Session 456 - In Cells Interlinked

Date: 7 July 1626

Zenith: The Dead God

Moon Phase: Third Quarter

Moon Face: Dragon Face (Tidelocked)

Events:

--- Preamble

- We arrive back in the Broligarchy (née Necropolis, née Drist) where the Necromancers have survived the apocalypse via sheer muscle (and, more importantly, sending scout skeletons out from the ossuary-catacombs during the Poisoned Years).

- Masvani buys four inanimate human skeletons to turn into some sort of Skeleton Armour construct.
- Mother Flotsam completes her spell research and gains #6468 Polymorph Being which turns the target into a small creature until a specific royal-related trigger occurs.

--- The Bone Lifters

- Gaius Fleximus Aurelius descends to the basement wherein rests the Bone, which can be lifted to improve ones' muscles and degrade ones' mind. He sees that Hammer Hatmakerson and Benito Brazil have both succeeded in power-lifting it!
- An arm wrestle with Gaius allows Hammer access to the final sanctum - The Sanctum of Celebus, the Necromaxxing King!
- They go to the uppermost floors and discover that Celebus is weak, moaning, lounging on a bed surrounded by a swathe of crunchy tissues. This is the truth of the leader of the Broligarchy.

- Hammer smiles to see Celebus' condition as Celebus recounts that he has read each and every POWERLAD novel and ascertained that he will never be loved after saying something unsavoury to POWERLAD's wife Bertha.

- He reveals the religion of the Broligarchy - the POWERCHADs - and says that he will initiate people if they wish. Their key deities are POWERLAD (the Based), Bertha (the Goth Baddie), and Clavacula (the Cucked).

--- A Flashback

- When Celebus was first granted this fiefdom, Hammer was a serf.
- Hammer worked tirelessly under Celebus' aegis, but when Hammer became stronger and more handsome, Celebus ordered him and his family killed!
- Hammer fled, leaving his family behind, swearing vengeance. A vengeance that has now come true - Celebus is too pathetic to kill.

--- A Deal, One of the Best Deals

- Hammer turns to Gaius and proposes a solution. They'll turn Celebus into a worm, take him away, and leave the running of the city to Gaius. After all, nobody sees Celebus these days. Gaius can just pretend that he's still running the show while having full benevolent dictator powers for himself!

- Gaius will give them 10k obols if Celebus is gone within a month, plus free reign of the city and a two week gym pass each (credit card required at signup).

- Mother Flotsam (does not) cast a spell, and Celebus writhes down to become a thumb-sized caterpillar. If he is kissed by a princess he will return to his normal form.

- Hammer reveals his face to Celebus ("it was me!" style) before throwing him into a jar.
- They are told of several potential adventure locales nearby. There's something happening up in the Witches, a forest to the north-east. There's a big dungeon under the despoiled cathedral. There's something going on with the storm-shell southeast in New Moondin and someone should check it out.

--- Shopping Trip

- They head to the shops and, wouldn't you know it, Julgoor the Greed Demon is there! He's languishing under thorn sickness, his occasional but endless battle with Gifflewim for economic control having taken a turn for the worse.
- At least, he says, Gifflewim is currently dealing with a big building-kaiju on the southern shore. So for now he can do his usual sheopkeeping.
- Masvani sells a statue for materials for a walking boat.
- Benito trades his glitch-rifle for a hand mirror that allows stuff that passes through it to emerge from any nearby mirror (and vice versa).

- Mother Flotsam trades stretchy flubrgooblewhatever skin for a guano grenade.
- Hammer gains a partial dungeon map for the price of a bronze seed.

- Masvani is horrified to discover that something has happened to runes!!! Yes it seems that a force of space invaders has invaded the moon and started doing something strange to the corpse of the Gravity Dragon Ereshkigal, thrown up there decades ago by POWERLAD in his dragon form during the End War.

- Masvani is miffed because he intuits that this is his fault somehow.

- He swaps a gilded scab with Gifflewim for a supply of eight Saviourbone Disks. Carved from POWERLAD's dragonbone, these things allow runes to work as intended.

- Masvani finally trades Gifflewim the Elf-Soul he's been carrying around for a while with a Dorian Grey style portrait of himself which will take magical damage for him.

- Gifflewim devours the Elf-Soul and, now tripping balls, vanishes. In his absence the others loot the store.

