Session 354 - A Pylon in the Wastes

Date: 19 September

Moon: Waxing Crescent
Zenith: Alaunus

New Backstory:
- Hagan was having a riveting, energetic, and vastly heretical discussion about the Old Miner, aka Dwarf Satan, and how he was actually a good god. Then the Loremasters arrived, and everything went to shit! Once per session, cause everything to go to shit in an unexpected way. Roll 1d6: 1-2 Good for Enemies, 3-4 Bad for Everyone, 5-6 Good for You.

Events:

--- Bonding over Lore
- Hagan the Heretic has reached inside his Dwarven soul and unlocked a Lorebond - the Lore of the Elders that grants deep knowledge at a price.
- He reads the party's book about Ur-Rajzesk, the City of Rails, to find out more about the Underways below the Drudge Wastes.
- He discovers that the best way to access the pyramid network is via the Magma Pyramid, that the Hollow Nexus of the Underways is not broken, and that fixing the Underways will require destroying said Hollow Nexus.

--- Hanging in Grasp
- Meanwhile, Sydney has hired a force of Dwarven labourers to clean out their magical flat. After the rest of the party stayed there overnight it's a tip. For 400 obols the dwarves will refill the liquor cabinet with Clunge Honey Mead too!

- Odo hires a Dwarven retainer, whose take-cold forehead glyph means Warm-Heart.
- Hagar chats to a few of the other Dwarves, who tell him that they're from Ur-Jeizhek the City of Sigils. The hated Goblins destroyed Ur-Jeizhek in an earlier age, creating their capital city in the ruins. Their numbers have been dwindling ever since, especially since their culture breeds the old-fashioned way.

--- Deals within Deals
- Odo wants to invest into the Grumblebelch business, so asks around to see if anyone's seen a gold-masked demon around. Luckily the Dwarves are very much capitalists, despite the destruction of their capital, and so they've managed to attract the Greed Demon into town recently.
- Making her way to the darkened crumbling shop front, Odo rings the bell at the front. There is a strange noise from the dark... a flash of a gold mask... and... hey it's Gifflewim! This time on business for Julgoor, who is currently conducting business elsewhere. Business!

- Aximander reveals his red right hand, and Gifflewim shakes it with his own. They're fellow Languid Wastrels - Magic Aura Elves!

- Gifflewim tells them all about his actions when he was under the influence of the Idea of Thorns, travelling the world, propagating Thorns, seeding the world with living trees that would tear down civilisation and plant seeds in the ashes, that sort of thing. Turns out that spreading the Idea of Thorns spreads out its power, so it's widespread but weaker these days.
- On the other hand, he has NOT been informed of the Red Elves and their magic-draining plan to mine the world for realities. This cannot stand!
- They trade items with him.

Aximander trades eldritch shackles for a Potion of Nightmares that brings prophecy.

Sydney trades Vantablack Paint for a Runeba that will clean the apartment. 

Odo trades a dot-matrix printer for a Folio of Monsters that lets you identify foes. 

Jojo trades a direction-swapping playing card for a Null-Magic Shield that can be broken to stop a spell. 

--- To the Spire
- It's a much nicer day as they set off to the Pylon to the north of Grasp. If they can switch it on, they'll link it to the pyramid at Splug and hopefully start de-poisoning the Wastes!

- When I say "a nicer day" I actually mean a long sustained drizzle that saps the spirit. Bulging tubers sprout from the muck and mire, swollen and soaked by the rain. Deflated aubergines are trivially gathered.
- Roiling winds come in during the afternoon, but luckily this slows them long enough to spot some Frazzlejack growing on the shells of dead angels!
- They reach the Pylon as the sun starts to set, and briefly consider hunkering down in a mysterious hole surrounded by scrabbling claw marks. Odo checks the book of beasts and discovers it's a trapdoor monster's vacated hole! Good to know.
- However the Pylon is close, so they decide to check it out first.

