Session 376 - Prime Rump

Date: 18 June

Moon: Waxing Gibbous
Zenith: Minerva

New Backstory:

- Rudolphus von Blitzenstrick fought a bully at university by the name of Heinrich von Poopenheimer. To everyone's surprise, Rudolphus won! +2 to hit vs higher level enemies

Events:

--- The Importance of Maps

- Our heroes are once more in the depths of Dwimmermount, after a near-miss last week where they were nearly locked forever in Sydney's extradimensional apartment.

- It's a familiar area, and thankfully Sydney has been keeping very good maps! It's the Azoth Cave level, and they've luckily dropped back in (courtesy of some shenanigans with Gifflewim and a teleport bead) right near the way down to the prison level.

- Sydney is on it! They guide the team round the corner, through the cavern with the sobbing cavewomen (and one very tired caveman) and to the heretofore unexplored stairs up to the Manufactory.

--- Gimik the Mimic

- The ascend the stairs and come to an entry chamber. The floor has a circuitboard pattern carved into it, running with silver.
- There are two statues flanking the door on the other side - one a human woman, one a double-wide Terran woman. Also, in the middle of the chamber, a treasure chest full of gold!

- Everyone is immediately suspicious, and that suspicion is immediately justified when the chest talks back! It is indeed a Mimic, calling itself Gimik. Grog approaches and when the Mimic tries to attack, he simply sits on it with his callipygian rump!

- Gimic surrenders and agrees to work for gold and "debt tattoos on the blockchain", joining the rearguard of the party under Grog's employ. 

- Rudolphus, meanwhile, attempts to talk to the statues. While clearly animate, they are tight-lipped. Razylymvaer, the dragon-mind that's also encamped within Sydney's head, reckons that they are statues of Babylon Snels before and after being given a Terran body. They probably guard the way down, so entering is fine.

--- Alcoves

- They pass the statues and continue down a long corridor. Regular alcoves contain black plinths with nothing on them, except for a pair that show a before-and-after of Terms Termax as first a cool wizard, and then a head in a jar on a roboskeleton body.

- They listen at doors, but eventually decide to follow the lines of circuitry towards the north.

--- Dust Dwarf!

- They open the door to find a circular room with a sagging muddy Dwarf-shaped creature turning towards them. Rudolphus approaches to talk to it, and gets punched in the mouth! It tries to reach down his throat!
- Sydney surmises that this is a Dwarf without the gems that give it shape, and lobs a gem towards it. The soil-dwarf snatches it out of the air and is granted a rudimentary voice! It declares that it NEEDS MORE GEMS!
- Aximander cracks the air with a Beam Fire rune overhead, and it punches Rudolphus straight in the groin! He doubles over, and just then Grog feels a sticky tentacle at his back! It's Gimik the Mimic, apologising for its nature while also trying to devour Grog from behind! "He's eating my aaasss!" shrieks Grog!

- It's a two-front fight now, dusty Dwarf monster from the front, Mimic from the back, the party trapped between!
- The Mimic overwhelms Grog and he's down too! He shrieks, flailing at the sticky mimic tentacles, and is badly burned by the acid!

- Sydney tries to lure away the Dwarf monster with gems, and when that fails they try a Magic Missile... which goes awry! Instead of killing the earth Dwarf it sucks a whole bunch of its earthy body towards Sydney, making Sydney grow far taller and making the Dwarf far smaller!
- Divinity's magic weapon is dealing big hits to the earth Dwarf, while others' attacks do little.

- Grog's skin begins to melt. He has deep tissue burns across his whole body, the mimic is digesting him alive!
- Hagan drinks a potion, hoping for something cool. He is filled with hope! Seeing Grog in trouble he does the most obvious thing... try to tempt it over to him with his dumptruck ass! Divinity assists, using her Unbuckling Sceptre to make Hagan's trousers fall down!

- It's too much for the buttock-obsessed mimic, who immediately leaves the (burned, bleeding, near-death) Grog and pounces towards Hagan's prime rump!

- Sydney tries another Magic Missile but this chaos bursts too... to great effect! The power of the Missile is doubled! The ensmallified Earth Dwarf is annihilated in a storm of dirt-enhanced shards formed from its former clay-flesh!

- Rudolphus staggers to his feet, looks Gimik the Mimic dead in the gem-eye, and says "I'm going to make a withdrawal". He strikes hard, and the Mimic collapses into melty looking treasure chest.

