Session 352 - Rocks Fall, Everyone's Fine

Date: 15 August

Moon: Waning Gibbous
Zenith: Minerva

New Backstory:
- Odo Grumblebelch was stuck in a board meeting because she heard that Grumblebelch himself would be there, but it was really boring so she slipped out early. She's never met the CEO. You can't pass out when fleeing.

Events:

--- An Arrival
- Philipides Goath is allegedly in Australia, but conveniently a replacement arrives! His name is Hagen "the Heretic" Grumblebelch, and he has strong opinions about the Old Miner (no relation to the Old Grump?)
- It's good timing, because Odo is about to achieve access to Dwarf Heaven. She's currently pulling the diamond keystone from the roof of a vaulted ceiling.
- Via various chicanery, she survives! She's now the proud owner of an 8000 obol diamond, and the proud destroyer of a load-bearing ceiling.
- Meanwhile, Sydney is under attack by sandstorm-spewing zombie Dwarves that they insist are sentient despite all evidence to the contrary. Sydney's shield is ripped apart by the raging sandblasting winds.
- Sydney legs it, shooting a Cloudkill over their shoulder as they do so.
- Aximander, slightly weakened by this week's gibbous moon, sprints in and detonates a fireball in the midst of the zombie dwarfs. There is a smell of cooked almonds, and chunks rain down.

--- They Seem Intelligent I Swear

- Odo sticks her sword Lothario around the corner to see if there's anything else in the zombie Dwarf room. There are more zombies (quiescent for now) and a big carving that says "The Honoured Dead who Built the Golems".
- In a separate but parallel room, there are more zombies and a bejeweled sign that says "The Honoured Dead Who Built the Pyramids".
- Sydney cannot let sleeping zombies lie, and sends their slime familiar to remove the jewels. The slime is murdered, and Sydney has to cough up a new one.
- Dwarf zombies are on the march now, so our heroes rappel down to the train tracks below the main room.
- The tracks are nice, but both ways they lead into a shimmering wall that links to the other end of the tracks. Woah.
- The zombies seem to have forgotten about our mob, so after a few tasty snacks they re-emerge from the hole. While staring blankly into space, the snackers see the wall flicker occasionally and reveal other places. At one point there's even a surprised Dwarf!

--- Further Vortices    

- Sydney checks that the Dwarf zombies have left, then motions the others to follow. They cross a threshold where the cracks in the walls glow with pale white light, and enter the Underways. Here the architecture is made up of clean, angular, Ur-Darghab architecture. Dungeon walls polished to a polygonal sheen. The only trouble is it's been shuffled around, like big blocks of corridor to flipped and shuffled around.
- There are doors though - round doors with a mechanism that swings the hinge in the right direction to open it. Convenient!
Behind one of these doors is a standard Ur-Darghab bedroom. Bed, chest of drawers, chest... and a swirling vortex of magical energy that probably doesn't come standard.
- Aximander is fascinated and experiments with the thing. It's a portal to another place!
- Beyond is an upside-down train station. Sydney casts Meta-Manipulation just in case something goes wrong, and Aximander jumps straight through!

- A g-g-g-ghost

- Inside it's an upside-down Dwarven train station. On the ceiling are uncomfortable slanted seats, and on either side there are slots which grant access to an upside-down railway blocked off by windows. There's only one rail though, the opposite wall is made of a sort of packed scum - the Drudge Waste underground.
- They explore, finding a train timetable for the year 4468. Odo and Hagen mutter embarrassed that they're not sure of the exact Dwarf-to-Human calendar conversion. There's also an upside-down corridor that goes up, as in it used to go down but it's all been flipped so the stairs go to the surface.
- Back in the Underways, Jojo and Sydney open a door only to find a couple of rapid Ratmen who they summarily execute. They claim a treasure - a repeating crossbow!
- There's also a dessicated Dwarf corpse wearing armour with wheels on it. Hagen throws a rock, and when no living deadliness occurs he grabs the armour and puts it on. It's got wheels in the heels AND the knees AND the shoulders AND the thighs. All-body heelies! 
- Odo looks upon the armour-wearer with disdain. Barbarians would never stoop to wearing armour, even armour that turns you into a living rollerskate.
- On the other hand, Odo has managed to unlock the next tier of her lorebond - requiring a woman to touch her beard. Since she is a woman, and since she has a beard, this is actually quite easy. She now has access to the Stowing Beard, and grooms it to shape. She then tucks her full-sized round shield into it, which makes it look very big indeed!
- She opens the door to the next room and sees a ghostly floating urn which bobs above a spectral Dwarf ghost, who screams at her and tells her to LEAVE.
- Everybody does so. Level drain innit. Instead of leaving via the stairs, they rush back through the mysterious vortex into the Underways. Fair enough honestly.

---Better Red Than Dead
- The scamper away through the Underways, not followed by the spooky urn, and bust through a random door.
- Therein is a largeish Dwarf living room, complete with futon, and a book made from thin but strong leaves of stone that details the Dwarven arcology of Ur-Rajzesk, City of Rails. Also, a vial of poison, unrelated.
- There's gibberish from the next room, largely because I forgot half the party could speak Red Elf.
- Aximander doesn't speak Red Elf, but does, as the winds of fate swirl around Sydney.
- It is in fact some Red Elves! They speak to the leader of the crew, Aeelth'ra'ndir, who commands three other Red Elves.
- The party chat to them in their alien tongue. He offers them dust of great value - the red dust of Mars - which allows you to break Elf promises and binding legalities.
- The party are only slightly impressed, and trade various objects for varying quantities and qualities of Dust.

- He explains that the Underways used to be a way for Elves and various others to travel around the Wastes without getting vaporised by poison, but unfortunately the Red Elves' mining operation fucked it up.
- Mining operation? Oh yea, the Red Elves are mining all the magic out of the Earth with their marlingspikes, collapsing adjacent realities so they can take the energies back to Mars. They've already mined out every other Martian reality, imagine pushing a pencil through folded paper or whatever, but it's going to take several generations at least to mine out Earth so don't worry about it.

- In any case, if you find the Hollow Nexus that allows you to teleport from any point in the Underways to any other point, they'll pay good money and be very grateful. Do watch out for the Maelstrom of Thorns though, it's a big vortex where the Idea of Thorns accesses other realities and spreads. Mining out said parallel universes will prevent the spread of Thorns anyway, so win win right?
- Odo gets some shampoo in exchange for a poison acorn. Aeelth'ra'ndir feeds it to a minion, who dies and turns into cocaine. There is a knock at the door and the same dude turns up again, shunted in from a parallel universe. The party suddenly realise that these Red Elves are even more fucked than they though!

