffee-Apple Moon d’Moor was given the last Rolo on planet Earth by his loving father. +2 when eating to heal.

Supplies:
- A sculpture of a glass creature (200 exp)
- 50 iron rations (2500 exp)
Total: 2700 exp

Foes Defeated:

- Several glass creatures, cowed (40 exp)
Total: 40 exp

Expedition:
- First party to enter the Glassblower’s Lair (400 exp)
- Reached Expedition Goal (500 exp)
- First party to enter Sir Robyn’s Tower (600 exp)
Total: 1500 exp

Events:

--- Those in Glassblowers’ Houses
- We left last session on a cliffhanger ending in the glassblower’s workshop, with Andromeda witnessing a near-invisible shape slipping into the small office.
- Andromeda knocks on the office door, the rest of the party cautiously fanning out through the room. There is a scrape and a thud from within. She engages her vampiric heartbeat vision and sees a circulatory system climbing down into the floor - the weird thing is that its heart does not beat, the blood frozen in the veins.
- She opens the door and Red rolls in, seeing a normal office except it has a turned-up rug with a trapdoor beneath it. Classic stuff.
- Andromeda opens the trapdoor and the translucent creature yelps, dropping down to the floor below with a thunk! Andromeda jumps down, turning into mist just before impact so she can reform into her armour in a cool way!

- Glass creatures attack, they are long glass tubes with arms and legs, their long snouts and tails giving them a vaguely reptilian stance. Red lands with a glass-shaking impact, stunning them, and Andromeda gets her teeth into one of the creatures and sucks its life-essence dry!
- Their morale immediately falters, and when Beepbox jetpacks down from above with Jeremy Wizard in his arms he speaks to them. They’re glass creatures, created by their glassblower master.

- Jeremy uses a cantrip of Speak With Dead to make the dead glass creature speak. Poison Phil uses this and the age-old Weekend at Bernie’s technique to get the “living” creature out of there up the ladder.
- Andromeda uses the opportunity to mist-form away down the corridor, leaving her armour leaning against the wall like she’s still in there. She’s going to find this glassblower who made all these creatures.

--- Mirror Mirror
- While those shenanigans unfold, Beepbox investigates a nearby room to discover that it is covered with mirrors. Floor, ceiling and walls. The reflections go on so long that there’s a delay effect, and in the very centre of the space is a slowly rotating gilded mirror, reflective on both sides.

- He puts his hand towards the mirror and it sinks in… but his reflection’s hand sinks out! His own hand is coming out towards him! Beepbox jumps through to see what the deal is, and finds himself in the identical room… except the Jeremy Wizard in here seems different… and the reflection in the real world is moving separately to him!
- He jetpack-boosts upwards to try to escape the mirror dimension and smashes through into…
- In the real-world, Jeremy Wizard sees the mirror go black. Mirror-Beepbox is looking around in confusion. Soon the truth becomes clear… this Beepbox is from a mirror reality where the world cracked like an egg and Galaxy Johnson saved humanity by putting a bubble over the largest chunk of the planet. His name is Kandy Toffee-Apple Moon d’Moor and he is a Cleric of the Intergalactic Cult of Galaxy Johnson!

--- Glass Half Crazy
- Andromeda has followed her heartbeat vision towards a frozen circulatory system in the shape of a woman. Their arms are moving in spell-casting motions. She slips under the door and finds herself in a library, the woman is right before her.
- She gusts forward, still in fog-form, and smushes up against an invisible wall! The woman casts another spell, and Andromeda is encased in a glass globe! Andromeda returns to human form and talks to the glass witch.

- The glass witch is a bit of a loner, but is mildly interested in what’s been happening in the outside world. Her glass form makes her immune to the gas, but she’s fine with staying inside with her books. She’s interesting in what happened to POWERLAD at least, and is fine with swapping some spells with Jeremy Wizard because it’s something to do. Jeremy gains the Glass Shield, Glass Globe and Wall of Glass spells.
- With this all ended quite amicably, other than the curious case of Beepbox’s mirrored doppelganger, they ask to spend the night. The glass witch doesn’t like this much, but allows it so long as they leave in the morning.