--- Grog Feasts

- Grog himself has collapsed into the pile of fleshy muddy ooze that makes up the true form of an Inheritor. Only his massive forehead protrudes from the mire. 
- They dump the Mimic's body onto Grog, who immediately begins to consume it. He heals, of course, but also absorbs a new ability - the Mimic's stickiness! He can now Wrestle like a Mimic, and has a constant sticky film all over his whole body.

- While they wait for the demonic digestion to finish, they poke around the room a bit. Lo and behold, a hidden hatch! They peer beneath and hear voices. One is wheedling, the other is laughing.

--- Dark Bargain

- They follow the voices and come to another room, this containing a big circular summoning circle containing a huge red demon! Before the demon is a wizard in circuitboard-design robes. Even his skin seems to have a circuitboard pattern beginning to form...
- The party approach civilly, with Rudolpho as the face. The wizard is called Roland McDoland and he seeks the demon's help to get to the Great Machine on this dungeon level. The demon, Draunanon, is driving a hard bargain for this. He himself wants to stay on this plane rather than getting dragged back into the Chaos realm.
- Deals are made. The party will help Roland get to the Great Machine (since they're going anyway). He tells them that he's met these Red Elves and seeks the Great Machine to find a way to shoot down their Red Moon. He also tells them that he's been fleeing crazy metal robo-Dwarfs who protect the Great Machine!
- In a separate deal Draunanon will become new skin for Grog...? In exchange, the demon only asks for a favour to be exacted in the future. At least Grog has skin for now! He's completely red, similar to when Aximander is at full power. Red skin buddies!

--- We Are the Dworg

- With all that under control, they try the only other exit and find a similar hatch upwards. Peeking through, they hear robo-Dwarfs talking in regular English, not a Dwarf language. It transpires that they're doing this in case their bosses are listening.
- As it happens, they're also all facing the other way.

- Too bad, bots! Sydney is here! He Mind Switches with one of the robots! Except Sydney's mind doesn't switch? Oh no, the dragon-mind of Razylymvaer has been swapped in! The robo-mind is in with Sydney now, and extremely confused! It tries to use his body to no avail.

- Dragon-Robot runs away down the corridor, cackling because he is FREEE! The other robots give chase, leaving our heroes alone for now...

Total: 8000 exp

Treasure:

- 50gp (2500 exp)

- 200sp (200 exp)

- Demon skin

Total: 2700 exp

Foes:

- A dusty half-formed Earth-Dwarf (1000 exp)

- Gimik the Mimic (750 exp)

- Several robo-dwarfs. (300 exp)

Total: 2050 exp

Exp Calc:

- Carter / Sydney, Level 8 Magic-User: 197352 (Level up at 288000)

- Kitty / Julian & Aximander, Level 7 Languid Wastrel: 109928 (Level up at 144000)

- George / Hagen the Heretic, Level 7 Dwarf: 85600 (Level up at 128000)

- Ollie / Divinity, Level 6 Battle-Cleric (Fighter 3/ Cleric 3): 57288 (Level up at 72000)

- Charles / Grog Greedy, Level 6 Inheritor: 41470 (Level up at 72000)

- Tim / Rudolphus Von, Level 3 Specialist: 4270 (Level up at 7000)
Level Up! +1d6 HP! +2 Skill Points! +1 to Saves! +Backstory!

Session 375 - Djinn in a Tin

Date: 28 May

Moon: Waning Gibbous
Zenith: Eris

New Characters:

- Rudolphus Von, a failed Shaman of Light, now an expert archivist.

New Backstory:

- Grog Greedy, everyone's favourite long-foreheaded caveman, was born under an omen of DOOOM! It was a comet that heralded the ice age, freezing Grogg into the ice for millenia. When another character dies, gain +1HD of health for the rest of the session.
- Julian did something reckless and impressive - painting a cursed painting! While it very much impressed his fellow artists, it was ultimately his undoing, bringing Aximander into his body! We haven't seen Julian in a while... +1 to Dex score.

- Hagan received great advice from his mentor Andromeda the Vampire - never dig too greedily or too deep. Alas, he understood too late, since the party is now about as deep as you can get... +1 to Wis score.

Events:

--- Guardian Confusion

- It's the night of the New Moon and even this far down below the Earth, Aximander feels its pull. He's at full power and high level, his skin is a deep dark red and his long tongue twists from his distensible jaws.

