Session 287 - Last Orders Before Lockdown

If anything, this coming out now shows that I only write the recaps when it's already too late!

This session actually occurred back in August last year, but at least Ynn is a dreamlike garden where old memories linger... or something.

Session 287 - Last Orders Before Lockdown

New Backstory:
- Red is the leader (as she sees it) of the Bunker Buddies, a tight-knit group of good friends!

Valuables:
- Seven jewelled rings. (3500 exp)
- Anti-Stasis Chainmail. Half damage from stasis weapons (like angels use)
- Curse-eating Wand. Stores a curse at a time, casts at a stone's throw range.
- Luck-Twisting Halberd. Activate it on an attack to get a nat 20, but the next attack is always a nat 1.
Total: 3500 exp

Events:

- Deep in the Gardens of Ynn, on a floating garden containing a bubbling corrosive pit, the fabled adventurers Andromeda, Red and Ratman the Ratman stand.
- They are here to find the Goblins who left reality and fled into this perpendicular dimension. Or at least, they might have been. It's hard to know anything when you're this deep into the dream.

--- Empty Robes
- There is another island with a huge stone cube. They approach, and empty floating robes with big pointy ears emerge. They are here to guard the way out. They are here to prevent the escape of the Idea of Thorns. They warned the Goblins, but the Goblins failed to listen, and ran deeper into the Gardens.
- The cube is a house, and has many worldly possessions. The shades care not if it is looted. Ratman finds jewelled rings, Andromeda finds enchanted chainmail, Red finds a wand that eats curses.
- Red, whose head has been locked into a mask, taps it on the mask and releases herself from the curse! Lovely!

--- Goblin-Adjacent Entities
- Several more islands follow, some sort of glowing light from below makes Red's legs mirror and mirror into a spider-form, but she's always been that way. An ape throws a lion cub from a cliff, and it cracks to reveal a halberd with a glistening blade.
- An island covered in rose thorns peels back to reveal Goblins, at last! These have big mushroom ruffs and white eyes. They merge into one, mycelium binding them, and it demands the group join the mind-hive.
- Red blats it with her curse-wand and the mask appears on one of the faces. The creature realises how rude it's being, and invites the party for dinner. They politely decline.
- They leave via a hole in a dodecahedron that widens out into great steps leading down. Time flips and bends. Ratman has loads more rats. Red has two Gifflewim coins now. Andromeda feels her connection to the old reality start to fray.

--- The Unicorn
- A unicorn in bright sunshine, brambles winding around its horn, a message written in thorns on its flank.
- Andromeda reads it, nearly reaches a dark comprehension, and then the thoughts crumble and desaturate as Red uses the curse-wand on the Idea of Thorns. Convenient item!
- Red befriends The Unicorn (first name The, last name Unicorn) because she is, of course, a virgin.
- The Unicorn had seen some Goblins go past! It knows that there's a memetic plague going around, but also that the Goblins have been building a city in reverse down here, they finished building it yesterday.
- The gang hop on The Unicorn for a magical ride to the goblin settlement!

--- Gobolopolis
- The first thing is the screams. The second thing is the graffiti about Thorns. The third thing is all the thorns. Or is that backwards?
- The Unicorn turns at right angles and clops into a house. It's got a big soil bed for growing baby Goblins. Inside there is a really tall Goblin with filigree ears. His name is Squinchopolous, long for Squinch.
- He says the Goblins came into the Gardens to escape persecution, but they came too deep and found the ruins of an ancient Elf civilisation and a dormant memetic virus inimical to sentience and civilisation.
- The virus accelerates plant growth, which is fine for Goblins but absolutely fucks up Hobgoblins. They're the ones screaming. The Goblins themselves can reproduce, so it's kind of fine down here for them.
- Squinch tells the party not to let the curse-wand with the Idea of Thorns in it out into the world. Doing so would risk the fragile civilisation that yet remains up there.

--- Gifflewim
- Red has an idea! She flips one of her Gifflewim coins and he appears!
- He's initially taken aback by being drawn into this other world, but there is a deal to be done!
- Red offers him the Death mask, and in exchange he'll cure the Idea of Thorns. Great idea.
- He takes the mask, Red zaps him with the Idea of Thorns so that he can work out a way to defeat it, and Gifflewim promptly says "Huh, that's a good idea". He puts on the Death mask, and vanishes.
- Andromeda looks at Red with a genuine "oh fuck" expression.

--- Back to Reality
- The Unicorn doesn't quite understand what's going on, but he's quite happy to take the party back up to the doorway into Ynn. Close to the entrance he's just a horse.
- Japhet & Hirsch wave from the garden gate that leads back up and out into New Moondin. Something crazy is going on outside. The sky is going fuzzy, and there's talk of a "lockdown"...

Total: 8000 exp

OOC:
- Remembrancer: Kitty (100 exp)
- Jugbryngyr: 1 each (500 exp ea.)
- Probably some more each (200 exp ea.)

Exp Totals:
- Kitty / Andromeda, Level 8 Andromedan Vampire: 183896 (Level up at 288000)
- Tim / Red, Level 8 Duellist Fighter: 169095 (Level up at 256000)
- Izzy / Ratman, Level 8 Ratman: 134617 (Level up at 192000)