Session 384 - The Ascension of Deusix!

Date: 27 August

Moon: Waning Crescent

Zenith: The Lady

New Backstory:

- Hagen fell in love, of a sort, with the Old Miner from a young age. His heart has yearned for the Old Miner since then, and thus has never taken a lover. +1 AC when protecting someone older than you.

- Rudolphus saw a starving fellow student drop a loaf of bread, and returned it because students have to look out for each other. +1 to reactions with the destitute

Events:

--- On the Substance of a New God

- It's finally happened. Every single God part has been collected, gathered, and taken up to the launch facility at the top of Dwimmermount.
- As the God is put together by whirring brass machinery and connected by whirling ratchets, the party look at each other warily. The room is tense. Just who, or what, are they going to load into the heavenly machine?
- They decide to ask a currently existing God about the process. Handily they are in the God's very own mountain, and Minerva is easily contacted.
- The first core issue is that a new God requires the Old Miner to willingly give a copy of His mind as a template.
- The second core issue is that the person uploading themselves as a Core Mind gets their brain drilled out, which is not good for one's health. Uploading as a subsidiary Branch Mind is possible (and non-lethal) but it needs at least one core personality.
- They also discover that the current Gods contain branch copies of the minds of believers. While originally a combination of entire Dwarf arcologies, over time they have become more human as the relatively quick-breeding and short-lived human worshippers died and copies of their minds were integrated into the Gods.

--- The Options Mooted

- The broad options put forward are thus:
1) Upload the Old Miner. His stated goal is to flee into space and survive.

2) Fill it with pure chaos and see what happens.
3) Upload the party and become a new God

- The option of uploading Jonathon Toast is mooted but not really considered, for good reason.

--- Some Debate Missing

- This whole session was basically a long discussion of which option to go with, what to name the new God, and other such stuff.
- At some point, Red shows up! Tim doesn't want to upload Rudolphus because he likes Red more. This is accepted.
- Eventually they reach a decision - they will all upload as Core Minds and create a NEW GOD!
- The name of this new God will be Deusix. Six characters in one God, plus it can be read as DEUS IX as in "God 9", plus naturally it's a mechanical God so it's a "Deus Ex Machina". It's a great play on words!
- They phone up the Old Miner on Sydney's jellyphone and he agrees to be their God template, albeit "this is the last time!" and he largely does it so he can live a quiet life in Sydney's soon-to-be-inaccessible extradimensional apartment.

--- Ascension

- Decision made, they all line up to get their brains cored out. There is brief pain, then a surge of consciousness. They can feel each other, deeper than any teamchat. They are connected, yet separate. The first God to be made of more than one Core Mind!

- They declare themselves to be a six-sided God and the god-shell forms into a huge six-sided die. Each Lord gets a face. That's right! The pun is even better! Deusix is a giant d6!

- The cube God is conveyed through the mountain to the launch chamber. There is a long countdown, the peak of the mountain spirals open, and Deusix is launched!
- Looking up in shock with his single cyclopean octopoid eye, Jonathon Toast the horrible blimp whale and/or normal man sees a bright beam of light fire out of the rising God! It gets him straight in the brain and widens to obliterate him utterly. Deusix breathes a sigh of relief - that's an issue solved!

--- Abstract Battle

- The boosters detach as Deusix reaches orbital velocity and altitude. It's dark up here, and they can perceive the glimmer of the stars glistening from their brass die-faces.
- A connection opens up and the six core minds of Deusix are suddenly floating in white space.

- The eight other Gods are here, and one by one they test this new God until their thoughts are finally working in unison.

- With this final integration there are now Nine High Gods once more! Deusix takes the place of fallen Eris, and the Wheel is finally reformed! The Red Elves on their Red Moon have been foiled and no longer have access to the world, and thus can no longer slowly mine out the world's supply of magic.