--- Sir Robyn’s Tower Within Reach!
- It’s a clear day in the morning and Sir Robyn’s tower is in sight! Jeremy Wizard celebrates by fishing in the lake, with a little help from a Beckon cantrip. Soon he has amassed 6 devil-carp! Their human-like eyes are a bit creepy, and when gutted they each hold an obol in their belly, but their spicy flesh will go down a treat! He salts them to preserve them for the trip ahead.

--- A Dead Red
- They reach the tower swiftly with the wagon, finding that the whole thing is strewn with ropes and webs and young spider-kids! It’s essentially a jungle gym for spiders, and they greet Red happily.
- Red’s corpse lies on the doorstep, cut in half. Red is confused - she’s the only Red that exists! But closer inspection reveals it to be a clockwork simulacrum, and twisting a handle makes confetti pop out with a vocal congratulations from Sir Robyn!
- On further inspection, the spider-kids are also clockwork. Lots of clockwork nonsense about.
- Red talks to the door, and a wooden face of Sir Robyn stretches out of it! It tricks the party into getting naked, then cries laughing about it.
- After a bunch more bullshit, it turns out that there are a couple of buttons on the door that let you in. The head is still laughing.

--- The Mysterious Head
- Inside, they see that the walls are lined with the heads of mythical beasts. There is one suspicious mounted head - it has a black cloth draped over it. Speculation trends towards it being the head of the Medusa.
- Leaving well enough alone for now, they check out the other rooms at the base of the tower. One room is ankle-deep with gold dust and contains various chests. In the centre of the room a pedestal holds a large gem.
- In the other, a dining room with some fine china and a small kitchenette. More importantly, there’s a pantry!  Inside are 50 tasteless muesli bars (iron rations) and a small fortune in Rolos, marzipan, canned bread, manna, and whale caviar. Quite the interesting selection of ingredients!
- The desire to uncover the mystery of the covered head is too strong, and a plan is concocted to find out what it is. Everyone else hides round the corner as Andromeda bat-forms to lift the cloth and Kandy takes a picture with his polaroid camera.
- There is a farting sound, Andromeda drops the cloth, and the polaroid develops to reveal… a big stinky stone butt! It was a trick!

--- Not the Bees!
- “Hilarious” joke out of the way, the gang ascend the stairs to the second level. There’s a beehive here droning with the sound of whirring mechanical bees! Red knocks on it and the bees get angry. Jeremy starts to cast a spell and… is beset by bees!
- The bees disrupt his spell mid-cast, rebounding the spell back on the poor boy and roiling in a wild magic surge around him. His mouth is dry and crusty… he has to eat rocks for sustenance for the next fortnight!

- They leave the bees alone for now and check around the corner. There’s a massive parrot painted to look like a raccoon. Also it’s clearly a zombie parrot. Jeremy feeds it some meat and it squawks out “Archibald work with me!” which is apparently a clue.
- It’s getting late so we wrap up here amongst the bees and the zombie bird and the big stone butt. What other secrets does Sir Robyn’s Tower hold?!?

Total: 8000 exp

Roles:
Remembrancer: Charles (100 exp)
Expedition Leader: George (100 exp)
Cartographer: George (100 exp)

Quartermaster: Ollie (100 exp)
Vanguard: George (100 exp)
Triage: Timothy (100 exp)
Chef: Kitty (100 exp)

OOC Bonuses:
- Art Attack bonus (Charles, Ollie - 100 exp ea.)

Exp Totals:

- Kitty / Andromeda, Level 8 Andromedan Vampire: 165904 (Level MAX)

- Tim / Red, Level 8 Duellist Fighter: 153497 (Level MAX)

- Charles / Jeremy Wizard, Level 7 Magic-User: 101746 (Level up at 144000)

- Ollie / Kandy Toffee-Apple Moon D'Moor, Level 7 Intergalacticist Cleric: 80747 (Level up at 112000)

- George / Poison Phil, Level 3 Fighter: 5869 (Level up at 8000)
Level Up! +1d8 HP! +1 to hit! +1 to crit/fumble! +Backstory!