--- James Gets Spooked

- The party take their leave, saying that they'll totes look for this Hollow Nexus thing. Aximander persuades Aeelth'ra'ndir to cast a spell, which immediately goes wild due to Sydney's metamanipulation aura! The Red Elves suddenly freak the fuck out, scared of their own shadows, and sprint off!
- There is suddenly a deep and ominous rumble in the real world. It shakes through the floor, through our feet, rumbling in our chests like a train is going overhead but there is no train right? We're under London Bridge! That's a road!
- It's also closing time, so with trepidation we pack up and emerge to find that it's... some sort of road resurfacing machine!

Total: 7000 exp

Treasure:
- Diamond Keystone (8000 exp)
- Various Vials of Dust
- Saviourbone Paste
- A Vial of Trauma Poison
- 271 coins in Dwarven currency - worthless to Dwarves, good silver to anyone else (271 exp)

- Book on Ur-Rajzesk (100 exp)
- Roller armour

Total: 8100 exp

Foes:
- A small number of Red Elves and their leader, frightened off (100 exp)
Total: 100 exp

OOC:
- Carter the Chronicler and Paymaster
- Kitty the Expedition Leader

- Ollie the Quartermaster
- Tom the Vanguard
- George the Chef

Exp totals:

- Carter / Sydney, Level 7 Magic-User: 76433 (Level up at 144000)

- Ollie / Jojo Fullbeard, Level 6 Muscle Wizard: 53549 (Level up at 72000)

- Kitty / Julian & Aximander, Level 5 Languid Wastrel: 31918 (Level up at 36000)

- Tom / Odo Grumblebelch, Level 4 Dwarven Barbarian: 15814 (Level up at 16000)

- George / Hagen the Heretic, Level 1 Dwarf: 1640 (Level up at 2000)

Session 351 - Into the Underways

 Date: 15 August

Moon: N̴̡͎͓̳͔͇̗̯͚͈͉̝͔̘͌͂͘͘͜͜Ę̶̛̛̥̝̰̰̞͙̯̽̀͊̃̽͊̔̒̅͊̐̎́͝W̶̜̗̫̬̠̣͓̤̹̪̣̝̱̍͗͐̉͊̕̕̚ ̵̛̦͉̖̣̰͛̒̀̓̌̾̒̋͑͘M̶̧͈͔̮̱̭̈́́͜ͅŐ̶͇̫͚̐̔̋͂Ö̶̬͎́͗́̇̀̓͊̾̃̄̿̆N̶̢̠̲̾̓͐̎͋̓͂̌̅̈́̋̚̕̕͝͠
Zenith: Oberon

Events:

--- Primordial Tech

- After many trials, our heroes have formed a tenuous alliance with the goblins who lead them to a secret door. Within is the nerve centre of the Pyramid - ancient machines and a God-summoning holo-plate hooked up to a huge green-tinted screen. This thing looks absolutely ancient.
- They turn it on, but no God hologram appears. Instead the screen turns on with green audio bars like a hi-fi and Oberon's voice is piped in... but it's a very early version of Oberon! Soon another Oberon joins him - the modern Oberon - connecting directly to the God orbiting the world.
- They ask many questions, discovering that the pyramids were constructed in an earlier epoch as a combination atmosphere repair system and Shub-Niggurath killer. They would take poison from the sky and pump it deep into the earth where it would kill the monster in the core.

- They also discover that they can cleanse further areas by adding pylons back to the grid. The pylons and further pyramids are accessible by rails that run underneath the entire Drudge Wastes.
- Before leaving, Grumblebelch asks for knowledge of the ancient technology and gets reams of dot matrix printed paper from one of the machines. Then she changes the passwords so nobody else can access the terminal ever again!

--- A MAP!?

- They continue through this hidden zone into a wide corridor, where they find what they discover to be debugging tools, including a talking Dwarf head that states problems with whatever it's looking at.
- The next room contains a mapmaking device! It busily prints out a whole new section of the world map!
- They pore over it, comparing it to their current (very old) map of the old world! Odo's eyes go wide as she realises that there's a pattern to these pyramids and pylons!

--- Obligatory Spiders
- Aximander is at the height of his moon-wrought powers. He is more Elf than Man, the devil himself, wielding powers inhuman and incredible.
- While everyone else is obsessed with the map, he walks out into the main hall and nukes the spider guarding the way forward. In a charred egg sac, he finds a Potion of Jealousy.

--- Golems Below
- Catching up to Aximander and stepping gingerly over the spider corpse, the others follow him down to the deeper level below the pyramid.
- There they find a fountain with nice, fizzy, minerally water. The fountain depicts Dwarves constructing a golem from clay.
- There's a smell of woodsmoke, and they discover that through the next area there are a bunch of giant golems arguing about the Idea of Thorns. One argues that cities are necessary for the spread of nature, another argues that cities should always be destroyed in the first instance so that nature can thrive.

- Odo and Tyler Lockheart wade into the discussion. Tyler, naturally, is just a centrist who thinks everyone should just be civil. He offers a joint. They talk Thorns for a bit.

--- Spiders Above

- The others have snuck past and entered a grand hall with many pillars. Robo-raptors are tied by chains to the pillars, and spiders scuttle in webs above!
- Aximander goes full Roy Mustang and starts blasting, balls of fire detonating in the webs on the ceiling and causing spider corpses to fall like rain, to the delight of the raptors!
- A Chaos Burst causes a wall of force to erupt against the ceiling and rain starts to fall! In the chaos, the party dashes past to a big door on the opposite wall.

--- Explosive Clues

- They find a hexagonal room, then turn down a corridor to find themselves in a sort of Dwarven temple! Guard rails head down the long corridor, and on either side are bas reliefs.
- The reliefs show a story of Goblins betraying Dwarves in a city, Dwarves forcing Goblins into retreat to the surface, a Goblin-made poison superweapon killing all the Dwarves in the city, and a final powerful hero who inverts the pyramids' poison pump sending it all to the surface to create the Drudge Wastes.
- A side chamber has a clay golem prototype. There is talk of attempting to animate it, but ultimately they do not.
- There is a corridor with 6 doors coming off of it. Everyone picks a door and opens it simultaneously! Everyone is blasted with various elements simultaneously!

- Inside the rooms are runes (hence the elemental blasts) and small versions of several pyramids. Given the makeup of the pyramids and the elements of the runes that blasted them, our heroes put together that these must be the elemental types of the golems in the various pyramids. Neat!
- There are also little models of the golems arrayed around the pyramid dioramas, which is pretty cute.

