Tuesday 31 May 2022

Session 316 - Mirror Mirror

 Date: 13 August, 21 p.p.

Moon: Waning Gibbous - Dragon Face
Zenith: Dispater


New Backstory:
- Damian ran away to join the circus... by which we mean the party. +1 to Reaction Rolls with outsiders, troupes, and other itinerants. 


Events:

--- Return of the Valkyries!
- The team enter a new zone. Damien is flanked by the rival strongmen Iskander and Swan the Swift. It's a Styx zone, so the area is built of shiny black glass and pixels. Near the end of the room is a chest with a thumbprint scanner. Standing at the end of the room are three anime characters. It's the Valkyries!
- This time the last survivor of the previous encounter is back! Kodai-chan, an ancient being with the body of a young girl, wielding a mighty bow and extendo-spear. With her are two new Valkyries. A man with a razor-edged shield and red hair, brash and bold, and a witch with a cauldron whose eyes are covered by her huge witch hat.
- Swan suggests a friendship, and after a bit of back-and-forth the Valkyries decide that this is probably a mini-boss chamber where they taunt the party and reappear later. The shieldman, Aka-san, stays behind to be the miniboss. The room is long and thin so obviously it's built for his strengths! The other two jump into the cauldron and away!
- Iskander strikes true, but discovers Aka-san's mastery of the Perfect Block! His attack pings away, while Swan prepares a counterattack. Damien glorps into a puddle and shloops around the fighters, attacking Aka-san from behind!
- Swan splits the shield in two with a sword-blow, and a cutscene occurs where Aka-san is allowed to leave for some reason with his wounded pride. The warrior dives into the cauldron, which crumbles to reveal a yellow rupee. 500 obols!
- The chest opens at a kick, revealing 900 more in rupees. Success!

--- Damnation Snels?!
- They continue through a couple of low-poly caves until they come to a last room. The exit to the next zone is probably beyond the archway in front of them... but a mysterious iPad-glass door to the right intrigues Swan when he hears a booming "I'm Damnation Snels! Peepeepoopoo!" coming from beyond it.
- Swan can't resist! He kicks the door down and enters a stagnant sewer zone. Filthy water runs down the middle of this long chamber. Standing in the crusty water is a big troll-like version of Damnation Snels, the puritan. His buckled hat is made of pure silver, and he roars "rarrrghhh I'm wrong about everything! Just obey me!" as he charges into battle!
- Swan and Iskander join the battle as one, striking at the big Snels as he attacks back with metaphorical claws and rhetorical teeth!
- After much glorious battle, and many cathartic references to former events, the beast is felled when Dorian cuts into his throat with wrist-spurs and Swan delivers the final blow. Snels is defeated. His silver hat, 300 obols, is taken.

--- Drunken Blob
- They leave the sewer and back out through the archway, entering a new zone. It's a Sir Robyn zone, and so opulently furnished in aging velvets and overstuffed plush cushions.
- In the middle of the room is a big snoring blob the colour of wine. In an alcove is a painted egg. Iskander goes for the egg and is hit by the blobby raccoon-hand of the blob as it rolls over in its slumber! The touch of the blob makes Iskander's armour slightly drunk, notching it.
- Swan tries for the egg and dodges the paw! He grabs it, finding it to be a painted tin egg worth 10 obols. Worth it...?
- He breaks the egg and inside is a little kinder surprise thing which contains a tiny phrasebook for raccoon and two other animal languages! Neat!

--- Sir Robyn!!
- There are drunken shouts from the next room, and they head through a bead curtain and find a drunk lawyer wizard lounging on a chaise-longue. It's Sir Robyn of course! He has a good supply of box wine and high-alcohol slavic beers.
- Snuggles and Scamps, his familiars, arrive with oven pizza. The party goes to leave, and Robyn asks them to bring him the scalps of any other Sir Robyns they see. He's multiversal, but dead in all of them eventually. Hopefully if he's the last Sir Robyn he will obtain Jet Li-like powers.

--- I'm Seein Double Here
- They head into the next area which is a nice vineyard that goes for miles, but with an obvious reduction in quality once it gets past the waist-high fence bounding the garden. Here is - and I rolled this random encounter completely legit - Sir Robyn on a chaise-longue!
- This is very convenient for scalp-related reasons, so they ask if they can trade their raccoon dictionary for his scalp. He's confused, but gets one of his raccoons over to see if it's got any jokes in it. The other raccoon gives him a can to manfully smash against his forehead... and it turns into a scalpel mid-flight, scalping this Sir Robyn!
- He survives for unkillable wizard reasons, but is in terrible pain! The party grabs the scalp and runs back to the previous room. Thanks for the assist, Scamps! Scamps, naturally, keeps the phrasebook and scampers away.