--- Wares

- Stolen things include:
--- Mother Flotsam - POWERCHAD religious attire: Garments of "the Goth Baddie" Bertha Ortell.
--- Benito Brazil - Taskmaster Dust: Spread on yourself and another to copy physical statistic.
--- Hammer Hatmakerson - Instructions for Potion #297 Comprehension

--- Masvani-i-Manavi - Shield of Virility - +4 AC, each just-missed attack gives enemy -1 AC and retroactively grants them a child of age equal to the roll.

--- Cells (Cells) Interlinked (Interlinked)

- They pop into the POWERCHAD church on their way to the north, having decided to check out forest called The Witches for its conical evergreens and adventure potential.

- It's a crossfit gym, and thus a cult. They are willing to indoctrinate participants into the ranks of the POWERCHADs.
- Benito and Hammer convert on the spot, granting them the POWERCHAD faith bonus of +1 to hit and +1 to damage received per fellow POWERCHAD in the area (including themselves). Celebus, despite being a caterpillar in a jar, counts for this!

--- Onwards Through the Bugs

- They leave the Broligarchy, approach the river, and launch Masnavi's new invention into the onrushing water. It's a boat with undead hands and feet swim-rowing - perfect!

- They head north through the muggy summer's day. A swarm of midges forces people to take off their armour, the better to slap and scratch the bugs that were otherwise crawling underneath.

- Benito mind-controls a midge to apologise for their lack of blood-sharing hospitality.

- Masnavi fishes up a few Mud Bream, hat against the sun.

--- Bell

- Upriver they come to a town with kids fishing off the bank. One of them has a goatee, which incites speculation.

- Hammer banters with the kids. He learns that their parents are crying because their children are misbehaving and spending way too much time in the forest.
- The party's attention is piqued! Masnavi directs the paddling boat to emerge from the water onto the bank. Its many limbs skitter up through the mud and clasp to dry land where they find it.

- The kids tell them of Bell. A lovely little village, the townsfolk live in luxury while the Dead pick the many rows of orange trees and till the rich soil around well-tended groves. There is a large and kind of out-of-place bell in the Church's belltower whose sound is resonant and tonally satisfying.

--- Townsfolk

- They walk up to the town, following the kids, and a strange necromancer runs out to greet them. He's got a timepiece running from arteries in his arm and wants to tell the intruders all about it. With this and a sextant, he says, we can calculate longitude!

- After a bit of back-and-forth, he tells them to talk to "The Last Baron", so called because his kids ran off into the Witches and as such the Baron believes the Witches actually contain child-stealing witches (of which honestly fair enough).

- They head to the Last Baron's manor and on the way Benito uses his Halfling ability to tame the goatee-bearing child. New minion! The other kids follow, uncomprehending.

--- The Last Baron

- They reach the manor and an austere butler invites them all in. He sees that there are a bunch of kids in tow and gracefully points the adults into the drawing room and the children into the parlour. Benito, child-sized, is directed with the latter.

- While the others are fed with wine and hors d'oeuvres, Benito sneaks out of the childrens' parlour and sneaks towards the retiring room of the manor lord.

- He looks near-identical to the butler, yet is a Transylvanian lord, austere and upsetting. His groundskeeper left under a cloud a few months ago, and since then his youngest two children have escaped to the Broligarchy and his beloved eldest Bodsley has been clearly replaced by a Changeling. You'll do something, won't you?

--- Cooking and Thinking

- The party reconvene outside the manor, attendant children overstimulated by the experience and variously either running round and round trees or just sitting in a heap.

- The kids, however, have gathered some ingredients! Some Zap-Crickets and some Glimmerjack.

- Benito conconcts "Feijoada (Beanless)", a dish containing Zap-Cricket, Glimmerjack, and Wheat for the tortillas.

- It's delicious! Tomorrow all devourers get +2 to First Aid!

Total: 1300 exp

Treasures:

- Religious "Goth Baddie" attire of POWERCHAD (300 exp)
- Taskmaster Dust clones best declared physical characteristic if spread on two beings
- Potion Instructions: #297 Comprehension

- Shield of Virility retroactively creates children on clutch roll

OOC:
- Carter the Chronicler, Cartographer and Paymaster (300 exp/level)
- Charles the Expedition Leader and Artotacker (200 exp/level)

- Kitty the Vanguard (100 exp/level)

- George the Chef (100 exp/level)

Exp Totals:

- George / Hammer Hatmakerson, Level 5 Fighter: 27803 (Level up at 32000)

- Carter / Masvani-I-Manavi, Level 5 Necromancer: 26789 (Level up at 36000)

- Charles / Benito Brazil, Level 5 Halfling: 23036 (Level up at 32000)

- Kitty / Mother Flotsam, Level 4 Magic-User: 16569 (Level up at 18000)