--- Inside the Pylon
- Within they discover a short hanger entrance, then a whole hollow interior space within the pylon. There is the distorted mechanical singing of tortured angels. Inside, inset into the pylon, is a squat pyramid.
- The walls are circuitboard channels with the occasional trickle of mercury running through them. Odo touches it and it gives her a static shock.
- Also, looking through the front door, the pyramid itself is more of a stepped open-topped maze! Climbing the walls is fairly trivial.
- Odo passes Warm-Heart a crossbow and idly asks what he knows of Ur-Jeizhek history. Turns out, a lot!

--- Historical Intermission
- Humans were freed from Halfling rule by the Dwarves in the late 1440s and lived in peace with the various races. Centuries later, in the 1980s, the Goblins rebelled against the Dwarves who had so kindly allowed them to live in their cities. Ur-Jeizhek was sacked, and the Dwarves driven out.
- The other Dwarves locked themselves into their cities, and a last hero from Ur-Jeizhek inverted the pyramids' poison pumps. The Drudge Wastes were formed, and the central control pyramid of Ur-Jeizhek was destroyed. It is now Dwarf Year 4482.
- Hagan the Heretic's main question is... in what Dwarf year was Jesus alive??

--- Eat the Good Mushroom

- Aximander, half-listening to this rambling, peeps into the next room and sees a dead Dwarf surrounded by dead Goblins. He picks a glowing mushroom from a dead goblins' neck and eats it! It's great, but he barely feels attached to his body, like another person is controlling it... woaoooohhh.
- Warm-Heart finishes his history lesson and tries a mushroom too. Wooaoahhhahahooohhhh
- Ahead there is an angel screaming, but the beat is sick. Aximander and Warm-Heart can't help but follow...
- There is, indeed, an angel! But it's barely holding together, metal pieces fizz with electrical energies, its huge central eye flickering like a plasma ball.
- Odo grabs the troubleshooting Dwarven head, which informs that this angel needs an update! No time for that now, it's time to battle!

--- Defeat the Angel
- Odo attacks with a sword, but the static burst from its armour makes him drop it! Hargen lobs a broom to immobilise it, but trips himself too!
- Aximander blasts it with fire, miscasts... and doesn't expend the mana! The angel is veeeery messed up.
- Jojo punches with a bare fist, gets stunned, then Sydney follows up with their spear. Electricity runs up the weapon but... they're wearing blacksmith gloves! No effect!

- The angel detonates, leaving behind a glowing AI core... which is immediately snatched.

--- Mushroomised Goblins
- There's a door ahead, but without power it remains closed. Over the wall it is! The only trouble is Sydney's singing clock, which takes a bit of getting over the wall.
- While they're sweating and struggling with the clock (which can't stop singing), they hear deeper-voiced goblins??
- Approaching are 11 goblins, glowing mushrooms on their necks. They are surprisingly chill.
- Aximander casts Guiding Lights, trying to bring about the emotional concept of "the way I will feel when I reach the goal of this dungeon". It miscasts, and does the opposite, guiding back to the dead angel which is, even now, starting to get reformed in the middle of the room.
- Aximander squints, squeezes his eyes shut, and tried again. It works! He thinks!
- The goblins, while permanently high on alterket-adjacent mushrooms, are no longer surprisingly chill. Warm-Heart harbours no warm feelings towards the species that killed his city, and is saying some extremely rarefied racial slurs.
- Odo distracts Warm-Heart while Aximander talks to the goblins. It sounds like these mushrooms are an anti-goblin bioweapon created by Dwarves!
- The goblins are now peaceful, but still very much in the way. Sydney picks them up and moves them out of the way one by one, with a little "wahoooo!" each time.

--- Alaunus 3.1
- They head round a corner, following the Guiding Lights, and very much avoid a room with white-eyed goblins crawling in a suppurating pit of fungus.

- The Lights lead them up a ramp towards a locked shut mechanical door. However, on the approach of several Dwarfs, it opens!

- Inside is another ancient god-plate attached to a large old-computer-green screen. They turn it on.
- A pixelated image of a mailed fist comes onto the screen! It's a young, brash Alaunus!
- The modern Alaunus makes the connection, but the party dismiss him for now and get this one to activate the terraforming engines... which it does!
- Then, seeing as an updated version is coming in... it deletes itself.
- Modern Alaunus arrives again, despite attempts to block him. He spouts propaganda about how he can't use this old hardware, and anyway it's foolish because he's defending the Earth from the Red Elves invading above! They're attempting to crash their Red Moon into Luna!
- He can send angels down to repair the pylon, which the party is cagey about. It's working ok already isn't it?

