Date: 25th November 1625
Zenith Deity: Alaunus
Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent
Moon Face: Pocked Face
New Backstory:
- Sulphur force-fed Nieval the Good back when he nearly died in the ruined castle. Double healing when you give somebody else food.
- Hidra brought out his finest long-prepared supplies when his Lord was restored. It went great! When you take a break, you may declare that you're planning a heist. Next turn you may flash back to the heist planning session and alter the present!
- Havarti encouraged her own lynching in order to feign death and escape the Veins of the Earth! +1 damage per ally surrounding a foe.
- Ghost Snels had a lapse of faith, but when the Pope revealed himself to be a Protestant clone of Ghost Snels' nephew, his faith was restored!! +2 to beneficial cleric magic.
Events:
--- Unhappy Valley
- The party debate what to do now that they have a big wooden goose to fly around in (so long as they stay in the region of menacing spikes). It's got a little bit more range than that, so at Sulphur's request they decide to hit up the spooky valley that fills one with dread to look upon.
- The goose is loose! It lands at the edge of the valley which is choked with mist. A few big flaps of its wings blows aside the mist for a few minutes, revealing a small army of about a hundred skeletons standing at the end of the box canyon.
- Sulphur snorts a line of bone dust, punches himself in the eye, and casts Detect Animated Dead. Only about a third of the skeletons are animated, the rest are just freestanding bones. Closer inspection shows that all the skeletons have hinges at the joints.
- Sulphur slurps up a Last Breath and casts Subjugate Dead a bunch until he's captured all thirty of the animated skeletons! You get a minion! Good thing they brought a Boo-Gilist!
--- Ghost-Eaters
- There are two cave entrances at the bottom of the canyon, and further up the slope are a couple of different doors which seem intentional. They decide to start at the bottom and work their way up.
- Nieval goes first, hears growling, and backs away so that Sulphur can send in his skeleton army.
- The skeletons come across... hyenas! Havarti pushes through and Tames one with her Halfling mind powers. You get a minion! The hyena accedes to her will, and she discovers that it has the power to walk on walls.
- One of the skeletons is lost to a hyena on the ceiling that reaches down from above and grabs it by the skull, they witness the pack devouring the skeleton's animating spirit. These hyenas can eat ghosts!
- They leave the hyenas to it. No harm, no foul. The other cave corridor is half-height, leading to the skeletons bonking their skulls. There is a mysterious patch of wet seaweed hanging from the wall, which is immediately gathered for food.
--- Necromancer vs Boogilist
- Ghost Snels runs ahead for he has a miracle that makes him unaffectable and imperceivable to Chaotic beings, and vice versa. He enters the next room and uses context clues to deduce that skeletons are digging out one of the walls.
- He retreats and the others relay his words to Sulphur, since he's also a Chaotic being and as such cannot see the Cleric.
- The others peer into the room, seeing a group of 5 zombies digging through the wall. Sulphur rolls in and poaches one of the skeletons. Good to have a Necromancer when the Dead are around!
- Unfortunately there's an enemy Necromancer in here too, unseen by Ghost Snels for obvious See No Evil reasons, and he's plenty miffed that someone's nicked one of his workers.
- The Necromancer starts to cast to steal his zombie back, but Hidra is faster! Hidra's whip drags him through his zombie coterie and into the middle of the room, cancelling the spell and making its magics go wild!
- Instead of Subjugating the zombies the spell inverts and subjugates the Necromancer to Hidra's will! You get a minion! His name is Mancy and I have a wonderful time finding his voice, but I'm worried that I've created an ambiguously gay tulpa who knows what mpreg means.
--- Dig! Dig! Dig! Diiiiig!
- The fight is over quicker than it started. Hidra commands his minion to stand down his own minions. Apparently Mancy is down here as a sort of punishment detail, finding a way to dig into the complex proper.