--- Distant Echoes

- Meanwhile, down on Earth, Sydney's many backup plans trigger simultaneously. A rebirth via cocaine heart, a rebirth via the Lunar Womb, a cascading event that has the potential to resurrect many Sydneys! What grim horrors will these chaos-obsessed beings get up to? Only time will tell...
- Inside the remarkably packed interdimensional apartment, Sydney's slime familiar is once more unbound. Free of its master, the demon called Tal Vik Nam Kir Sor Bet plots with the Old Miner...

Exp Totals:

- Kitty / Julian & Aximander, both Ascended to Godhood.

- Carter / Sydney, Ascended to Godhood.

- George / Hagen, Ascended to Godhood.

- Tim / Red, Ascended to Godhood.

- Charles / Grogg Greedy, Ascended to Godhood.

Session 287 - Last Orders Before Lockdown

If anything, this coming out now shows that I only write the recaps when it's already too late!

This session actually occurred back in August last year, but at least Ynn is a dreamlike garden where old memories linger... or something.

Session 287 - Last Orders Before Lockdown

New Backstory:
- Red is the leader (as she sees it) of the Bunker Buddies, a tight-knit group of good friends!

Valuables:
- Seven jewelled rings. (3500 exp)
- Anti-Stasis Chainmail. Half damage from stasis weapons (like angels use)
- Curse-eating Wand. Stores a curse at a time, casts at a stone's throw range.
- Luck-Twisting Halberd. Activate it on an attack to get a nat 20, but the next attack is always a nat 1.
Total: 3500 exp

Events:

- Deep in the Gardens of Ynn, on a floating garden containing a bubbling corrosive pit, the fabled adventurers Andromeda, Red and Ratman the Ratman stand.
- They are here to find the Goblins who left reality and fled into this perpendicular dimension. Or at least, they might have been. It's hard to know anything when you're this deep into the dream.

--- Empty Robes
- There is another island with a huge stone cube. They approach, and empty floating robes with big pointy ears emerge. They are here to guard the way out. They are here to prevent the escape of the Idea of Thorns. They warned the Goblins, but the Goblins failed to listen, and ran deeper into the Gardens.
- The cube is a house, and has many worldly possessions. The shades care not if it is looted. Ratman finds jewelled rings, Andromeda finds enchanted chainmail, Red finds a wand that eats curses.
- Red, whose head has been locked into a mask, taps it on the mask and releases herself from the curse! Lovely!

--- Goblin-Adjacent Entities
- Several more islands follow, some sort of glowing light from below makes Red's legs mirror and mirror into a spider-form, but she's always been that way. An ape throws a lion cub from a cliff, and it cracks to reveal a halberd with a glistening blade.
- An island covered in rose thorns peels back to reveal Goblins, at last! These have big mushroom ruffs and white eyes. They merge into one, mycelium binding them, and it demands the group join the mind-hive.
- Red blats it with her curse-wand and the mask appears on one of the faces. The creature realises how rude it's being, and invites the party for dinner. They politely decline.
- They leave via a hole in a dodecahedron that widens out into great steps leading down. Time flips and bends. Ratman has loads more rats. Red has two Gifflewim coins now. Andromeda feels her connection to the old reality start to fray.

--- The Unicorn
- A unicorn in bright sunshine, brambles winding around its horn, a message written in thorns on its flank.
- Andromeda reads it, nearly reaches a dark comprehension, and then the thoughts crumble and desaturate as Red uses the curse-wand on the Idea of Thorns. Convenient item!
- Red befriends The Unicorn (first name The, last name Unicorn) because she is, of course, a virgin.
- The Unicorn had seen some Goblins go past! It knows that there's a memetic plague going around, but also that the Goblins have been building a city in reverse down here, they finished building it yesterday.
- The gang hop on The Unicorn for a magical ride to the goblin settlement!