- At the mention of a gap in the Gods' defence network, they all suddenly realise the stakes. Eris, the Ninth God, was supposed to be under Dwimmermount right? Maybe they should take their airship over that way to sort out the Heavens before they think about resurrecting the Earth!

Total: 11000 exp

Treasures Acquired:
- A bunch of "depression potatoes"
- 4 frazzlejack (4 exp)
- 5 alterket mushrooms (5 exp)
- Fried angel core (250 ob)
Total: 259 exp

Enemies Defeated:
- A broken angel, destroyed. (500 exp)
- A crowd of goblins, moved aside. (55 exp)
Total: 555 exp

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

Exp Totals:

- Carter / Sydney, Level 7 Magic-User: 81580 (Level up at 144000)

- Ollie / Jojo Fullbeard, Level 6 Muscle Wizard: 56012 (Level up at 72000)

- Kitty / Julian & Aximander, Level 6 Languid Wastrel: 36965 (Level up at 72000)
Level Up! +1d6 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 Mana! +Backstory!

- Tom / Grumblebelch, Level 5 Dwarf: 20740 (Level up at 32000)

- George / Hagen the Heretic, Level 3 Dwarf: 6687 (Level up at 8000)

Session 353 - Delving into the Dwarf Lore

Date: 5 September

Moon: Waning Gibbous

Zenith: The Scorned

Events:

--- Rats on Coke
- We begin with our heroes in a boxy dungeon room, all flat angles in the Ur-Darghab style. The edges glow with a soft pale light. Small heaps of white powder mark where Red Elves died. Rats are nibbling up the Notcoke and tweaking out.
- They are in the Underways - a quasi-magical and semi-real dimension that runs beneath the Drudge Wastes. This room was recently vacated by Red Elves, scared off by a wild spell.
- Hagen "the Heretic" Grumblebelch, the recent Dwarven addition to the party, kicks aside the rats and takes a big snort of the stimulant Notcoke powder. It's good shit! He pokes some more into a little baggie.
- Sydney spends a bit of time forming their rather powerful Meta-Magic spell into the mind while Aximander (slightly weakened by this week's moon) munches down a meal from his lunch box.

--- Battle in the Corridor!

- Those Red Elves had told the party all about this "Hollow Nexus" that's somewhere in the labyrinth. Anybody who wields it can teleport around the place, which is dead useful when you can get pretty much anywhere on the surface if you know the route.
- Aximander summons Guiding Lights to guide the way to it... but as soon as they're lit there are suddenly the sounds of battle from outside the room!
- They peek out and see Red Elves battling Ur-Darghab Dwarves! Occasionally an Elf falls, collapses into notcoke, and a few minutes later returns stronger from a convenient entrance! 
- Rather than get involved, they try another quieter door. Within are friezes of Dwarves in viking helmets piloting submarines in the sea. There is also a dead Ur-Darghab Dwarf, mostly rotten and surrounded by flies. They loot him for his swallowed gems.

--- Heart of Cocaine
- Sydney's dancing clock sings a song, reminding them that they've got a cool rewind device. Why not try it on the notcoke left when a Red Elf dies?
- They scare away the zooted rats (who have, incidentally, invented a miniature Wagamamas), grab some powder, and rewind it. A salt-crystal looking heart forms, and when Aximander eats it he gets VERY HIGH! Also... seems to have some sort of respawn energy?? They debate what the Wild Hunt will be if they've eaten a Red Elf heart... then Sydney gobbles one down too.
- They are both extremely high.

