Date: 15 August
Moon: Waning Gibbous
Zenith: Minerva
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.
- 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.
- 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!
- 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!
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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!
- 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!
- 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)
- 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
- Roller armour
Total: 8100 exp
Foes:
- A small number of Red Elves and their leader, frightened off (100 exp)
Total: 100 exp
- 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
- Carter the Chronicler and Paymaster
- Kitty the Expedition Leader
- Ollie the Quartermaster
- Tom the Vanguard
- George the Chef
- 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)
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