Session 283 - Come Home to Jesus

 

Session 283 - Come Home to Jesus

New Characters:
- Plod, a Goblin with a massive disregard for the lives of his minion and a taste for manflesh.

Valuables:
- Book #219: The Dead God
- Book #193: Exploration of the New World
- Book #321: A Knight with POWERLAD
- Book #198: The Formation of the Deeprush
Total: 400 exp

Foes Defeated:

- Several swarms of imps (50 exp)
Total: 50 exp

Expedition:
- Expedition Complete! (500 exp)
Total: 500 exp

Events:

--- New Friends and Old
- At Sir Robyn’s tower, the party prepares to set off back home to New Moondin. Those Dwarf weirdos are probably going to turn up soon, and it’s probably best if Jeremy Wizard is there to cover for the party’s shenanigans when they eventually arrive.
- A new guy shows up - a Goblin named Plod and his poor misbegotten minion “Goblin A” aka Goblina. Surprisingly, as they’re about to set off, someone else shows up! It’s Gifflewim! He’s not got much useful on him unfortunately, or at least nothing that piques the party’s interest, but they chat for a bit about how Jeremy Wizard has retired to become lord of the tower and all the rest.
- Taking their leave, the party rolls off in their wagon. They’ll be taking a different route back - following the old tracks round the south of the Lone Sea in order to give Japhet & Hirsch back home some more mapmaking information.

--- Demon Forest
- It’s a normal summer Heat Haze so they make good time in their air-conditioned wagon, skirting the Lone Sea. They can even see a flotilla of boats lashed together out across the great lake. After a while they see a glow from a small forest of dead trees! Red and Andromeda decide to investigate, while Plod stays with the wagon to “defend” it.
- Small winged figures flit through the branches above, chattering strangely. The gang approach the red glow and find a pond ringed with glowing demonic runes. In the middle, a couple of mud-covered figures are having an argument. They’re demons, of course! Though these are the recently born mud-person type. It transpires that this pond acts like the River Lethe, rebirthing the demons who die near here, and they keep dying whenever the poison comes through. Of course when they die they spawn little imps, which is why the damn things are everywhere.
- Red invites them to go to Sir Robyn’s tower - they’re going to be building a settlement there and could use more people. The demons accept! But they need the imps to be distracted if they’re to escape without bringing the whole flock with them.
- Red and Andromeda try an increasingly effective combination of sinful thoughts and dancing to distract the imps… until Plod just shoots at a cloud of the creatures! They fly off to swarm Plod, forcing Red and Andromeda to run to help!
- Andromeda’s Storm Shell is the most successful destroyer of imps, but those that get through the barrier manage to swarm over Goblina and devour her stomach before Plod’s relatively horrified eyes! Despite this tragic death, the imps are soon killed by hammer, dagger and gun.

- The party grab a jar of the pond water - if it’s Lethe water it’ll be useful - and tearfully harvest Goblina’s innards for rations. Plod’s past career was as a cannibal after all…

--- Boat Town
- They continue on until they reach the town of Pond around midday. There’s a vague plan to build some sort of pontoon for the cart and head to New Moondin via the river, but even the shipbuilder’s dock doesn’t have something big enough. Instead there are several small boats with greasy tarpaulins tied over them, and everything else seaworthy has been looted.
- Out in the middle of the Lone Sea, they can see people moving about on the flotilla! Actual people! With boats!
- While Andromeda fills a coffin with grave dirt (to protect her from the perils of running water, of course), Plod and Red take a dinghy to the flotilla. When they arrive they are welcomed in with open arms, despite an initial worry about Plod the Goblin! This is, imaginatively, called Boat Town. Originally a floating haven against the Undead, after the End they managed to survive by sealing themselves into their boats.
- Red tells them about the soon-to-be town being built around the Tower and they’re very excited to be able to finally return to land! They also agree to build a floating barge, but it’ll take quite some time.
- With that all sorted, and dreams of using the Lone Sea as a hub for trade, Red and Plod row back to Pond where Andromeda awaits them.