--- Sustained Drizzle
- They decide to try that shimmery wormhole again. After checking that the battle has moved on, they creep through the portal and into the upside-down Dwarf train station.
- As luck would have it, the ghostly urn that chased them out of here has returned to its room. They peek in and see it's floating over a big pile of treasure.
- "Nope"

- Instead they take the upside-down stairs (or rather, the sloped roof "above" said stairs) upwards and find themselves... under the open sky! Hurrah! Unfortunately it's horrid and drizzly... the weather has gone all autumnal since they were last out in the open.
- They look for landmarks, seeing a town, a pylon, and the sea. After a bit of checking around on the map, they find where they are! It's like 20 miles away from the pyramid, and they traversed it in mere feet down in the Underways. Another fast travel technique, if they can understand it...

--- The Dwarves of Grasp

- They head for the church spire of the town, schlorping their way through the black mud of the Drudge Wastes.

- On the battlements above the huge wooden gate, there are Dwarves in horned helms! One greets them and invites them in.
- It transpires that these are Dwarves of Ur-Jeizhek, the City of Sigils. They have glyphs painted on the foreheads and have names based on the runes. They also got these cool horned helmets from some Sea Dwarf traders! How cool are they?

- They are invited in, and filled in on what happened here. Turns out the town, Grasp, was an outpost on the edge of the Wastes. The humans who lived here were wiped out in the Poisoned Years. Now the Dwarves have set up camp here, because they want to discover the mysteries of the pylons.
- There's a fair sized band of Dwarves in the longhouse, thirty or so at most. The party see that they're cooking rats for food in here (apparently there are loads swarming out of the rat pit to the north-east) and offer to cook them something better. It's off to the river to see what they find!

- They mostly catch Mud Bream, but also a netful of Swarm Minnows which are pretty cool. They swim right next to each other and leap out of the water to catch flies, which makes it look like a silver tube has just leapt through a swarm of gnats.
- The dish is called Where Land Meets Sea, and it contains both kinds of fish, two kinds of predator (lion and velociraptor), and some rat to bulk it out. It's great! Aximander pours over a Potion of Bounty and triples the amount created! A feast!

--- Lore Upon Lore

- Outside the weather takes a turn for the worse, the drizzle making way for the storm and fury of an Unmaking Rain. They decide to stay in, and listen to much lore from these Dwarves.
- They discover that the blood ocean tastes spicy but is bad for the soul, but also that it never cools. They consider taking some for hot water bottles.

- Sydney trades an axe for a scroll of Subtle Trenchcoat, and Aximander is given a Saviourbone Sword in thanks for his work doubling the feast. They also learn the pro Dwarven rat-deboning technique.
- They hear that the tower here was once topped by a great bell, but it was stolen by a giant bird. They hear that the great pit to the north-east should be avoided on cloudy days, since it is infested with ratmen and contains nine circles of rodent hell.

- Potent mead is passed around, said to be from an old cache they found at a honey farm in the ruins of Clunge.
- They hear of the time when a great demon with a black sun between its horns collapsed on Battlefortress Fate in the closing hours of the End War, scattering obols across the mechanical city. This sounds familiar. They also learn that Mass Runes are now operational, but only when the moon turns to reveal the corpse of Apocalypse Dragon Ereshkigal.
- Sydney floats the idea of trading boiling ocean blood with the people in Splug, just up the river, in the hopes that he can get capitalism going. They aren't super bothered.
- And finally, they hear about the nearby Pylon itself. It's a dungeon, naturally, and they've lost good Dwarves in there. The machinery within the ancient structure sparks with dangerous electricity, and occasionally there is a mechanical howling like dying angels. Seems legit!

- To celebrate these visitors coming in and feeding everyone, the Dwarves put on an ancient Dwarvish play just for them. It's about a young Dwarf forced by his father to get in a mech-suit and battle angels, set in the dwarven city of Ur-Vangelion.

Total: 7000 exp

Treasures:

- Gems claimed from a dead Dwarf (50 exp)

- 7 reconstituted Red Elf hearts (700 exp)
- Scroll of Subtle Trenchcoat
- Saviourbone Sword w/ Beam-Heat-Heat
Total: 750 exp

OOC:
- Carter the Chronicler & Chef (200 exp)

- Kitty the Expedition Leader (100 exp)
- George the Vanguard (100 exp)

Exp Totals:

- Carter / Sydney, Level 7 Magic-User: 79017 (Level up at 144000)

- Kitty / Julian & Aximander, Level 5 Languid Wastrel: 34502 (Level up at 36000)

- George / Hagen the Heretic, Level 3 Dwarf: 4224 (Level up at 8000)
Level Up! +1d10 HP! +1 to Saves! +Lorebond! +Backstory!