--- Gobolopolis
- The first thing is the screams. The second thing is the graffiti about Thorns. The third thing is all the thorns. Or is that backwards?
- The Unicorn turns at right angles and clops into a house. It's got a big soil bed for growing baby Goblins. Inside there is a really tall Goblin with filigree ears. His name is Squinchopolous, long for Squinch.
- He says the Goblins came into the Gardens to escape persecution, but they came too deep and found the ruins of an ancient Elf civilisation and a dormant memetic virus inimical to sentience and civilisation.
- The virus accelerates plant growth, which is fine for Goblins but absolutely fucks up Hobgoblins. They're the ones screaming. The Goblins themselves can reproduce, so it's kind of fine down here for them.
- Squinch tells the party not to let the curse-wand with the Idea of Thorns in it out into the world. Doing so would risk the fragile civilisation that yet remains up there.

--- Gifflewim
- Red has an idea! She flips one of her Gifflewim coins and he appears!
- He's initially taken aback by being drawn into this other world, but there is a deal to be done!
- Red offers him the Death mask, and in exchange he'll cure the Idea of Thorns. Great idea.
- He takes the mask, Red zaps him with the Idea of Thorns so that he can work out a way to defeat it, and Gifflewim promptly says "Huh, that's a good idea". He puts on the Death mask, and vanishes.
- Andromeda looks at Red with a genuine "oh fuck" expression.

--- Back to Reality
- The Unicorn doesn't quite understand what's going on, but he's quite happy to take the party back up to the doorway into Ynn. Close to the entrance he's just a horse.
- Japhet & Hirsch wave from the garden gate that leads back up and out into New Moondin. Something crazy is going on outside. The sky is going fuzzy, and there's talk of a "lockdown"...

Total: 8000 exp

OOC:
- Remembrancer: Kitty (100 exp)
- Jugbryngyr: 1 each (500 exp ea.)
- Probably some more each (200 exp ea.)

Exp Totals:
- Kitty / Andromeda, Level 8 Andromedan Vampire: 183896 (Level up at 288000)
- Tim / Red, Level 8 Duellist Fighter: 169095 (Level up at 256000)
- Izzy / Ratman, Level 8 Ratman: 134617 (Level up at 192000)

Session 286 - Succ’d by the Bus

 

Session 286 - Succ’d by the Bus

New Backstory:
- Kandy Toffee-Apple Moon D'Moor doesn’t regret coming to this world through the mirror. If he could choose, he’d still do it all again.

Foes Defeated:

- A massive Leech-Drake (1000 exp)
- 2 dreams of different natures (2000 exp)
Total: 3000 exp

Events:

--- Ratman Returns!
- Still deep into the gardens, the party are still hanging around the mask display. Suddenly, parachuting from above on a parachute made of clangers, Ratman the Ratman returns! In the dream-state that is the Gardens, he looks rather more cartoonish than normal.
- He lands and takes an unclaimed mask - that of the Crow Doctor. It fits snugly around his snout, grants a bonus to Saves vs Doom, allows him to heal others by harming himself, and erodes his Charisma and Strength. Fair trade!
- They go deeper into the gardens, finding themselves in some smouldering woods that look like a fire went through some days ago. They even meet a huge talking tree-man who is very conscious of copyright law. They get on well, so the big eucalypt-man gives Red a singed koala called Gladys and directions through the woods. Helpful!

--- Leech-Drake
- The woods lead through to a salamander settlement covered with ivy and with great bonfires between the houses. The big axlotl-esque fire lizards are on their rooftops cheering for a great battle to commence!
- The great battle is… a huge rolling leech creature! Its scaly skin is sea-green with blue bands, and it wants to suck their blood! Andromeda realises that this must be the dream-form of one of the party’s most storied foes… the Bus! That huge grub from long years back has returned from their memories!
- Everything gets very video-gamey and meta when a health bar appears and all the combatants do an opening flourish. It goes for Red but she swings up on top of it, while nearby Ratman’s laser rifle detonates as he tries to shoot it! Ferdinand the Bull returns from god knows where and joins the fray too!
- Andromeda summons her god-hammer and dives into its throat, smashing it from the inside,while Ratman sends his swarms to attack it from without. While all this goes on, Kandy stands in a salamander bonfire heating his weapons - he’s immune to the fire due to his magic mask after all.
- After the death of many rats, Andromeda finally bursts out from within the leech-drake’s guts! The salamanders cheer - it was a good show!
- She slurps down some of its gore and has a strange vision of being in a glass room that fills with champagne. When the vision fades she looks down to see that the Bus contained some loot! An airline-size bottle of absinthe, a metal war-fan, and a smoking pipe filled with tobacco!
- Red downs the absinthe, feels a warm glow, and hears the sound of a glass ceiling shattering as the potions’ effects take hold - she’s level 10 for the next couple of hours!