--- Various Cliffhangers
- The last room contains a big square hole in the centre of the room that leads down to some rails! It's the Underways!
- More interestingly for Odo, a side chamber has a big diamond as a keystone which is holding up the ceiling... She works with Tyler to create a device that will pull the whole thing out.
- Also interestingly, Sydney finds their way to a room with many dead stone Dwarves clutching little golem figurines. They surmise that these Dwarves are actually empowering the golems by sending their souls into them.
- Also also interestingly, Aximander opens the doors at the very end of the temple. The cracks in the stonework around it glow with a bright white light, and beyond the door is a shimmering corridor filled with scintillating energy,
- Odo PULLS OUT THE DIAMOND and the ceiling RUMBLES
- Sydney YANKS A MODEL GOLEM and the Dwarf's eyes OPEN
- Aximander steps into the corridor and SEES SOMETHING LOOMING

- We end the session because the pub is closing!

Total: 8000 exp

Treasure:
- A new map!
- Debugging tools, including a Dwarf head and a number of old coins with different numbers on them. (1000 exp)

- Potion of Jealousy

Total: 1000 exp

Enemies:

- 5 Black Widow spiders (500 exp)
- 4 robo-raptors (400 exp)
Total: 900 exp

OOC:
- Carter the Chronicler and Paymaster and Vanguard (300 exp)
- Kitty the Expedition Leader (100 exp)
- Ollie the Quartermaster (100 exp)
- Tom the Chef (100 exp)

Exp Totals:

- Carter / Sydney, Level 7 Magic-User: 76573 (Level up at 144000)

- Ollie / Jojo Fullbeard, Level 6 Muscle Wizard: 53689 (Level up at 72000)

- James G / Tyler Lockheart, Level 6 Specialist: 40088 (Level up at 48000)

- Kitty / Julian & Aximander, Level 5 Languid Wastrel: 32058 (Level up at 36000)

- Tom / Odo Grumblebelch, Level 5 Dwarven Barbarian: 15954 (Level up at 16000)

Level Up! +1d10 HP! +1 to Saves! +Lorebond! +Backstory!

Session 350 - Mighty Meta-Manipulation!

Date: 1 August

Moon: Full Clean Face
Zenith: Eris

New Backstory:

- Sydney owes Jojo a great debt for saving their life. Once per session, drop to 0HP to cancel any death dice they have accrued.

Events:

--- Go Before They Ask Questions!

- We open in a dungeon, drops of silvery fluid trickling down carved circuit-board stone walls, somewhere beneath the huge stepped pyramid above.
- A crumbled wall has just been mined out by Dwarves from Ur-Darghab, a task given in exchange for their lives by our victorious (and merciful) heroes. The Dwarves, job completed, shuffle off to tend to their crumbling dead. Their are cries of sorrow as they realise the gems of the dead have been taken.

- Thinking of the bloody gems in their pockets, and not wanting to cause an awkward scene, the party hurriedly rush into the revealed room.

- The caves beyond are the fractal low-poly style of Ur-Darghab, the faceted surfaces look absolutely gorgeous in Odo's dwarven darkvision.

--- Lizards!

- Arrayed around a slightly sizzling pool of trickling water, in a cave that's evidently only partway through being fractally beautified, are several part-robot raptors! Their red robo-eyes gleam, wet tongues licking their metal jaws.

- Jojo throws a hunk of boar meat and one of the raptors snaps it up. Odo, who's been checking out the ceiling, thinks she sees movement up there...
- They decide to leave well enough alone and go check out the rocks piled at the exit, when a sticky tongue slaps down straight at Odo!
- She's hit... then isn't? Reality shimmers with subtle energies. It's the effect of Sydney's new spell, Meta-Manipulation, slightly turning luck in their favour!
- Odo responds by trying to slice the tongue off! She fails... but hits! The tongue is cut clean in two, part of it flopping on the floor at her feet like a fish, the other snapping back up towards the ceiling and revealing the huge-eyed face of a giant cyborg chameleon!
- Sydney casts Slippery Slope to take the rubble down to crush the raptors, while Aximander grabs a spear and starts attacking the creature on the ceiling. It's a crit-fumble... it's a hit! The chameleon bleeds silver.
- Jojo joins the battle in earnest to head of an as-yet uncrushed raptor... and more tongues flick down towards her! There's more than one chameleon!

--- Goblins arrive
- Through the door once blocked by rubble, some goblins with thorny crowns emerge. "Not now!" shriek the party, and thankfully the goblins are ok with watching.
- Odo slays her chameleon, and is then summarily snatched into the darkness by another!

- Sydney gets tongue-grappled from a distance... but even without the aura of luck he's unscathed! The enemy chameleon fumbles... and fumbles... and fumbles again... until it's blown up its own armour, cut off its own tongue, and fallen prone and stunned into the water. I've never seen the like!
- That's Sydney's time to shine with their Wing Suit with a daredevil's soul, destroying the wings to burst straight into the half dead chameleon and make it full dead, then riding its corpse back into the fray!
- Jojo and Aximander are beating down a raptor with a combination of axe and flame, while Sydney's meta-manipulation runs out when they narrowly avoid a tongue and Odo murders the chameleon that's been trying to swallow her leg for half the fight!

--- Tyler Loveheart arrives
- What's that? It's Tyler Loveheart with the surfboard!
- He shows up mid-session as usual, surfing down the Slippery Slope as Sydney sends out a fan of Magic Missiles into the fray, and swipes a recovering raptor with his board!
- Aximander blasts it with pyrokinesis, igniting all the fluids inside it and sending it shooting off around the room like a rocket! It explodes in a spray of hot silvery liquid.

- Seeing its compatriots boiled, broken, beaten and scarred... the last chameleon turns invisible and legs it.

- Party at Sydney's Place

- Sydney summons their Safe Space so that everyone can have a rest. Meta-Manipulation really saved the day!
- The thorn goblins yell something down at the party who cover their ears and go "lalala" to avoid hearing the Idea of Thorns! The goblins have to quickly turn away though, since there are sounds of a giant chameleon attacking some goblins back there.
- Inside the Safe Space it's a huge flat, penthouse suite, seven bedrooms, and even a very nice modern kitchen! They drag the raptor and chameleon corpses in through the front door, getting blood and guts all over the parquet floor, and butcher them right there. The smell is quite something, and the windows of the flat don't actually open.
- Odo cooks the fresh meat while Sydney watches in horror as the others steal snacks from the fridge, get drunk on the wine that was meant to be saved for a special occasion, take way too long in the toilet, and generally make a mess of the place.
- When it's ready they feast upon Dino-Nike-Us, involving a tender mix of raptor and lion meat, a slow-cooked chameleon tongue, butter, and a marmite glaze. It makes them heal extra good with a night's sleep!