Level Up! +1d10 HP! +1 to Saves! +Lorebond! +Backstory!

Interludus - The Assassination of James Young by the Coward James Young

It was my birthday and so I got a game run for me!

The system of choice was Blades in the Dark, and the happenings were as follows...

We open on a night of celebration. All through the district of Nightmarket a party is being thrown. James Young, a powerful land lord and crime boss is throwing a lavish birthday party, centred on his casino, the Lucky Saint.

Fireworks go off overhead, drinks are drunk and gambles won or lost. And through the streets of Nightmarket sneak a small crew. They have a cart with them stacked with legitimately purchased drink they are going to deliver to the Lucky Saint.

But no ordinary delivery people are these.

Accrimony Jones - a good ol' local boy. He bears a strong grudge against James Young, his landlord, for increasing his rent several times without clearing up that brown mould infestation.

Sotto (the Strangler) - an immigrant whose dreams of making it big in the city were dashed by the ever increasing rents. At direct odds with the demands of the rental union!

Sprinter Spindleman - his wife was killed by James Young and her soul taken as collateral. He wants that soul back and he wants James dead.

In fact, they all do, but they also want to rob and humiliate him first. And the best way to do that is to rob his vault and bury him under the ghosts of his victims!

So when they arrive at the back door of the Lucky Saint they hand over papers showing the order and offer to carry the kegs in. This is taken up because they're running low. The size of the party drains drinks nearly as fast as they can be brought in. The crew sneak in and then abandon the carrying job as quickly as they can.

At the first basement layer they sneak into the locker room where, FLASHBACK, Accrimony spent seven months as an employee to prepare for this heist. He nods to one of the employees still here and spins a few words while propping a locker open. Uniforms are stolen as the party grab old suits out of the laundry and lockers to blend in. They also steal silver trays to carry the rest of their gear that wouldn't fit under the uniforms.

Now they need to get to the vault, but how will they find the way? Sotto enters the ghost field (it looks a bit like the matrix) and searches through the underground paths for the route. They find the vault impenetrable through ghostly means but have the path, although a ghostly observer has clocked them.

They project an air of belonging and authority into the ghost field, dismissing the ghostly observer before returning to their body. Sotto grins and leads the others to the hidden stairwell leading to the sub-basement.

On the stairs, they run into Avis Crane. A security guardsmen and quite adept at digging out those that don't belong. Accrimony takes lead distracting Avis with a few words while Spindlemen slips behind the legs.

Accrimony flashbacks to when they remember that these stairwells are all heavily sound-proofed. He shoves. Avis falls back over Spindlemen and snaps their neck on the stairs. They wheeze, paralyzed and dying at the bottom until Sotto puts them out of their misery by smothering them. Accrimony turns away during this. Turns out they're terrible with blood which is why they became a sniper. To keep it at a good distance.

Sotto tries to draw Avis's soul out but something goes wrong. It's not a healthy ghost, but a distorted and physical wraith they're pulling out! They stop pulling but this is a problem. The malevolent wraith will chase them if it gets out. But... the vault is ghost proof! They drag the body by it's neck tie as they continue to the vault.

The vault door is a huge monstrosity of steel, cold-iron and silver runes. It has three tumbler locks and a huge turn handle down an arm sized tube. The door is a Byngham design and though Byngham was killed after making it, his apprentice Freike is a close friend of Spindlemen who flashes back to when the two of them went over the heist. The tumblers are explainable and crackable, but the main turner requires a gem-bracelet worn by James Young. It is sonically attuned and without it turning the handle will unleash wires that sever the arm in the tube.

Flashback: Accrimony spent many nights hunting down a broken copy of the gem-bracelet and fixing it. Hopefully it works.