--- Wizard Beam
- The previous Sir Robyn is happy to see the scalp, and amazed that there was another one of him next door! He exchanges the scalp for a bottle of Jim Beam and heads out for a wizard duel against his double. The party go back to the blob room, avoiding wizard battles is good for the health.
- Swan sprays the blob with Jim Beam to distract it and the party slip out a side door. Successful escape!

--- Flesh Idol
- The next location is a special Gold room with its own map and everything.
- In the middle of a large chamber is a huge 10 foot flesh sculpture made of rotting animals and a woman acting as the head. It's yucky, but inanimate. Ominous.
- They check out some alcoves but only find offcuts from the flesh sculpture construction, crawling with red grubs. Best left alone.

--- Ratmen?
- Through the double doors at the end of the hall they hear muttered sounds, high pitched. Dorian knocks and a man wearing a giant rat skull on his face and a ratskin cloak answers! He thinks he's a ratman, but invites the party inside.
- He can't believe that the party got past the flesh golem, and definitely thinks he's a wererat. Swan rips off his rat mask and the dude thinks his whole face has been ripped off! He screams loudly!
- Swan dons his own wolfskin cloak, while Iskander rips off the rat cloak and makes the guy scream louder because he's clearly been skinned!
- After a scuffle in which the party is attacked by rusty blades and Swan throws some spare rat-cloaks over some of the "wererats", turning them in their minds into double-rats to visible confusion.
- After several of them are murdered the rest cower before the might of the Werewolf (Swan) and his horrible acolytes. They offer him stinking cottage cheese served from rat stomachs, apparently made from "ghoul milk" as an offering. It's genuinely horrible, and the "cracked black pepper" is rat droppings.
- Iskander finds a shard of crystal dragon core in the wererat's pile of filthy bedding. He's told by the cowering guys that it can be used to bend glyphs, like drakencultists could back before the end of the world.
- Swan's iron stomach is quite impressive as he chows down on the cheese. According to him you get used to it. The tunnels dug into the sides of the room are home to giant rats and ghouls, they've been digging them in an attempt to get around the very real flesh golem out there.
- There's another door out of here, leading into the Chequered Hall which has loads of tripwires that set things clattering to attract attention, used to catch giant rats by the "wererats" and also the ghouls. Go through there and you'll find a big chamber with a big magic mirror that shows the truth or possibly lies.

--- Mirror Mirror
- They head through the chequered hall, avoiding the traps they were warned about. It's fairly easy when you know they're there.
- They head up into the chamber they were told about... and the mirror shimmers with magic! Iskander and Dorian look away in time, but Swan sees the truth of the world. He's a huge flesh golem! And so are his compatriots!
- Iskander tries to destroy the mirror, but his mirror-self stabs him back! This mirror has some sort of magic!
- "Wererats" and "ghouls" arrive because they heard the commotion. The ghouls are simply women with the nails painted yellow, bringing up some disturbing implications on the origin of the "ghoul milk".
- Swan in his pain and confusion tries to punch a wererat, but it's immune to non-magical damage! The others see him pull his punch, somehow the magic-addled "flesh golem" knows he can't hurt wererats?
- The others back away, backs to the mirror, and we end the session on a classic cliffhanger, very confused...


Total: 10000 exp


Loot:
- 1400 obols in Zelda rupees (1400 exp)
- Silver puritan hat (300 exp)
- Painted egg (broken)
Total: 1700 exp


Enemies Defeated:
- Aka-san the Valkyrie (250 exp)
- "Damnation Snels" (250 exp)
- Several false were-rats (40 exp)
Total: 540 exp


OOC:
tbc



Exp Totals:
- George / Swan the Swift, Level 6 Barbarian: 61698 (Level up at 64000)
- Ollie / Iskander Fullbeard, Level 6 Fighter: 49324 (Level up at 64000)
- Kitty / Damien "Ditto" DeMone, Level 4 Inheritor: 10797 (Level up at 18000)
Level Up! +1d6 HP! +1 Mutation Cap! +1 Meat Point! +1 Backstory!


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