Tuesday 15 August 2023

Session 350 - Mighty Meta-Manipulation!

Date: 1 August
Moon: Full Clean Face
Zenith: Eris

New Backstory:
- Sydney owes Jojo a great debt for saving their life. Once per session, drop to 0HP to cancel any death dice they have accrued.

Events:

--- Go Before They Ask Questions!
- We open in a dungeon, drops of silvery fluid trickling down carved circuit-board stone walls, somewhere beneath the huge stepped pyramid above.
- A crumbled wall has just been mined out by Dwarves from Ur-Darghab, a task given in exchange for their lives by our victorious (and merciful) heroes. The Dwarves, job completed, shuffle off to tend to their crumbling dead. Their are cries of sorrow as they realise the gems of the dead have been taken.
- Thinking of the bloody gems in their pockets, and not wanting to cause an awkward scene, the party hurriedly rush into the revealed room.
- The caves beyond are the fractal low-poly style of Ur-Darghab, the faceted surfaces look absolutely gorgeous in Odo's dwarven darkvision.

--- Lizards!
- Arrayed around a slightly sizzling pool of trickling water, in a cave that's evidently only partway through being fractally beautified, are several part-robot raptors! Their red robo-eyes gleam, wet tongues licking their metal jaws.
- Jojo throws a hunk of boar meat and one of the raptors snaps it up. Odo, who's been checking out the ceiling, thinks she sees movement up there...
- They decide to leave well enough alone and go check out the rocks piled at the exit, when a sticky tongue slaps down straight at Odo!
- She's hit... then isn't? Reality shimmers with subtle energies. It's the effect of Sydney's new spell, Meta-Manipulation, slightly turning luck in their favour!
- Odo responds by trying to slice the tongue off! She fails... but hits! The tongue is cut clean in two, part of it flopping on the floor at her feet like a fish, the other snapping back up towards the ceiling and revealing the huge-eyed face of a giant cyborg chameleon!
- Sydney casts Slippery Slope to take the rubble down to crush the raptors, while Aximander grabs a spear and starts attacking the creature on the ceiling. It's a crit-fumble... it's a hit! The chameleon bleeds silver.
- Jojo joins the battle in earnest to head of an as-yet uncrushed raptor... and more tongues flick down towards her! There's more than one chameleon!

--- Goblins arrive
- Through the door once blocked by rubble, some goblins with thorny crowns emerge. "Not now!" shriek the party, and thankfully the goblins are ok with watching.
- Odo slays her chameleon, and is then summarily snatched into the darkness by another!
- Sydney gets tongue-grappled from a distance... but even without the aura of luck he's unscathed! The enemy chameleon fumbles... and fumbles... and fumbles again... until it's blown up its own armour, cut off its own tongue, and fallen prone and stunned into the water. I've never seen the like!
- That's Sydney's time to shine with their Wing Suit with a daredevil's soul, destroying the wings to burst straight into the half dead chameleon and make it full dead, then riding its corpse back into the fray!
- Jojo and Aximander are beating down a raptor with a combination of axe and flame, while Sydney's meta-manipulation runs out when they narrowly avoid a tongue and Odo murders the chameleon that's been trying to swallow her leg for half the fight!

--- Tyler Loveheart arrives
- What's that? It's Tyler Loveheart with the surfboard!
- He shows up mid-session as usual, surfing down the Slippery Slope as Sydney sends out a fan of Magic Missiles into the fray, and swipes a recovering raptor with his board!
- Aximander blasts it with pyrokinesis, igniting all the fluids inside it and sending it shooting off around the room like a rocket! It explodes in a spray of hot silvery liquid.
- Seeing its compatriots boiled, broken, beaten and scarred... the last chameleon turns invisible and legs it.

- Party at Sydney's Place
- Sydney summons their Safe Space so that everyone can have a rest. Meta-Manipulation really saved the day!
- The thorn goblins yell something down at the party who cover their ears and go "lalala" to avoid hearing the Idea of Thorns! The goblins have to quickly turn away though, since there are sounds of a giant chameleon attacking some goblins back there.
- Inside the Safe Space it's a huge flat, penthouse suite, seven bedrooms, and even a very nice modern kitchen! They drag the raptor and chameleon corpses in through the front door, getting blood and guts all over the parquet floor, and butcher them right there. The smell is quite something, and the windows of the flat don't actually open.
- Odo cooks the fresh meat while Sydney watches in horror as the others steal snacks from the fridge, get drunk on the wine that was meant to be saved for a special occasion, take way too long in the toilet, and generally make a mess of the place.
- When it's ready they feast upon Dino-Nike-Us, involving a tender mix of raptor and lion meat, a slow-cooked chameleon tongue, butter, and a marmite glaze. It makes them heal extra good with a night's sleep!

--- Discussing the Idea of Thorns
- In the morning, the place is a mess. Tyler's room is untouched, but only because he spent the night with Jojo who is positively glowing! The other rooms are full of tangled sheets, chairs are tipped over around the dining table which has something sticky spilled over the abandoned playing cards, and something unholy has occurred in the en suite toilet.
- Sydney is trying to hold back tears, and is about to say something they might regret, when mercifully there's a knock at the door! It's a noise complaint from the goblins. They're ok if our heroes stick around, so long as they don't unleash any more chameleons and turn down the music after 11pm.
- The rest of the party troop out of the front door past Sydney, who takes one last regretful look back at his trashed apartment and shuts the door. It fades away behind him, leaving behind only the subtle scent of unflushed vomit.
- They go to talk to the goblins, and only Sydney is brave enough to hear them talk about the Idea of Thorns! They pass their save, and can now speak uninhibited! Their leader is Graxxar, and he's extra thorny.
- The Idea of Thorns itself is a sort of anti-civilisation, pro-nature and accelerationist anarcho-primitivism. Previously it might have been a bad thing to destroy civilisation and return to living in harmony with nature, but since the apocalypse wiped out civilisation anyway it's the perfect time to embrace the Idea of Thorns!
- Sydney takes this with some scepticism, and asks what they know about the lizards.
- It transpires that they theorise the lizards are some sort of pyramid guardians, and they trapped them in that area behind the rocks to stop them eating them. These goblins also used to live with the golems, or at least were tolerated by them, until they kept going on about the Idea and got kicked out of the pyramid proper.
- Finally, they know where there's a secret pyramid control room, and offer to guide the party if they'll get them back into the main pyramid and into the Underways! What are the Underways? Secret routes beneath the Drudge Wastes... maybe they can take you there too...

Total: 7000 exp


Enemies Neutralised:
- 3 robo-raptors (300 exp)
- 4 robo-chameleons (400 exp)
Total: 700 exp


OOC:
- Carter the Chronicler & Vanguard
- Kitty the Expedition Leader
- Tom the Paymaster & Chef
- Ollie the Quartermaster


Exp Totals:
- Carter / Sydney, Level 7 Magic-User: 74793 (Level up at 144000)
- Ollie / Jojo Fullbeard, Level 6 Muscle Wizard: 51909 (Level up at 72000)
- James G / Tyler Lockheart, Level 6 Specialist: 38308 (Level up at 48000)
- Kitty / Julian & Aximander, Level 5 Languid Wastrel: 30278 (Level up at 36000)
- Tom / Odo Grumblebelch, Level 4 Dwarven Barbarian: 14174 (Level up at 16000)




















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