--- Ruins and Dreams
- They move onwards since the way back behind them has faded away. They walk through a mist and find themselves on a floating island above a misty chasm, other islands float a dreamlike distance away covered with ruins. It takes a mere thought to go to another island as they float like leaves on a pond, drifting through these ruins in the depths of the Gardens.
- Moving across an unreal bridge between islands they look down into a pit containing a dream. Kandy reaches out and it reaches back into his head, altering his self and memories to make him remember that he won that mirror through luck and gambling.
- Past the dream they see what it was feeding on at the bottom of the pit - a huddled goblin whose memories are spread out around him in fractal patterns.
- To fight the dream one must make use of memories. Ferdinand the bull reminds Kandy of where they first met, restoring his sense of self somewhat. Red reminds him of what a nice guy he was when he first left the mirror.
- The dream spreads to Red, and they remember the time they gambled the night away. Andromeda is next to receive the dream-memory, the three of them sitting around a gambling table the night the Burning Bush burnt down.
- They’re all losing their grasp of who they are, and so Kandy offers up the crystal elf skull to the dream. Hundreds of years of memory right here! The dream cradles the skull and takes it into the pit to feed, the skull’s screams echoing from the dirt walls.
- They back away and turn to see they’ve reached another island. The pool in the centre hisses and spits, and corrodes to death one of Ratman’s clangers. A sneaking slithering tongue emerges to pierce the dying rat, then slithers forward towards Ratman singing of blood and sacrifice.
- Andromeda loves that shit, so she dives in front of the dream-tongue to take the hit! She remembers how she stabbed Bertha over and over again while kissing her, whispering “blood to blood” into her mouth. She begins to forget who she is again.
- Kandy unleashes a Miracle - the Chill Zone! Everyone chills out, and the dream retreats to the pool to make trippy shapes. Andromeda emerges from the dream and feels Red’s hand on her shoulder. She looks up into Red’s eyes and remembers - they’re the Bunker Buddies!

Total: 6000 exp

Roles:
Remembrancer: Kitty (100 exp)
Expedition Leader: Ollie (100 exp)
Cartographer: Kitty (100 exp)
Paymaster: Izzy (100 exp)

Quartermaster: Ollie (100 exp)
Vanguard: Timothy (100 exp)
Triage: Timothy (100 exp)
Chef: Izzy (100 exp)

OOC:
- JÜGBRINGYR bonus: Tim, Izzy (500 exp ea.)

Exp Totals:

- Kitty / Andromeda, Level 8 Andromedan Vampire: 179262 (Level MAX)

- Tim / Red, Level 8 Duellist Fighter: 164561 (Level MAX)

- Izzy / Ratman, Level 8 Ratman: 130083 (Level MAX)

- Ollie / Kandy Toffee-Apple Moon D'Moor, Level 7 Intergalacticist Cleric: 88527 (Level up at 112000)

Session 285 - Wear a Mask

 The gardens continue on, with many strange happenings and unearthly secrets, until the gang find some artefacts which may well bring about their doom - strange masks that grant fickle powers to those who wear them...

Session 285 - Wear a Mask

New Backstory:
- Kandy Toffee-Apple Moon D'Moor had a girlfriend who was really into his rotund body. When he eventually lost the weight she left him… so he got his petty revenge by eating all her chocolate. It was the last chocolate in the world. Once per round, deal 1 damage to a creature that just hit you.