They set to manually solving the tumblers but it takes too long and a guard appears. Accrimony is doing a last adjustment and can't be disturbed, so Sotto tries to buy time by spinning a story about an accident and needing to put the body in the vault. It buys just enough time for Accrimony to finish the tumblers and turn the handle. It works... mostly. He only loses a finger instead of the whole arm.

As the screams of Accrimony disturb the guard, Spindlemen sprints along the wall and over the roof to land a stab to the guard's shoulder. Sotto charges in to help and eventually they subdue the guard. They then kill him and Sotto steals his soul for later use. Then they drag both bodies into the vault.

It's huge, with rails in the floor leading nowhere and curved walls. Papers, deeds, gold bullion, jewellery, cash and coins, and hundred of soul bottles including variants. It also has all the makings of a panic room with food, drink and porta-potties.

Spindlemen finds their wife's soul as Sotto rearranges the ghost labels and Accrimony takes a lot of very expensive drinks. They then put on as much money as they can find, stuff a bunch of ghost bottles onto their silver platters for use later and change outfits. There's some of James Young's clothes down here, but his giant 8'4" frame is too much to passingly be worn by anyone. Accrimony takes a vest to fashion into a dress with a gold chain belt and they head back upstairs.

They pretend to be waiters plus drunk guest and get all the way to the office level. A giant guard stops them but Sotto blags themselves and Accrimony past. Spindlemen will have to make their own way up.

When they arrive in front of James Young, he's hosting an elaborate game. His study is lined with bookshelves of... first edition systems, modules, minis and board games. 3 whole cases are dedicated to kickstarted systems and the table he's running at is a septagonal, lion legged enormous wooden construct. Model tiles, snack trays, dice and chips. The players are jealous!

Flashback: Accrimony spent the last seven years as part of this game, with a specific habit of showing up late and drunk! He joins immediately and is very distracting, stacking dice and jumping on other player's turns.

Outside, downstairs, Spindlemen has climbed out an office window and ascended the outer walls. Rather than sneak in though, he's setting up explosives all around the top floor exterior.

As Accrimony gets up from the table to make a phone call, Sotto approaches with their drinks tray of ghosts. Only to smash it down.

'For the RENTAL UNION!' they cry as a horde of ghosts billow out. The ghosts are bound by common cause, kill James Young!

Sotto empowers the ghost army to attack the powerful whisper that is James Young, meanwhile, Accrimony uses suppressing fire to keep James's players from interfering while also throwing a pistol at the window. It seems like a miss until a stray bullet overshoots it, shattering the window and allowing the pistol to slap into Spindlemen's palm. Spindlemen turns the pistol on James Young's back and fires, putting a bullet in the giant but not collapsing him.

James Young tries to gather the ghosts around him to use against the party but they're not risking that. Sotto and Accrimony make their way to the window while Spindlemen enters.

Flashback: Spindlemen stored some parachutes outside this window a week ago, just for this moment.

Sotto and Accrimony jump out with parachutes as Spindlemen pushes the trigger to detonate the explosives. But oh no! It was sturdier than anticipated. As Sotto and Accrimony fly out of the smoke cloud, James Young is chasing on his ghost-supported game-table! Spindlemen has unwillingly survived, attached to the underside of the table for now.

It's a dangerous chase now, as Accrimony shoots at James Young with enhanced bullets. But his first shots whiff and his parachute gets burned, forcing him to jump to Sotto. However, for their last shot, Accrimony lets slip their grip to get a good aim and falls. But the shot is good! It kills James Young, disabling his magic table and starting both corpse and Spindlemen falling

As Spindlemen falls, his last sight is James Young's exploding head and torso, much as his wife died all those months ago.

Sotto meanwhile has pulled off a miraculous dive that saves both themselves and Accrimony. As the two limp away burning deeds fly from the top floor of the burning Lucky Saint.

Mission accomplished.

Session 352 - Rocks Fall, Everyone's Fine

Date: 15 August

Moon: Waning Gibbous
Zenith: Minerva

New Backstory:
- Odo Grumblebelch was stuck in a board meeting because she heard that Grumblebelch himself would be there, but it was really boring so she slipped out early. She's never met the CEO. You can't pass out when fleeing.