--- Discussing the Idea of Thorns

- In the morning, the place is a mess. Tyler's room is untouched, but only because he spent the night with Jojo who is positively glowing! The other rooms are full of tangled sheets, chairs are tipped over around the dining table which has something sticky spilled over the abandoned playing cards, and something unholy has occurred in the en suite toilet.

- Sydney is trying to hold back tears, and is about to say something they might regret, when mercifully there's a knock at the door! It's a noise complaint from the goblins. They're ok if our heroes stick around, so long as they don't unleash any more chameleons and turn down the music after 11pm.
- The rest of the party troop out of the front door past Sydney, who takes one last regretful look back at his trashed apartment and shuts the door. It fades away behind him, leaving behind only the subtle scent of unflushed vomit.

- They go to talk to the goblins, and only Sydney is brave enough to hear them talk about the Idea of Thorns! They pass their save, and can now speak uninhibited! Their leader is Graxxar, and he's extra thorny.
- The Idea of Thorns itself is a sort of anti-civilisation, pro-nature and accelerationist anarcho-primitivism. Previously it might have been a bad thing to destroy civilisation and return to living in harmony with nature, but since the apocalypse wiped out civilisation anyway it's the perfect time to embrace the Idea of Thorns!
- Sydney takes this with some scepticism, and asks what they know about the lizards.
- It transpires that they theorise the lizards are some sort of pyramid guardians, and they trapped them in that area behind the rocks to stop them eating them. These goblins also used to live with the golems, or at least were tolerated by them, until they kept going on about the Idea and got kicked out of the pyramid proper.
- Finally, they know where there's a secret pyramid control room, and offer to guide the party if they'll get them back into the main pyramid and into the Underways! What are the Underways? Secret routes beneath the Drudge Wastes... maybe they can take you there too...

Total: 7000 exp

Enemies Neutralised:
- 3 robo-raptors (300 exp)
- 4 robo-chameleons (400 exp)
Total: 700 exp

OOC:
- Carter the Chronicler & Vanguard

- Kitty the Expedition Leader

- Tom the Paymaster & Chef

- Ollie the Quartermaster

Exp Totals:

- Carter / Sydney, Level 7 Magic-User: 74793 (Level up at 144000)

- Ollie / Jojo Fullbeard, Level 6 Muscle Wizard: 51909 (Level up at 72000)

- James G / Tyler Lockheart, Level 6 Specialist: 38308 (Level up at 48000)

- Kitty / Julian & Aximander, Level 5 Languid Wastrel: 30278 (Level up at 36000)

- Tom / Odo Grumblebelch, Level 4 Dwarven Barbarian: 14174 (Level up at 16000)

Session 349 - Battle of the Sexists

Date: 25 July, 22 p.p.

Moon: First Quarter

Zenith: The Allfather

Events:

--- INT: Dungeon

- Somewhere under the mysterious pyramid on the edge of the Drudge Wastes, our heroes are sitting in a stone-walled bedroom eating leftovers from a tupperware.
- Odo Grumblebelch, a female dwarf though you wouldn't know it by looking at her, has found some dead rats under one of the beds. They've got green slime around the gums.
- Aximander, an elf of the Languid Wastrel species, has returned to a somewhat less eldritch form now that the New Moon has passed. Philipides Goath is using some of the healing magic he learned from his Cleric mentor to heal Sydney.

--- A Woman??

- They set off into the dungeon proper, seeing occasional dribbles of silvery ferrofluid trickle through the intricately patterned stonework.
- Avoiding a horrible sucking sound behind one door, they try another marked with a three-fingered handprint. Inside there's a whole rec-room full of malformed clay Dwarves! They look up in interest and see... a woman!
- Several rapidly rearrange their clay faces into more handsome shapes and approach Odo, who they can tell is a woman through cultural cues. They pretend to be real pure-blood dwarves!
- Odo lures one away with her feminine wiles, and the lucky lad is taken back to the bedroom. Odo's misandrist sword strikes true, but can't kill him! His flesh starts to reknit... or would have if a pyrokinetic blast from Aximander didn't immediately turn him into a flash-baked statue!
- Sydney and Jojo immediately ask to be taught that spell, and while they bicker Odo smashes the dead dwarf open to grab the gems within! Yes, it seems these clay dwarfs contain their own loot!

--- For Ur-Darghab!

- Odo heads back to hopefully kite out another clay dwarf... only to see that a pair of the proper giant golems have turned up and are laughing at their smaller brethren!
- They're too big to fell, so the party backtracks and tries another corridor. It's long, and they soon hear voices coming towards them! Green-toothed rats skitter by, ignoring the party, because they're being chased by dwarves!

- The Dwarves have pointed ratskin hoods and dead rats on their belts, and they are momentarily baffled by the arrival of others. Luckily several people already speak the Ur-Darghab dialect and find out the dwarves are hunting rats for food.
- Jojo offers an anaesthetised bat that she found... and the bat shrieks in fear as it awakens and attacks the lead dwarf!
- Aximander takes the front with the Bow of the Ram, firing off several shots at once, while everyone else but Sydney runs in to engage. These are real dwarves, not clay copies, so attacks are plinking off their chain armour.
- Philipides takes massive damage from a cruel war-pick strike but survives, and strikes back with real anger!

- Jojo is doing the real damage here, big swings from her great-axe biting into the muscled sides of the Dwarves. They begin to fall.
- Odo unsheathes her second blade - the Last Sword of a Conquered Tribe - and trisects the final Dwarf as Jojo rips the jaw from his cursing mouth.
- The party gather gems from the stomachs of the dead and leave them for the rats to feast on.

--- Work or Die
- The noise has clearly alerted the people in the next area - a high-ceilinged hall with pillars and a whole lot of spiderwebs at the end.
- Looking up from their rats on sticks being cooked over the smoky fire, complaining about the lack of real meat for tributes lately, are a motley band of six malformed clay dwarves! 
- Odo strolls in with the ol' "Hail friends!" and they immediately charge! Perhaps they've been warned about the dwarven seductress roaming these halls!
- One of the dwarves tips his hand by going on a misogynist rant about how real women stay in the breeding pens where they belong, and the battle begins in earnest.
- Sydney shoots one of them with a six-shooter and gets mobbed by the others, who are yelling "they've got a gun!"
- Jojo's lightning rune axe doesn't do extra damage because it earths in their earth bodies. Instead she flash-steps to Odo's side and blows half the clay out of one's body before Odo finishes it off by going for the head.
- Aximander spears the (most) misogynist Dwarf through the belly with his spear, knocking the gems clean out of him before he can heal.
- Philipides gambits to slice straight through a crumbling pillar! It collapses perfectly towards the centre of the room like a felled tree, squishing the two remaining Dwarves.
- They're not dead, just squished, but they surrender now that they're clearly not going anywhere! They bargain with the party - they'll mine through the nearby rubble in exchange for their lives.