Valuables:
- A golden 48 hour pocket watch (2500 exp)
- Ten masks of uncertain nature
Total: 2500 exp

Foes Defeated:

- A big topiary-bird (500 exp)
Total: 500 exp

Events:

--- Oh hi, Kandy!
- Kandy Toffee-Apple Moon D'Moor, the alt-universe version of dearly mirror-defenestrated Beepbox, stumbles through the strange and wondrous underground gardens that lie perpendicular to the apocalyptic reality above. He passes through a garden arch and sees a dreamlike nightmare sight before him - his friends butchering an enormous praying mantis amongst greenhouses. What does this dream-portent mean?!
- Oh wait it’s actually real and they’re actually gutting a big praying mantis because they want to eat it. Unconvinced by their protestations of deliciousness, he goes to pick some fruit from a nearby tree but finds only human teeth. How did he get here again?
- He turns back to the group to discover that Poison Phil has started cooking a meal. He calls it a “Praying Manwich” - mantis brain pâté between lightly toasted slices of goblin flesh, topped with edible orchids and flaked whale caviar. It’s palatable… but after eating it Poison Phil gets a horrible grumling feeling in his stomach.

--- Onwards through the Steam
- Despite Plod’s mysterious disappearance (did he lure them here? Where did he go?) the gang decide to continue on, perhaps if they go deep enough they’ll find where the goblins went!
- They walk through a burnt garden where great brass pipes jut from the ground and spew boiling steam and come to a chasm with floating mushroom gardens. The way behind them closes up. No way out but through! A dropped rock never hits the bottom of the misty chasm.
- Good thing Kandy has a jetpack, honestly. Andromeda turns into a bat, flies over, then turns back into a human over a giant mushroom to bounce on it. She’s bounced into the corrugated iron shade over the mushrooms, and also releases wisdom-draining spores!
- Kandy has begun jetpacking people over to the other side… and as he does so a stone statue of a proper traditional angel with feathery wings and a flaming sword ascends from the chasm below! It intones “I am the angel of your doom!” as it rises, and Kandy counters by… putting on the cursed dancing shoes he got from Sir Robyn’s tower!
- Kandy is forced to dance! Thankfully the angel becomes somewhat confused and curious. After a bit of discussion they persuade the angel to help them get across to the other side. In all honesty even the angel is confused about how they pulled that one off!

--- Versus the Topiary
- They crawl through ahole in the hedge and come out onto a small field where the ground churns like the sea and a shooting gallery has been set up in the centre. More importantly, a singing choir of rose-headed plant-people is fighting a giant bird-topiary!
- Kandy acts fast, calling upon his god Galaxy Johnson to abduct the great bird! A pale light shines from above and the topiary starts to rise into the air!
- On seeing this, the rose-people turn to talk. In their fluted voices they explain that they grew the topiary, but it has begun to disrespect them and tried to walk off. Nevertheless, they grew it and they love it, so they would not see it destroyed.
- The topiary-bird plummets to the ground behind them, and Red falls out of a nearby hedge and rushes in to hold it down! She does so with great skill, even giving it a bit of a cheeky prune as she wrestles it to the ground.
- The rose choir use the opportunity to sing the topiary into peacefulness. Meanwhile the party who didn’t just turn up out of a hedge check out the shooting range. Individual boxes aim at posts with long skeletons chained to them. They shoot all the targets and reveal a treasure! A 48-hour pocketwatch that tells the time in fairy-land.
- Ferdinand the mechanical bull blunders into a tree nearby and knocks over a couple of fences on his way to join the party. He followed Red here!

