Session 336 - Dethorning Gifflewim

Date: 14 February, 22 p.p.

Moon: Waxing Gibbous - Dragon Face

Zenith: The Lady

New Backstory:
- Sydney was kissed by a cultist follower, who really shouldn't have given the power dynamics at play here! Once per session, cause someone to make a romantic advance on you.

Events:

--- The Gifflewim Gambit

- Down in the lowest level of the dungeons beneath Fate, surrounded by the slime-choked machinery that makes up the walls and corridors, Swan the Swift has been thinking deeply about the Grandfather Clock that affects the flow of time.
- He tells Sydney and Dorian his plan... to summon Gifflewim, chuck him in the clock, and reverse time until the Idea of Thorns is gone from his memories!

- It's a long shot, but it just might work! Especially since Swan the Swift has his anti-magic Globus Crucigor which protects you from magical effects as long as you hold it with both hands.
- They chant Gifflewim's name and he appears over the big G symbol they drew on the ground to add to the atmosphere! It's just his head at first, and he remembers them from the Christmas Special from a few weeks back!

- There follow many "quick cover your ears!" moments as Gifflewim tries to persuade them of the Idea of Thorns' ideology, countered by Swan's newly espoused doctrine of the Idea of Wheat!

- The conversation starts to stagnate, so Dorian engages the second phase of the plan - a Stun Cigarette! He blows the smoke into Gifflewim's face, and while the Elf reels Swan grabs at Gifflewim's robes with his teeth and drags him to the clock! They slam the door and immediately start spinning the clockface backwards and backwards as the oilslick blackness of Gifflewim's skin pulses and fades and surges and reforms and his green right hand turns back to red!

- Gifflewim collapses out from the grandfather clock and basically has no idea what just happened! More importantly, the Idea of Thorns has been purged! The last thing he remembers is someone flipping a coin, then suddenly he was inside a clock...

--- Trade?
- He is, however, bang up for a classic magic item trade!
- Sydney trades his Shield of International Day Of for a ring that turns him into a cat when worn!
- Dorian trades an electric toothbrush for a big tube of toothpaste.

- Sydney trades a holographic bridge projector for a flask of Mindflayer Juice that lets you eat brains to learn their information.
- Dorian trades a Hand of Glory for a golden Greed Demon mask that makes those nearby become cowardly.

- Swan wants to learn to Cleave but Gifflewim denies him on metagame grounds... but he could always get a Mentor.

- With that Gifflewim disappears in a puff of fragrance to go find some "memory orbs". Hmmm.

--- Next Stop: Train Derailment

- With a surprisingly huge campaign development finally sorted, it's time to keep going and maybe deal with this Shub-Wizardwrath they've been looking for!
- They follow train noises until they find a derailed London Underground train stuffed with dead commuters.

- They loot the train, finding several Rolexes, a somewhat out of place Holy Symbol of the Dead God which is made of silver set around a cracked bone, some rare inks, and a Spellbook! Very good for Sydney!

- An ill wind blows through the area, and Chaotic beings are forced to Save vs Chaos! Sydney passes, gaining a temporary extra Mana, but poor Dorian fails and has one of his powers activated against his will. Sydney casts Unseen Servant out of his new spellbook to carry their stuff at least.

--- G-G-G-Ghosts!

- They've got a branching choice between spooky ghost noises and a smell of petrol. Ghosts it is!
- The room is decked out like a sort of island colony. Spooky ghosts walk around following their former lives, and there is a big tree in the middle with something written on it...
- Dorian attempts to talk, is met with ghostly hissing, and attempts violence with his flaming sword. It is at this point that the fear hits him... the fear of Level Drain.
- They run in terror, both narratively and metanarratively, from the ghosts. Swan glimpses the words on the tree as they book it out of there - "CROATOAN".

--- Skull Cats

- Petrol smell it is, then. They go by a tar pit that neeeaarly reaches the path. They see pawprints in the tar.
- Dorian engages his Gelatinous Cube Stealth and sneaks past the pit. The big cat skull of a huge skeletal feline pokes up over the tar and watches the rest of the party. Then another... and another.

- Sydney flash-casts Spiderclimb and it goes wrong as a Chaos Burst! Happily it simply copies the spell onto everyone else in the area, that single person being Swan the Swift!
- Convenient indeed! They walk over the ceiling, avoiding the big cats, and slip away after Dorian.

--- Tadpoles and Cats
- Given choices between purple mist, more spooky ghost noises, and a sound like babies drowning, they obviously go for the babies.

- It's shallow pools with baby-headed giant tadpoles squirming around in them! One dies of bravery as it tries to bite the Greed-masked Dorian, the others simply sob.

- The next area has whip-cracking sounds in a sandy area. Giant scorpions crack their tails and burrow through sand! The party go not that way, come to a dead end... and there is a roar as they roll an encounter!
- Dorian's backstory ability activates and the encounter is with... an ordinary housecat?
- Honestly incredible that the Cat Ring was gained this session. Swan and Dorian schlorp inside-out into Metameat Necklaces, Sydney puts them on, then he puts on the ring and shrinks down to a housecat!

- It turns out that this newly met cat used to be a human, but he was playing in a cat-based world in the Styxtrix and something happened that made him get born into the real world as his character. He's got no clue what happened to the instances of his mind that are still in the data core, or even if they survived!
- In any case, he can take the party to the mighty Lord Mousebane that is his ruler. They pass through the scorpion room without incident, past some distorted people, and into the Realm of Lord Mousebane!
- There are like 30 cats in here along with Lord Mousebane himself who is a cat of noble bearing. Unlike the rest of the cats he wasn't once a human playing Cat Simulator, but a real cat awakened by the power of Shub-Wizardwrath! He left, and decided to create a little feline fiefdom down here because these human-cats clearly needed guidance and sympathy.

--- The Atramental Cruor
- Lord Mousebane offers to guide them as far as he can, so they set out on a remarkably safe journey through a turnstile, a potionarium, and to the shores of a black lake.

- They grab some random potions from the Potionarium as they go. They look... variable. But who knows?

- They reach the shores of the black lake and see a soft rain of imp matrix pod innards dribbling into a great pool of inky black. The shore is littered with coffins, because apparently putting a corpse into the blackness grants it new life.
- Dorian is fascinated by the cruor, seeing as its so similar yet different to his own clay body. He feels it drawing him towards it somehow...
- We end the session with the party constructing a crude vessel from bodged-together coffins. Next week perhaps they shall cross the threshold.

Total: 8000 exp

Foes Defeated:

- Gifflewim Himself, kinda! (1500 exp)

Total: 1500 exp

Valuables Liberated:

- Catform Ring

- Toothpaste

- Mindflayer Juice

- Greed Demon Mask (500 exp)
- 3 gold Rolexes (300 exp)
- Silver Holy Symbol of the Dead God

- Rare inks and parchments halve the cost of Spell Research

- Spellbook

Total: 800 exp

OOC:

Expedition Leader - George (100 exp)

Vanguard and Chef - Kitty (200 exp)

Paymaster and Chronicler - Carter (200 exp)

Exp Totals:

- George / Swan the Swift, Level 7 Barbarian: 111736 (Level up at 128000)

- Kitty / Dorian "Ditto" DeMone, Level 7 Inheritor: 89470 (Level up at 144000)

- Carter / Sydney, Level 5 Magic-User: 33158 (Level up at 36000)