--- Work it is!
- While the Dwarves dig through the rubble, the party decides to use this smoky fire for its intended purpose - cooking! With a nice mix of boar meat, lion meat, goblin vegetable-flesh, and a trickle of sweet milk from a cursed chalice, Sydney cooks "Milky Meat" aka "All That Walks". It's... palatable.
- Philipides chews it down, but the goblin meat is making his belly feel a bit funny... and is that a giggling sound?
- The Dwarves have finished mining now, and the area beyond is clearly Ur-Darghab architecture rather than the older carved stone of the pyramid. Cave crickets as big as a thumb are hopping out of the hole too. Odo licks her lips!

Totals: 6000 exp

Treasure:
- 7 rats tied by the tails (7 exp)

- 1100ob in dwarven corpse-gems (1100 exp)

Total: 1107 exp

Murders:

- A seduced clay dwarf (500 exp) 

- A small band of dwarven rat-catchers (225 exp)
- An incel gang of clay dwarves (3000 exp)
Total: 4725 exp

OOC:

- Carter the Chronicler & Treasurer

- George the Expedition Leader
- Tom the Vanguard

Exp Totals:

- Carter / Sydney, Level 7 Magic-User: 73253 (Level up at 144000)
Level Up! +1d4 HP! +1 Mana! +Free Spell! +1 to Saves! +Backstory!

- Ollie / Jojo Fullbeard, Level 6 Muscle Wizard: 50369 (Level up at 72000)

- George / Phillipides Goath, Level 6 Fighter: 36369 (Level up at 64000)

- Kitty / Julian & Aximander, Level 5 Languid Wastrel: 28738 (Level up at 36000)

- Tom / Odo Grumblebelch, Level 4 Dwarven / Barbarian: 12634 (Level up at 16000)

Session 348 - The Return of Little Jack Tall!

Date: 4 July, 22 p.p.

Moon: NEW MOON

Zenith: The Lady

New Backstory:
- Phillipides Goath willingly broke his bandit oaths to become a noble Paladin! Sacrifice a weapon to auto-hit.

New Rumours:
- "Everyone city in the Drudge Wastes is possessed by the Idea of Thorns, except this town! That's why I never leave!" - "The city of Grendel is deep in the Wastes, connected to its satellite towns by enormous bridges which are like towns of their own! Apparently they have a source of unlimited energy there, and the pub scene is amaaazing." - "Follow the pylons heading for hundreds of miles straight north from Grasp and you'll reach the town of Leylong, where the energies of the pylons merge and twist through warring wizard towers." - "Red Elves are easy to kill - they're cowardly foreign wizards so you just have to get up close." - "The Golems who live in the Pyramid near Splug were created by an evil wizard by combining a Dwarf with an Elf, which is why they're unstoppable!" - "The Gads up in the mountains are warring over the Marlingspike. If you want to get involved, head to the Marlingspike and tell the Red Elves you're there to help wipe out the rebels."

Events:

--- New Moon, Old Friends

- It's the New Moon and Aximander is ascendent! Charged by the dark eye of the New Moon, his Elven powers have waxed to their fullest extent. He looks like the Devil himself, forked tail swishing behind his digitigrade legs.
- He also discovers that his abilities allow him to hear his name wherever it's whispered anywhere in the world... and so realises that Gifflewim's been fucking with the party this whole time! The coins didn't do anything - it was all him!

- Also here, after real life years away, is Little Jack Tall! A "Normal-ling" who calls humans Doublings.

- All together, the party decides that it's time to raid the Golem's Pyramid.
- Lulu is trying to use Gunther - Aximander's winged piglet - to predict the outcome of this endeavour. Outlook... good?

--- Hollow Pyramid
- They walk through the goblin shanty-town of Splug and to the stepped pyramid that it's built against, heading into the pyramid proper.
- It's a cavernous space inside, the pyramid is a shell. In the centre is the somewhat smaller pyramid that our heroes previously had a bad time entering, being easily repelled by the golem guards.
- Instead the party decides to explore the shell a bit. There is a large console of some sort in the corner of the hollow pyramid, and another in the centre of the south wall. They go to investigate, while Tyler Loveheart scurries off to climb the smaller pyramid.
- Tyler finds a crystal lens set into the top of the smaller pyramid, pointing up at the roof. He can't find a button to turn it on. From up there he hears squeaking and cheering from somewhere to the north, and strange lights.
- Down at the corner console the others find an orb set into the stone object. When touched it shows a view from the miles-wide mud-choked riverbed that was once the Deeprush. Pressing the button above it shows the viewpoint rising, and below clean water is bubbling up!
- They rush outside to see if this is actually happening... and it is! Clean water is slowly filling up the Deeprush once again!

--- Everyday Heresy

- They head north and come to an old shrine - it's a God Projector! They've seen these before! It's inactive, but with a bit of elbow grease Little Jack Tall reconnects the wiring and plugs stuff back in.
- The projector activates! It's the Lady! She seems to recognise Little Jack Tall, but everyone else is a new character so has no idea who they are. Jack is the only person in the group who consents to kneeling before the God, and so she refuses to talk to the others.
- Nevertheless, Little Jack conveys various questions from the group to the proud goddess. She tells him that the pyramids were designed to pump poison deep underground to kill the beast in the core of the earth. The Dwarves broke the pyramids thousands of years ago, well before the apocalypse, and the Drudge Wastes have been here ever since.

- Before she goes, miffed at the party's lack of respect, she does mention that the Marlingspikes are used by the Red Elves to mine multiversal energy and magic. There's a War in Heaven raging between the Red Elves and the Gods, you see. Hence why she's a bit distracted.
- Tyler skids down the inner pyramid and prostrates himself before the Lady, earning a boon from her before Little Jack Tall unceremoniously pulls the plug and she winks out.