--- Salamanderstron
- They continue, taking their leave of the rose-maidens. Along the way they find a treasure in a flowerbed - an enchanted fishhook. It tells them, somehow, that anyone who swallows the hook will be unable to act against the one holding the other end of the fisking-line.
- They hop a garden gate and come into a burning garden with burning houses and burning lizards amongst them. Huge salamanders - like axlotls with fire in the place of their gill-mane - scuttling about their burning town. The salamanders offer candied treats and, on hearing that they met Axel in a mausoleum somewhere towards the entrance, ask the party to tell him not to go much further away lest he revert to a dumb lizard.
- Reflecting on this consequence of the fairy realm, the gang suddenly examine themselves and realise that they’ve been becoming more archetypical! Pirate, vampire, princess, Robin Hood. Their clothes and demeanours have subtly changed!
- They ask about the goblins and are told that they have gone deeper and deeper into the realm of the evil dream-elves. They bring out the crystal elf skull Theron and ask him about it - he tells them that these Dream Elves are of the same stock as the Red Elves of Mars. Where those Elves left Earth for the physical heavens, these Elves took another path into these metaphysical gardens. He knows not of their ultimate fate.

--- The Masks
- They continue on through a garden made of flesh. Eyes peer from minced-meat garden beds and fingers wriggle from the skin-earth, fingertips peeking up over the thick hair-grass. Some of these fingers hold down a huge clanking smoking lawnmower, and when Andromeda kneels down to suck blood from the sweating ground the fingers spasm and let the lawnmower go! It sprays blood, chopping fingers, roaring towards the party! They run!
- They emerge into a nice normal garden again, not a hairy horrible meat garden. This one has something very interesting in it though... a wall of masks of various kinds. They definitely look cursed, and yet…
- Kandy takes a Harlequin mask - delicate white and black porcelain with gold inlay. He gets a 6-in-6 Stealth, Backstab and Sleight of Hand, but doubles the chance of getting hit by randomly targeted attacks. His life takes on an air of ineffable tragedy. He also tries putting on a second mask on the back of his head. It works! It is the mask of the Flame painted red and orange fire on silk. He becomes immune to fire, but takes double damage from other non-physical sources and he wants to commit grand and exotic acts of arson. - Andromeda also takes two masks - the mask of the Reaper made from a stylised human skull, and the mask of the Black Goat made of horn and velvet. The first makes her give, and receive, 3 more damage and causes small animals to lay down and die around her. The second makes her gain +3 Cha and +3 Con, but will fail any saves against mind- and emotion-control. She finds civilisation tiresome, and wishes to run into the woods and spill blood beneath the moon.
- Red takes the mask of the Refined Lady - delicate china with black inlaid script. She gains a sophisticated taste in art, food and company. Quite the upgrade! She also gains double exp from treasure, no exp from non-treasure, and minimum HP at level-up. Not quite so useful at max level, but there we are.
- Poison Phil takes the mask of the Prisoner - a bolted steel faceplate with grilles over the eyes. He gets +2 AC, but causes the party to lose Initiative ties and takes -1 Awareness. Just looking at him you can tell that he must look grotesque under that mask.
- Most importantly every mask-wearer now gets a Sense of Self rating made up of the sum of their Charisma and Constitution scores. Each day they are affected by the masks’ power, their Sense of Self is eroded, until one day they may become NPCs...

Total: 6000 exp

Roles:
Remembrancer: George (100 exp)
Expedition Leader: Kitty (100 exp)
Cartographer: George (100 exp)
Paymaster: -

Quartermaster: Ollie (100 exp)
Vanguard: Kitty (100 exp)
Triage: Timothy (100 exp)
Chef: Ollie (100 exp)

Exp Totals:

- Kitty / Andromeda, Level 8 Andromedan Vampire: 176812 (Level MAX)

- Tim / Red, Level 8 Duellist Fighter: 161611 (Level MAX)

- Ollie / Kandy Toffee-Apple Moon D'Moor, Level 7 Intergalacticist Cleric: 86077 (Level up at 112000)

- George / Poison Phil, Level 4 Fighter: 13993 (Level up at 16000)

Session 283 - Come Home to Jesus

 

Session 283 - Come Home to Jesus

New Characters:
- Plod, a Goblin with a massive disregard for the lives of his minion and a taste for manflesh.