Events:

--- An Arrival
- Philipides Goath is allegedly in Australia, but conveniently a replacement arrives! His name is Hagen "the Heretic" Grumblebelch, and he has strong opinions about the Old Miner (no relation to the Old Grump?)
- It's good timing, because Odo is about to achieve access to Dwarf Heaven. She's currently pulling the diamond keystone from the roof of a vaulted ceiling.
- Via various chicanery, she survives! She's now the proud owner of an 8000 obol diamond, and the proud destroyer of a load-bearing ceiling.
- Meanwhile, Sydney is under attack by sandstorm-spewing zombie Dwarves that they insist are sentient despite all evidence to the contrary. Sydney's shield is ripped apart by the raging sandblasting winds.
- Sydney legs it, shooting a Cloudkill over their shoulder as they do so.
- Aximander, slightly weakened by this week's gibbous moon, sprints in and detonates a fireball in the midst of the zombie dwarfs. There is a smell of cooked almonds, and chunks rain down.

--- They Seem Intelligent I Swear

- Odo sticks her sword Lothario around the corner to see if there's anything else in the zombie Dwarf room. There are more zombies (quiescent for now) and a big carving that says "The Honoured Dead who Built the Golems".
- In a separate but parallel room, there are more zombies and a bejeweled sign that says "The Honoured Dead Who Built the Pyramids".
- Sydney cannot let sleeping zombies lie, and sends their slime familiar to remove the jewels. The slime is murdered, and Sydney has to cough up a new one.
- Dwarf zombies are on the march now, so our heroes rappel down to the train tracks below the main room.
- The tracks are nice, but both ways they lead into a shimmering wall that links to the other end of the tracks. Woah.
- The zombies seem to have forgotten about our mob, so after a few tasty snacks they re-emerge from the hole. While staring blankly into space, the snackers see the wall flicker occasionally and reveal other places. At one point there's even a surprised Dwarf!

--- Further Vortices    

- Sydney checks that the Dwarf zombies have left, then motions the others to follow. They cross a threshold where the cracks in the walls glow with pale white light, and enter the Underways. Here the architecture is made up of clean, angular, Ur-Darghab architecture. Dungeon walls polished to a polygonal sheen. The only trouble is it's been shuffled around, like big blocks of corridor to flipped and shuffled around.
- There are doors though - round doors with a mechanism that swings the hinge in the right direction to open it. Convenient!
Behind one of these doors is a standard Ur-Darghab bedroom. Bed, chest of drawers, chest... and a swirling vortex of magical energy that probably doesn't come standard.
- Aximander is fascinated and experiments with the thing. It's a portal to another place!
- Beyond is an upside-down train station. Sydney casts Meta-Manipulation just in case something goes wrong, and Aximander jumps straight through!

- A g-g-g-ghost

- Inside it's an upside-down Dwarven train station. On the ceiling are uncomfortable slanted seats, and on either side there are slots which grant access to an upside-down railway blocked off by windows. There's only one rail though, the opposite wall is made of a sort of packed scum - the Drudge Waste underground.
- They explore, finding a train timetable for the year 4468. Odo and Hagen mutter embarrassed that they're not sure of the exact Dwarf-to-Human calendar conversion. There's also an upside-down corridor that goes up, as in it used to go down but it's all been flipped so the stairs go to the surface.
- Back in the Underways, Jojo and Sydney open a door only to find a couple of rapid Ratmen who they summarily execute. They claim a treasure - a repeating crossbow!
- There's also a dessicated Dwarf corpse wearing armour with wheels on it. Hagen throws a rock, and when no living deadliness occurs he grabs the armour and puts it on. It's got wheels in the heels AND the knees AND the shoulders AND the thighs. All-body heelies! 
- Odo looks upon the armour-wearer with disdain. Barbarians would never stoop to wearing armour, even armour that turns you into a living rollerskate.
- On the other hand, Odo has managed to unlock the next tier of her lorebond - requiring a woman to touch her beard. Since she is a woman, and since she has a beard, this is actually quite easy. She now has access to the Stowing Beard, and grooms it to shape. She then tucks her full-sized round shield into it, which makes it look very big indeed!
- She opens the door to the next room and sees a ghostly floating urn which bobs above a spectral Dwarf ghost, who screams at her and tells her to LEAVE.
- Everybody does so. Level drain innit. Instead of leaving via the stairs, they rush back through the mysterious vortex into the Underways. Fair enough honestly.