--- Off to the Races

- A big clay face peers around the northern corner of the inner pyramid, and grunts out something in the Dwarven tongue of Ur-Darghab. When the party yell out something in English, he swaps to a grunting version of the same! He's wondering what the party are doing wandering around in here.
- He offers to let them bet on some ferret races, and the party readily accepts! On the way, Phillipides notices some goblins skulking about against the north wall, but doesn't bring it up.
- They watch the ferret races! These are huge ferrets, several metres long, and they run through a tubular race track. 
- After a round of bet-placing, they're off! The ferrets whizz around the tubes in a time trial... and the ferret called Rachel Runebender is the winner! Sydney and Jojo collect their winnings.
- The golem collects the ferrets, pays out the bets, and crosses a ferret pen into a back door to the inner pyramid. Easier than going in via that front portcullis for sure!

--- Horseradish the Speaker
- Before considering a bit of the ol' dungeoneering B&E, they go see these goblins that Phil spotted.
- They find a bunch of lean-tos set up against the inner wall of the hollow pyramid, full of bud-goblins! A wizened old looking goblin with wrinkly skin covered with potato eyes greets them while the others cower from the interlopers.
- He introduces himself as Horseradish the Speaker and explains that the bud-goblins here escaped from Splug, where they were under the boot of Hobgoblins and regularly purged at the first sign of disagreement.
- Nearby is another console with an orb, showing another view out on the vast red-mud riverbed. As the view rotates it shows the distant sight of water pouring out over the riverbed! Looks like that button-press earlier is still going!
- Horseradish lends the party his bravest warriors - Lettuce, Pickles, and Sassafrass.

--- Pushing Buttons
- They also view another mysterious object, within the bounds of the racing tube. It's a table with a little pyramid surrounded by glowing rods.
- After a bit of mapwork, they realise that it represents the local area! The pyramid connects to six rods, three of which are in the river and three of which are on land!
- They split up to push all the buttons at once, during which time Jojo sends Pickles the Goblin off the wrong way and gets him eaten by ravenous ferrets. Alas.
- The upshot is that the river pillars activate no problem, but the land pillars will need some extra work. They won't activate, only show a bird's eye view of wherever they are.

- Giants come out to investigate all the button pressing, so the various button-pressing crews leg it!

--- Sneaky Sneaky Now

- Henry the Ferret Master is also alerted, and comes out of his door. He is met by Horseradish, who bravely distracts the giant golem. It seems they know each other quite well, and he puts up with the goblins as long as they don't bother his ferrets. That said, he also doesn't stop the ferrets if they go hunting for goblinflesh.
- Aximander summons an illusory version of the party and sends them running past as a distraction! Henry chases after the illusions, and the party quickly sneak into the inner pyramid while his back is turned!
- Inside it's a ferret play area and training zone. The ferrets are alarmed and angry until Philipides chucks some food in their food bowl. To the stairs!

--- Attempted Rescue

- The stairs are shallow and winding. At the bottom a breeze brings the scent of food and earth, and the sound of indistinct laughter.
- They investigate a couple of directions. Laughing golems down one way are avoided, but a dusty corridor seems like a good bet. They go through into a large room with tapestries of the giants' victories extorting food and ale from the Splug townsfolk.
- Jojo hears the sound of sobbing from behind a door and opens it to find bedrooms and imperfect Dwarves shackled to the wall. Their pale brown skin is blotched, like clay left out to dry.
- Moved to pity, she unchains them... and they attack! Their clay bodies morph attack mode, forming big lumpen fists!
- "Have you just been waiting here for someone to come in? That doesn't make any sense!" Jojo yells as she Magic Missile Punches one in the face, exposing a gem in its throat as its face reforms. She glares at Philipides, who didn't believe the rumour that these are part Elf part Dwarf - that gem must be an elf gem of some kind!
- It strikes back twice, but she casts Hone on her greataxe and slices its head right off, hitting it on the backswing to splash against a chest at the back of the room.
- Philipides fends off the other, taking a couple of big swings from their big fists, before Jojo smashes her axe flat-first onto the creature and splats it flat on the ground.
- The party gathers a bunch of gems from the throats of the clay dwarves, while Jojo heads to the chest and looks inside. It's a partial dungeon map, and a suspiciously fine looking ration.

- We finish in a bedroom for now! What else lurks in the pyramid???

Total: 9000 exp

Treasure:

- Gemstones from inside a Dwarf (800 exp)

- A partial dungeon map
Total: 800 exp

Foes:

- 2 imperfect clay Dwarves, smooshed. (200 exp)

Total: 200 exp

OOC:

- Carter the Remembrancer (100 exp)
- George the Expedition Leader (100 exp)
- Henry the Cartographer (100 exp)
- Ollie the Quartermaster (100 exp)

Exp Totals:

- Carter / Sydney, Level 6 Magic-User: 70686 (Level up at 72000)

- Ollie / Jojo Fullbeard, Level 6 Muscle Wizard: 47902 (Level up at 72000)

- James G / Tyler Lockheart, Level 6 Specialist: 36768 (Level up at 48000)

- George / Phillipides Goath, Level 6 Fighter: 33902 (Level up at 64000)

- Kitty / Julian & Aximander, Level 5 Languid Wastrel: 26371 (Level up at 36000)

- Henry / Little Jack Tall, Level 4 Halfling Specialist: 11802 (Level up at 16000)

Session 347 - Love in Splug

Date: 4 July, 22 p.p.

Moon: Waning Gibbous

Zenith: The Dead God

New Backstory:
- Odo Grumblebelch had expected her stature as a tribal leader to gain her a position of prestige as an overseer in the Grumblebelch mines, but was instead betrayed by the social order and pigeonholed into the roles given to the rare Dwarf women. +1 Con score.

- Jojo Fullbeard wasn't sent to the past to save her father as she'd always maintained - instead she was banished into the past after kissing someone she shouldn't have. +1 HD of HP for the rest of the session if you romance someone.
- Julian's life was changed forever by a being from "down under" who set him on his career in painting, which eventually led to his possession by Aximander. +1 to Reaction Rolls with subterranean beings.

Events:

--- Desecration of the Tomb
- Jojo punches open the tomb of the Elf hero Archaeopteryx and grabs out the dusty bones within. Sydney chucks the bones into the time clock and rewinds it back... and back... and back... until a withered corpse reappears and he can eat the withered brain.
- With a little aperitif of Mindflayer Juice, Sydney devours the brain and gains a lot of hate, extremely outdated Elvish ideals, and some deeper insights into the Elven mind.