Valuables:
- Book #219: The Dead God
- Book #193: Exploration of the New World
- Book #321: A Knight with POWERLAD
- Book #198: The Formation of the Deeprush
Total: 400 exp

Foes Defeated:

- Several swarms of imps (50 exp)
Total: 50 exp

Expedition:
- Expedition Complete! (500 exp)
Total: 500 exp

Events:

--- New Friends and Old
- At Sir Robyn’s tower, the party prepares to set off back home to New Moondin. Those Dwarf weirdos are probably going to turn up soon, and it’s probably best if Jeremy Wizard is there to cover for the party’s shenanigans when they eventually arrive.
- A new guy shows up - a Goblin named Plod and his poor misbegotten minion “Goblin A” aka Goblina. Surprisingly, as they’re about to set off, someone else shows up! It’s Gifflewim! He’s not got much useful on him unfortunately, or at least nothing that piques the party’s interest, but they chat for a bit about how Jeremy Wizard has retired to become lord of the tower and all the rest.
- Taking their leave, the party rolls off in their wagon. They’ll be taking a different route back - following the old tracks round the south of the Lone Sea in order to give Japhet & Hirsch back home some more mapmaking information.

--- Demon Forest
- It’s a normal summer Heat Haze so they make good time in their air-conditioned wagon, skirting the Lone Sea. They can even see a flotilla of boats lashed together out across the great lake. After a while they see a glow from a small forest of dead trees! Red and Andromeda decide to investigate, while Plod stays with the wagon to “defend” it.
- Small winged figures flit through the branches above, chattering strangely. The gang approach the red glow and find a pond ringed with glowing demonic runes. In the middle, a couple of mud-covered figures are having an argument. They’re demons, of course! Though these are the recently born mud-person type. It transpires that this pond acts like the River Lethe, rebirthing the demons who die near here, and they keep dying whenever the poison comes through. Of course when they die they spawn little imps, which is why the damn things are everywhere.
- Red invites them to go to Sir Robyn’s tower - they’re going to be building a settlement there and could use more people. The demons accept! But they need the imps to be distracted if they’re to escape without bringing the whole flock with them.
- Red and Andromeda try an increasingly effective combination of sinful thoughts and dancing to distract the imps… until Plod just shoots at a cloud of the creatures! They fly off to swarm Plod, forcing Red and Andromeda to run to help!
- Andromeda’s Storm Shell is the most successful destroyer of imps, but those that get through the barrier manage to swarm over Goblina and devour her stomach before Plod’s relatively horrified eyes! Despite this tragic death, the imps are soon killed by hammer, dagger and gun.

- The party grab a jar of the pond water - if it’s Lethe water it’ll be useful - and tearfully harvest Goblina’s innards for rations. Plod’s past career was as a cannibal after all…

--- Boat Town
- They continue on until they reach the town of Pond around midday. There’s a vague plan to build some sort of pontoon for the cart and head to New Moondin via the river, but even the shipbuilder’s dock doesn’t have something big enough. Instead there are several small boats with greasy tarpaulins tied over them, and everything else seaworthy has been looted.
- Out in the middle of the Lone Sea, they can see people moving about on the flotilla! Actual people! With boats!
- While Andromeda fills a coffin with grave dirt (to protect her from the perils of running water, of course), Plod and Red take a dinghy to the flotilla. When they arrive they are welcomed in with open arms, despite an initial worry about Plod the Goblin! This is, imaginatively, called Boat Town. Originally a floating haven against the Undead, after the End they managed to survive by sealing themselves into their boats.
- Red tells them about the soon-to-be town being built around the Tower and they’re very excited to be able to finally return to land! They also agree to build a floating barge, but it’ll take quite some time.
- With that all sorted, and dreams of using the Lone Sea as a hub for trade, Red and Plod row back to Pond where Andromeda awaits them.