--- Ice Bridge
- They set off again into the late afternoon, but after only a short while they come to a river with no crossing! The remnants of a ferryman’s hut and some rotten wooden posts are all that remain of the ferry that was once here.
- After significant effort and rune-shenanigans, they make a bridge! A tall tree now bridges the river, and freezing runes carved along the trunk can be powered to create an ice bridge that a cart can traverse! Better living through rune magic!

- This took a fair while though, so they hunker down in the ferryman’s hut for the night.
- During the night Andromeda spots something strange off in the woods with her heat and heart vision - figures shuffling through the trees. She becomes a bat to investigate and follows them. They emerged from an ominous lesion in the ground and they look strange under heartbeat vision - some have blood twisted into bulging boils in their flesh, others have had their intestines tied in a complicated knots. Knotsmen!
- She leaves them well enough alone and watches them as they take water from the river then go back down into their crack in the ground. Creepy.

--- The Fisherman
- Morning rolls round and the Heat Haze continues. They set off once more after a quick breakfast of leftovers that grant reduced crash chance. Convenient!
- After an hour or so they’re going along the tracks that approach the edge of the lake and see something very strange - a tall stork-man with a fishing rod held in its feathery hands, casting a line out across the hazy waves.
- Red calls out to it and it looks round with a beady birdy eye, then tries to catch her! She parries, grabs the line, and wrenches it forward to knock the bird off balance! It stumbles and falls into the water with an angry squawk, and the party speed off before it can recover!

--- Meeting with Jesus
- They roll up to the outskirts of Chilky, passing by some papier-mache looking igloos that are now long-abandoned, and enter the town. Old pre-End religious pamphlets litter the streets, are pasted to walls, or nailed to the church door. This was once where every man and his god had their religious stuff printed.
- There’s a printing press, naturally. Amongst the clutter they find a few books. Red is excited about making this a town too, perhaps a home for an independent Red Letter newspaper!
- Weather improves as they move on to Stockle, the heat breaking into a nice clear day. They see that the Church has a faded STAY AWAY written on the side of it and go to investigate.
- Inside they find an old priest who speaks to Jesus. He seems nice enough… except that Jesus is a physical force that helps him move furniture and find food and tells him of things he cannot see. Very strange!
- After chatting to the priest for a while, and a long private discussion about whether Jesus is to be trusted, they decide to head onwards again. In thanks, the priest sends Jesus with the cart to help the party home safely! There is some private concern in the party that this might not, in fact, be Our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus.

--- Return to New Moondin
- With daylight waning they book it to New Moondin as swiftly as possible, rolling past angel-beams firing into the sky and yet more stoneshell crab spoor. The damn crabs must be breeding like crazy!
- They finally reach the Storm Shell and go through! Jesus is not stopped by the Shell and shimmers out of the corner of everyone’s eye. There goes that plan.
- It’s getting dark but they’re so close to home, so they press on into the early evening. They cross the bridge and arrive, finally, back at New Moondin!
- Japhet & Hirsch come out of their eye tower to greet the party - they saw everything from the eyes on the front of the wagon of course. Red goes off to tell the Red Letter and the Librarians that there’s a mostly-working printing press out in Stockle that would make it a perfect town for book-lovers and newspaper makers!
- Expedition complete!

Total: 8000 exp

Roles:
Remembrancer: Charles (100 exp)
Expedition Leader: Kitty (100 exp)
Cartographer: Charles (100 exp)
Paymaster: Charles (100 exp)

Quartermaster: -
Vanguard: Tim (100 exp)
Triage: Tim (100 exp)
Chef: Kitty (100 exp)

OOC:
- Art Attack bonus (Charles - 100 exp)
- Artapalooza bonus (Charles - 100 exp)

Exp Totals:

- Kitty / Andromeda, Level 8 Andromedan Vampire: 171768 (Level MAX)

- Tim / Red, Level 8 Duellist Fighter: 159261 (Level MAX)

- Charles / Plod, Level 3 Goblin: 6064 (Level up at 8000)
Level Up! +1d6 HP! +1 Goblin Minion! +Backstory!
Level Up! +1d6 HP! +1 Goblin Minion! +Backstory!