--- A Friendly Chat
- With all that suitably looted, the party decides to head off to the pub with their winnings to carouse and make merry!
- But first, they want to get eyes on this Marlingspike they've heard so much about.
- They climb up the mountain a ways, and spot some man-shaped shrubberies sunning themselves on rocks further down. It's Bracklings! Distantly, they see a little band of Halflings wandering the hills.
- Odo calls down to the Bracklings, and they look up! Wooden mask-faces look up and smile! Their limbs are woody and thorny, and their leader Gustav Peartree walks up to see the party and offers a prickly pear.
- He tells them that the Bracklings are here to help tear down civilisation and propogate the Idea of Th-
- The party COVER THEIR EARS
- Then Odo MURDERS GUSTAV IN ONE BLOW
- Then Sydney summons Cloudkill and a wave of horrible poison rolls down the slope, murdering the rest of the Bracklings.
- Then they burn the bodies and leave.

--- A Band of Dwarves
- On the way back to town, while passing by the spire that once had a winged boar, they come across a band of Dwarves. Odo runs forward to introduce herself, and finds that they know her by reputation! A natural-born female Dwarf, very rare you know.
- They hail from Ur-Kalladh, you can tell from the classic fantasy Dwarf aesthetic, and Sydney trades a cursed scythe for an axe wrapped in cloth.
- Snakes start dropping from Odo's pockets and she realises her snake egg is leaking! They hurriedly make their excuses and leave.

--- Return to Splug

- Soon they have arrived back at Splug. Their flesh airship is safely moored just outside town, and their don't seem to be any golem attacks presently occurring, so all good!
- Sydney sees a passing redshirt from the airship and asks how the capitalist revolution is going. The answer? Poorly. These collectivist townsfolk aren't interested in currency, or even barter!
- Odo spitefully murders the man. Some passing bud-goblins see this act of aggression against an innocent underling by their employer and start grabbing weapons!
- Hobgoblins see this and raise a hue and cry, quickly killing off the potential insurrection. They apologise to the party - they haven't had a bud-purge in a while so the minions are starting to get a bit uppity.

--- Party Time
- This might be a town with no need for private property or currency, but that doesn't mean they don't know how to party! It's carousing time!
- Odo realises she doesn't have much cash, so pawns off the snake egg to Julgoor's shop on the airship. Julgoor is surprised at this great deal!
- She returns to the pub to find festivities in full swing! There's a Halfling regaling the group, a shimmer in the air, and a bunch of hobgoblins dancing on the tables! She grabs a cup of fungal beer and does her best to catch up!

--- The Next Day

- Odo wakes up with an absolutely stinking headache, the sword Lothario complaining that she's looking terrible this morning.
- Sydney wakes up in bed with a pretty girl called Xarini. She's sleeping peacefully, makeup smudged.
- Julian wakes up alone, a mirror standing beside the bed, with confusing memories of Aximander's lips on his...
- Phillipides Goath's eyes shoot open. There's a small figure sitting on the side of the bed pulling on their clothes. He groans in confusion, blaming "Poison Phil" for this turn of events, as Three-Legs the Amorinator blows him a dismissive kiss and leaves the room.

--- Tying Up
- They rest up in town for a week or so, taking some time to see how their business investments are going.
- Sydney buys back the snake egg from Julgoor (he is happy to get rid of it - it keeps leaking snakes!) and starts a nice little startup in Splug, called Staff of Asclepius. It sells snakes.
- Sydney also coaxes the party into seeing what that totem pole with the moon emblem at the top does after the full moon. It recharges! They gain Intelligence at the cost of Wisdom.
- Aximander gets to work with his Reknit Essence spell to scramble various stats on the party members. With consent, naturally. He also takes the time to brew a Potion of Bounty from some mushrooms, and commissions a Mustang Glove that makes sparks when you click your fingers.
- During this process, the Pig Egg hatches! It's a little piglet with little itty bitty wings that allow it to hover for a few seconds at a time! He names it Gunter, and the first output of Sydney's new business is a snakeskin collar for the little guy.
- We are all set for a new adventure next week! And a surprise special guest...

Total: 8000 exp

Carousing:
- Sydney met a nice girl down the pub! (1600 exp)

- Odo Grumblebelch turned up late to the party! (400 exp)
- Jojo drank the good stuff and barely got a hangover! (1800 exp) 
- Julian and Aximander got home and experienced self-love! (3200 exp)

-  Phillipedes Goath knows what they say about Halflings with big feet! (2400 exp)

Murders:
- A grove of Bracklings (300 exp)
Total: 300 exp

OOC:

Carter the Chronicler, Cartographer, and Paymaster: 300 exp
Ollie the Expedition Leader: 100 exp
George the Quartermaster and Vanguard: 200 exp
Tom the Chef: 100 exp

Exp Totals:

- Carter / Sydney, Level 6 Magic-User: 69019 (Level up at 72000)

- Ollie / Jojo Fullbeard, Level 6 Muscle Wizard: 46235 (Level up at 72000)

- George / Phillipides Goath, Level 6 Fighter: 32235 (Level up at 64000)
Level Up! +1d8 HP! +1 to Saves! +1 to hit! +1 to crit/fumble! +Backstory!

- Kitty / Julian & Aximander, Level 5 Languid Wastrel: 24704 (Level up at 36000)

- Tom / Odo Grumblebelch, Level 4 Dwarven / Barbarian: 10167 (Level up at 16000)

Session 346 - Demon Blade Backstabs

Date: 27 June, 22 p.p.

Moon: Waxing Gibbous - Clean Face

Zenith: Vorn

New Backstory:

- Food was scarce in a famine-based LARP, and Julian was even-handed in sharing around what little they had. Everyone around you gets +1 HP when eating to heal.

Events:

--- Golem, Bronze

- We reconvene with the party in the Temple of Archaeopteryx, the Elven hero that once fatally took on an Apocalypse Dragon and had a clear love for putting souls into objects to turn them into magic items.
- They are in a room with curtains on each wall, both depicting a cool winged Flitting Gad taking on an army of electric ghosts and placing shackles upon a massive blue dragon.
- Phillipides Goath peeks behind one of the curtains and finds a secret room! A bag of gold is on the floor, and some acrid stench fills his nostrils.
- He lobs something at the bag and reveals that it's a trap - there are only a couple of coins in there and it's mostly filled with squirting acid. Ah.
- He retreats, which is fair enough honestly.
- Heading south, the party sees a statue standing ominously on a pedestal. It's a bronze man, looking more solid than metal lacework of last session's manikin statues, and a heat haze rises from its broad shoulders and big ominous brass sword. It turns, lifts its sword, and advances towards the light.
- A tremulous voice calls out for help from a room behind the golem, to the concern of all.
- Aximander emerges from Julian's body and binds the heat of two torches into a white-hot ball with his Elvish magic, then sends it at the metal man's chest! The chest collapses, molten brass pours from the wound, yet it keeps coming! Jojo avoids the worst of the damage from a strike of its massive sword.
- Sydney notices that it's avoiding damaging the curtains, and so Phillipides nicks the idea and cuts down one of them and throws it onto the metal man. It works! Faced with a choice between harming the curtains and harming the invaders, the brass robot shuts down.