- The others find this perfectly normal, it's just how you can tell when it's a full moon. Also perfectly normal - meeting a new character in the depths of a megadungeon and thinking that they're trustworthy! Meet Rudolphus, researcher!

- In front of them is the entrance to the final depth of Dwimmermount - an enormous geode big enough to contain a city! A wide boulevard goes off into the distance, the grand buildings around it all angular and strange in a variety of styles and materials.

- There are also a couple of huge statues of Dwarves guarding the entrance, which (naturally) come alive when approached! The magical among the party can feel them draining Chaos from the air around them.
- Hagan approaches, he can understand Terran. It's an archaic proto-Dwarvish. Rudolphus can too! He's down here to study it after all!
- Hagan reveals his credentials - a Dwarf with a Brooch of the Terrans. But confusingly he has the stamp of Terms Termax on his hand! The statues are confused until he reveals the tattoo of the Old Miner's inverted hammer on his chest! They let him through.
- The others blag their way through too, confusing the statues until they insist on taking a break to confer. In the mean time, the party runs deeper!

--- Lose Your Mind

- Hagan feels a pull towards a flat-topped building ahead, but Sydney can't help but check out a nearby building. Inside the floor is a sort of hydroponic setup for crystals. There's also an ominous thrumming from a spreading crack in the wall... and visible brain matter?

- A tendril-hand emerges from the crack and a giant brain on legs made from twined threads emerges! It looks like it shouldn't fit, yet it does! Sydney backtracks, leaving Rudolphus to get pounced on by the big brain monster!
- Grogg pulls him out of the way just in time, and a big spiraling hole opens in the middle of the brain. A search-beam seeks out a target - zoning in on Aximander's forehead! The Elf leaps out of the firing line, and the disappointed brain beast scuttles back into the building, mewling.
- Sydney asks Razylymvaer, the dragon-father who now lives in their mind, what the hell that was! The dragon answers that he doesn't know its name, but it knows that Halflings evolved from them!
- The party is struck by the DEEP LORE and realises those brain-eating Halflings they faced in the dungeon levels above were probably an evolutionary stage between brain monster and modern Halflings!

--- The Revelation of Hagan

- Hagan feels the tugging of his beard leading them on. The brain monster stalks the party from the windows of the buildings they pass, but doesn't attack again.
- They reach the flat-roofed building. Up close it is clearly fortified, all the windows are on higher floors. Nevertheless, Hagan knocks.
- The door soon opens and lo! It is a Terran who names himself Vidaro! Hagan reveals his confusing clash of marks, the Old Miner tattoo and the Terms Termax stamp, and explains what happened in the upper level.
- Explanations aside, the Terrans refuse to let an impure Dwarf to see their God. Dwarves are a debased version of Terrans who inter-bred with humans, sullying their bloodline forever. The mechanics of how this inter-species lovemaking even occurred results in some debate amongst the party.
- Hagan is nearly stymied... but luckily Aximander is at full Elf ebb and uses his tricks to Fairy Godmother the Dwarf into a thick-limbed double-wide Terran! The priests are taken aback, he was merely hiding his true form!

--- The Old Miner Speaks!

- The Terran priests take the newly thickened Hagan through the hall of the building, and into a circular room at the heart of the place. Within, amongst ticking machinery, is a great cylindrical can containing a God.
- Vidaro directs Hagan to kneel on a metal prayer mat before the God, and to his awe the Old Miner speaks into his mind!

- The Old Miner celebrates Hagan's faith, but insults his debased body. It was the Old Miner who made the Terrans, and they betrayed him by sullying their souls with humans. However, for the faithful alone, he will place their mind into a Terran body. It must be a blank, either dead or new-formed, but He has the power to move minds!
- The Old Miner reveals that He is a composite mind, formed of all the Terrans who ascended in an earlier aeon in a far-flung solar system. Alas, after billions of years the Great Beast gestating in their planet finally cracked their world like an egg, throwing the Old Miner's geode mind into the cosmos until it finally hit a cooling Earth, infecting the newborn planet with Shub-Niggurath yet allowing the Old Miner to survive.
- Millenia later the geode ran out of material, and so He drilled a borehole out to allow his newly crafted Terrans to acquire more. That did not go great, all things considered.
- All He wants is to survive. He is not much bothered by the nonsense on the surface and the skies, having learnt His lesson about meddling outside of his borders.
- Hagan, filled with incredible new knowledge, gives the signal to Sydney.

