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!