- They question him and discover that this is the ancient tomb of Un'Goth (quoth Sulphur - "so a prep") who once ran or at least was involved with the cult of Tyrsis. He knows of various treasures within, such as the Black Blade of the Dardanelles and the Spirit-Tomb of Po-Ki-Man.
- Sulphur sets his skeletons army to digging through the wall. Many hands etc.
- They check out the room behind Mancy and discover 6 canopic jars (which is somewhat anachronistic). Each has an organ floating within, but each also has some sort of tasty ingredient like the salt-packed skin or the balsamic vinegar preserving the brain. All lick their lips and consider whether they're down for cannibalism. They share the jars around.
--- Dinner Party
- There's going to be some time before the skeletons can dig through that dang wall, so they decide to cook something.
- Ghost Snels forces Mancy to eat the strange enoki that he picked up from the floor near the Morning Light Mountain shelf-fungus goblins. Mancy eats and starts to foam as the enoki replicate.
- Hidra leaps forth and rips the fungus from his minion's throat! He casts it into the fire, destroys it.
- Nostradama, meanwhile, is cooking what she calls the California Dinner Party from seaweed, human meat, and cheese. How does she know about California? Maybe she reads Spanish classics? We just don't know. It's moderately tasty at least.
- Hidra "reads" the dungeon with his backstory powers. It's a single level (from above) but tiered like a hill village.
- Sulphur converts a skeleton into a bookshelf by reforming the rib cage. Sick.
--- Onwards and Inwards
- With that, the wall breaks through! The skeletons and zombies mill about.
- The walls within are a smooth black stone. Possibly polished basalt, possibly rasterised souls. Who can say?
- Ghost Snels asks Mancy if Necromancers have their own language, but no.
- They explore this part of the complex. They come to a statue carved of that same black stone. It's a big guy in robes, huge pauldrons, clutching a skull. His head gouts smoke. It looks a bit like Ghost Snels but Mancy insists that this is Ur'Goth.
--- I Announce the Sacred Word - Open!
- They explore further and find some stairs upwards. Sulphur has an idea though.
- He heads back to the statue, slurps a Last Breath, and says "OPEN!".
- The skull hinges backwards, revealing a button that presses itself. A secret door grinds aside.
- Three more canopic jars are within. There is a further door.
--- The Maggot Man
- They open the next door and see a man lying on a slab who writhes with maggots. He is surrounded by 6 robed cultists.
- "Who enters my immortality chamber??"
- Mancy reveals that he is the third member of the TRIUMVERATE OF EVIL NECROMANCERS!!!
- The party discuss the tautological nature of this statement.
- The Triumverate are made up of Mancy, Dargle and the de facto leader Balagos who wields the Doomed Axe of Castigate Pox. Hidra is very very interested.
- We end, as ever, on a cliffhanger!
Total: 9000 exp
Treasures:
- 9 Canopic Jars containing various flavours (4500 exp)
Total: 4500 exp
Foes:
- A small army of skeletons (300 exp)
- One ghost-eating hyena, ensorcelled (100 exp)
- A Necromancer (300 exp)
- Five zombies, kinda (50 exp)
Total: 750 exp
OOC:
- Carter the Chronicler (100 exp/level)
- Charles the Expedition Leader, Paymaster and Artist (300 exp/level)
- George the Cartographer (100 exp/level)
- Ollie the Quartermaster (100 exp/level)
- Kitty the Vanguard (100 exp/level)
- Zoë the Chef (100 exp/level)
Exp Totals:
- Zoë / Nostradama, Level 6 Cleric of Nonanism: 44351 (Level up at 72000)
- Kitty / Sulphur, Level 6 Boo-gilist: 39956 (Level up at 72000)
- Charles / Nieval the Good, Level 5 Specialist: 22933 (Level up at 28000)
- Carter / Hidra, Level 4 Fighter: 13957 (Level up at 16000)
- George / Ghost Snels, Level 4 Denialist Cleric: 12257 (Level up at 18000)
- Ollie / Havarti Honeybun, Level 4 Halfling: 11700 (Level up at 16000)