--- You Wouldn't Steal a God

- Sydney steps out of the room, the other party members step in, and Sydney casts Sydney's Stolen Sanctum! The entire room is vanished and attached to their extradimensional flat!
- Those inside the room see it shiver and warp! Water floods in as the floor drops 10'! The Old Miner yells in confusion!
- Everyone else drops into the water, suddenly wet and heavy!
- Worse, some sort of underwater gremlins have spawned below! They swim out from a cave in the dark water and come in to attack!
- Vidaro, the Terran priest who was also in the room, draws a glyph on the air before him and creates an air bubble! He's now on the actual floor, underwater in a big old bubble.
- The others join the battle, and to everyone's surprise and amazement Rudolpho actually stops everything before it's even begun!
- Rudolpho speaks Scoblin too, it transpires, and he persuades the Scoblins to simmer down until everyone can work out just what happened here. Since they themselves just appeared, the Scoblins agree and swim back to their lair for now.

--- We Cannot Get Out

- Sydney, back in the geode, has missed all this. There are, however, a number of angry Terran priests behind him wondering what just happened to their God!
- They bug out, casting Sydney's Safe Space to warp back to the flat. There's one small issue.. the doorway only goes one way. You can enter the flat, but you cannot leave.

- Over in the Old Miner's newly shifted room, Hagan asks the Old Miner what the deal is here. He also lets the God briefly take his mind so the Old Miner gets filled in on what just happened.

- It transpires that the Geode is a reverse prison - it can be escaped by magical means, but cannot be entered. Long story short, they're stuck in the flat because the front door doesn't work any more.

- There's also the matter of a second Terran priest who came in when Sydney cast the spell to get back into their flat. Hagan smooths that out and leaves her to watch reruns of Friends, sitting next to a very charred corpse that has an explanation but little relevance to the current recap.

- The thing is, the problem remains. The spell ends when everyone's left the flat... but they can't leave. What to do?

--- Oh Hi Aximander

- Meanwhile, Aximander is in Neo-Spacedin. This is interesting because he was just in the extradimensional flat that nobody could leave.
- The new moon is high overhead and he's looking at a woman wearing broken bits of PS4 as jewellery. She's getting a lukewarm Hawaiian pizza out of the replicator inside the broken spaceship at the heart of the town.
- The woman turns and says "ah Aximander! Thank you! Do you have that crystal of infinite possibilities I asked for?"
- Aximander passes the crystal, and the woman hands him a bowl of pineapple chunks that have been picked off replicator pizza.
- Ahah! It was a jape! An Elf jape! The woman whisks off her image and reveals that he is Gifflewim! What a tricker! And naturally, the same sort of Languid Wastrel Elf as Aximander.

- They barter. Aximander wants Gifflewim to take one of these beads to a deep level of Dwimmermount. Gifflewim says he'll do it for a favour in kind. Dubious, but acceptable. They shake hands, stare up at the moon, and head off to do more dark deals in the dead of night.

--- Where Were You Aximander??

- In the morning, Aximander leaps gracefully through a window with lukewarm Hawaiian pizza and some beers, plus a roomba.
- The others are incredibly impressed by Elf bullshit.

- He explains the bead, crush this one in his hand and you teleport to that one that Gifflewim placed last night. Simple!
- Sydney takes the bead and crushes it, vanishing. Minutes later the front door to the flat opens. It worked! They're back on a lower level of Dwimmermount! What's more, they're surprisingly close to the Prison of Terms Termax that they were so worried about!

Total: 9000exp

Treasures:

- The Old Miner, now ensconced in Sydney's flat.
Total: Priceless and thus expereinceless

Enemies Defeated:

- Stone Golems, confuddled (2000 exp)

- A bunch of Scoblins (100 exp)

Total: 2100 exp

Exp Totals:

- Carter / Sydney, Level 8 Magic-User: 195202 (Level up at 288000)

- Kitty / Julian & Aximander, Level 7 Languid Wastrel: 107978 (Level up at 144000)

- George / Hagen the Heretic, Level 7 Dwarf: 83650 (Level up at 128000)

- Charles / Grogg Greedy, Level 6 Inheritor: 39520 (Level up at 72000)

- Tim / Rudolphus Von, Level 2 Specialist: 2320 (Level up at 3500)
Level Up! +1d6 HP! +2 Skill Points! +1 to Saves! +Backstory!