--- Ice Bridge
- They set off again into the late afternoon, but after only a short while they come to a river with no crossing! The remnants of a ferryman’s hut and some rotten wooden posts are all that remain of the ferry that was once here.
- After significant effort and rune-shenanigans, they make a bridge! A tall tree now bridges the river, and freezing runes carved along the trunk can be powered to create an ice bridge that a cart can traverse! Better living through rune magic!

- This took a fair while though, so they hunker down in the ferryman’s hut for the night.
- During the night Andromeda spots something strange off in the woods with her heat and heart vision - figures shuffling through the trees. She becomes a bat to investigate and follows them. They emerged from an ominous lesion in the ground and they look strange under heartbeat vision - some have blood twisted into bulging boils in their flesh, others have had their intestines tied in a complicated knots. Knotsmen!
- She leaves them well enough alone and watches them as they take water from the river then go back down into their crack in the ground. Creepy.

--- The Fisherman
- Morning rolls round and the Heat Haze continues. They set off once more after a quick breakfast of leftovers that grant reduced crash chance. Convenient!
- After an hour or so they’re going along the tracks that approach the edge of the lake and see something very strange - a tall stork-man with a fishing rod held in its feathery hands, casting a line out across the hazy waves.
- Red calls out to it and it looks round with a beady birdy eye, then tries to catch her! She parries, grabs the line, and wrenches it forward to knock the bird off balance! It stumbles and falls into the water with an angry squawk, and the party speed off before it can recover!

--- Meeting with Jesus
- They roll up to the outskirts of Chilky, passing by some papier-mache looking igloos that are now long-abandoned, and enter the town. Old pre-End religious pamphlets litter the streets, are pasted to walls, or nailed to the church door. This was once where every man and his god had their religious stuff printed.
- There’s a printing press, naturally. Amongst the clutter they find a few books. Red is excited about making this a town too, perhaps a home for an independent Red Letter newspaper!
- Weather improves as they move on to Stockle, the heat breaking into a nice clear day. They see that the Church has a faded STAY AWAY written on the side of it and go to investigate.
- Inside they find an old priest who speaks to Jesus. He seems nice enough… except that Jesus is a physical force that helps him move furniture and find food and tells him of things he cannot see. Very strange!
- After chatting to the priest for a while, and a long private discussion about whether Jesus is to be trusted, they decide to head onwards again. In thanks, the priest sends Jesus with the cart to help the party home safely! There is some private concern in the party that this might not, in fact, be Our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus.

--- Return to New Moondin
- With daylight waning they book it to New Moondin as swiftly as possible, rolling past angel-beams firing into the sky and yet more stoneshell crab spoor. The damn crabs must be breeding like crazy!
- They finally reach the Storm Shell and go through! Jesus is not stopped by the Shell and shimmers out of the corner of everyone’s eye. There goes that plan.
- It’s getting dark but they’re so close to home, so they press on into the early evening. They cross the bridge and arrive, finally, back at New Moondin!
- Japhet & Hirsch come out of their eye tower to greet the party - they saw everything from the eyes on the front of the wagon of course. Red goes off to tell the Red Letter and the Librarians that there’s a mostly-working printing press out in Stockle that would make it a perfect town for book-lovers and newspaper makers!
- Expedition complete!

Total: 8000 exp

Roles:
Remembrancer: Charles (100 exp)
Expedition Leader: Kitty (100 exp)
Cartographer: Charles (100 exp)
Paymaster: Charles (100 exp)

Quartermaster: -
Vanguard: Tim (100 exp)
Triage: Tim (100 exp)
Chef: Kitty (100 exp)

OOC:
- Art Attack bonus (Charles - 100 exp)
- Artapalooza bonus (Charles - 100 exp)

Exp Totals:

- Kitty / Andromeda, Level 8 Andromedan Vampire: 171768 (Level MAX)

- Tim / Red, Level 8 Duellist Fighter: 159261 (Level MAX)

- Charles / Plod, Level 3 Goblin: 6064 (Level up at 8000)
Level Up! +1d6 HP! +1 Goblin Minion! +Backstory!
Level Up! +1d6 HP! +1 Goblin Minion! +Backstory!