---Better Red Than Dead
- The scamper away through the Underways, not followed by the spooky urn, and bust through a random door.
- Therein is a largeish Dwarf living room, complete with futon, and a book made from thin but strong leaves of stone that details the Dwarven arcology of Ur-Rajzesk, City of Rails. Also, a vial of poison, unrelated.
- There's gibberish from the next room, largely because I forgot half the party could speak Red Elf.
- Aximander doesn't speak Red Elf, but does, as the winds of fate swirl around Sydney.
- It is in fact some Red Elves! They speak to the leader of the crew, Aeelth'ra'ndir, who commands three other Red Elves.
- The party chat to them in their alien tongue. He offers them dust of great value - the red dust of Mars - which allows you to break Elf promises and binding legalities.
- The party are only slightly impressed, and trade various objects for varying quantities and qualities of Dust.

- He explains that the Underways used to be a way for Elves and various others to travel around the Wastes without getting vaporised by poison, but unfortunately the Red Elves' mining operation fucked it up.
- Mining operation? Oh yea, the Red Elves are mining all the magic out of the Earth with their marlingspikes, collapsing adjacent realities so they can take the energies back to Mars. They've already mined out every other Martian reality, imagine pushing a pencil through folded paper or whatever, but it's going to take several generations at least to mine out Earth so don't worry about it.

- In any case, if you find the Hollow Nexus that allows you to teleport from any point in the Underways to any other point, they'll pay good money and be very grateful. Do watch out for the Maelstrom of Thorns though, it's a big vortex where the Idea of Thorns accesses other realities and spreads. Mining out said parallel universes will prevent the spread of Thorns anyway, so win win right?
- Odo gets some shampoo in exchange for a poison acorn. Aeelth'ra'ndir feeds it to a minion, who dies and turns into cocaine. There is a knock at the door and the same dude turns up again, shunted in from a parallel universe. The party suddenly realise that these Red Elves are even more fucked than they though!

--- James Gets Spooked

- The party take their leave, saying that they'll totes look for this Hollow Nexus thing. Aximander persuades Aeelth'ra'ndir to cast a spell, which immediately goes wild due to Sydney's metamanipulation aura! The Red Elves suddenly freak the fuck out, scared of their own shadows, and sprint off!
- There is suddenly a deep and ominous rumble in the real world. It shakes through the floor, through our feet, rumbling in our chests like a train is going overhead but there is no train right? We're under London Bridge! That's a road!
- It's also closing time, so with trepidation we pack up and emerge to find that it's... some sort of road resurfacing machine!

Total: 7000 exp

Treasure:
- Diamond Keystone (8000 exp)
- Various Vials of Dust
- Saviourbone Paste
- A Vial of Trauma Poison
- 271 coins in Dwarven currency - worthless to Dwarves, good silver to anyone else (271 exp)

- Book on Ur-Rajzesk (100 exp)
- Roller armour

Total: 8100 exp

Foes:
- A small number of Red Elves and their leader, frightened off (100 exp)
Total: 100 exp

OOC:
- Carter the Chronicler and Paymaster
- Kitty the Expedition Leader

- Ollie the Quartermaster
- Tom the Vanguard
- George the Chef

Exp totals:

- Carter / Sydney, Level 7 Magic-User: 76433 (Level up at 144000)

- Ollie / Jojo Fullbeard, Level 6 Muscle Wizard: 53549 (Level up at 72000)

- Kitty / Julian & Aximander, Level 5 Languid Wastrel: 31918 (Level up at 36000)

- Tom / Odo Grumblebelch, Level 4 Dwarven Barbarian: 15814 (Level up at 16000)

- George / Hagen the Heretic, Level 1 Dwarf: 1640 (Level up at 2000)