--- Rebel Gad
- Investigating the voice, the party finds a Flitting Gad (being an Elf whose Heartspell is Feather-Fall) trapped behind metal bars, and scarred by the acid from a familiar trap. Sydney has his dancing time-rewinding clock with him, and offers healing and freedom to the Elf in exchange for information.
- It's a deal! She tells them what she knows about the Rebel Gads vs the Traitor Gads, to whit the Traitors are in league with the Red Elves from Mars and the Rebels are against them.
- She is freed, chucked into the clock, and rewound until she is healed. In thanks, she carves a symbol into Sydney's arm which will show them to be a a friend to the Rebels. Lovely! With that, she runs off because she doesn't want to push her luck.
- A quick survey of the route she left through reveals an exit, including a trapped door that shoots petrified centipedes. Duly noted.

--- Polarity
- They turn around and head deeper into the dungeon. It looks like the only way forward is via the hall with time-space anomalies that are, even now, pulling some poor Gad apart in slow motion. Sucks to be them.
- On the way, floating motes of light gather around the casters and grant them temporary mana! Jojo tries to Passwall through the floor, only to discover that it is not called Passfloor actually.
- Aximander, still controlling Julian's body, looks into the room at the end of the pull-apart gravity  corridor and finds a room where gravity is flipped! Fantastic!
- Looks like if you're not prepared for it, the gravity will invert every so often and drop you from ceiling to floor, this accomplished via a slowly spinning mask on one wall. Aximander is prepared though, and lands gracefully.
- He also grabs some coins from a burst acid-trapped bag, which was clearly just chucked in here willy nilly without the trappers knowing about the gravity effect.
- He jams something into the rotating wall-head to stop the gravity nonsense in the corridor, and hey presto! It's passable! Without these gravity whorls moving about you can just sort of walk around them.

--- Dithea
- Fiery motes gather around the party's weapons as they travel down the corridor, finally getting to the door that contains a tortured prisoner whose body is linked to the coins floating through the air elsewhere.
- Inside, they see said prisoner floating in the air. Her skin is a dull red. Three demon masks are arranged on a nearby wall, each of them with a hole for a gem to be placed on their foreheads. They have different personalities.

- After a bit of chat, it turns out that this red-skinned Elf was magically altered by her parents to make her closer to the "real" Elves - the Red Elves from Mars. She was herself the captain of the temple guards here, until she was caught nicking a sword that hates women and put in this torture chamber that punishes the greedy with the greed of others.
- She also tells them about the rest of the dungeon. Main temple is ahead, and they can always turn off to find a big egg full of snakes. Nobody is particularly excited about the egg.
- Tyler Lockheart turns up! Bursting through the door with his surfboard!
- They free Dithea and she walks off to escape this place... right into a gravity whorl. Mulligans are attempted and denied. Sydney tries ripping her out of the gravity whorl but rips off half her stomach and she dies inside the clock... which now has a taste for blood.

--- Sny Snid Snit Snave Sno Snee Sñakes 
- They move swiftly on, looking back apologetically to Sydney who is tearfully cleaning the blood out of the inside of the murder clock.
- There are battlecries and the ring of steel on steel ahead! They peek into the dungeon's largest room to see a winged woman in a circle of dead golems, slashing with a feather sword, reading death from a magical tome that destroys her foes.
- Everybody is smitten.
- Outside the room, down another corridor, there is a robot man with a couple of sick scythes who motions to Sydney after he sees their arm. Sydney goes to investigate and finds... the snake egg room! Snakes with corkscrew tails slither along the floor! Unfortunately, Sydney cannot speak Gad so can't talk to the metal man.
- Unperturbed, Sydney casts Speak With Animals snand snarts sneaking snin sñake snanguage.
- Sney sneak sñake snou sne snetal snan, snand snay snake snan snalliance!

- Back in the main hall, the cool winged woman has cut down all the other golems and entered... the treasure room!

--- Sudden But Inevitable Betrayal
- They bust in and find that the cool Elf lady is wearing some sort of invisible fabric over her nude body, wielding a sword that hates men, and wielding a bow with a sheep's head in the centre!
- Sydney unleashes their backstory - have someone make a romantic advance on you. The Elf lady is smitten and invites Sydney over to her side...
- Sydney stabs her in the back with an atrametal spear barely containing a black-fire fragment of a giant demon's soul! It's immediately fatal, and the Elf lady keels over with inky flames burning in her eyes.
- Just say no to boss battles I guess.
- In the room they find a ton of coinage with Archaeopteryx's face on it and many magic items. The cool Elf was wearing the Emperor's New Robes, holding the woman-hating blade Jackie the Ripper, and wielding the Bow of the Ram. All are duly looted.
- Also here - the Vaunted Prize which can be traded for anything, a filigreed glass jar containing Soul River Water which captures a soul on death (currently contains a confused old man's soul), and a Wing Suit which allows you to glide on real wings (currently a pigeon's). Sick stuff.
- The metal man with the scythes pokes his head around the door and realised that it's already over.

--- Sudden But Unexpected Betrayal
- They have a look around the main room, seeing that there's a fountain on one side and a cool furnace that blatantly attaches souls to items to make them magical. Much discussion is had about what soul they need to grab to make the ultimate magic item, counterposed by the argument that "we never go back to anywhere" so it's pointless to speculate.
- Aximander sits in the cool throne at the side of the room and... can fly! Holy shit! it will wear off in a bit but holy shit!
- They walk out with all the loot and... Sydney gets slashed with a scythe! It's the Robo Dude!
- Turns out he is here to stop people nicking shit, which on balance does make sense.
- Aximander can fucking fly though, and he zips back to bury his black-fire atrametal knife into the robot's back, pumping stored demon soul energy deep into its brassy body. The robot burns... but doesn't die immediately.
- Jojo leaps into the fray with a gambit, critting the robot as the robot crits her back, demolishing each other with a mighty Devastator! Only Jojo survives.
- At the last second Sydney whips the Soul River Jar onto the bot's forehead and captures its soul! A single brass coin spins in the clear water.
- Exhausted, the party stops to grab the robot man's cool scythes. They suck souls, apparently.
- Sydney casts their Safe Space spell and everyone piles into the door that they summoned, arriving in a pocket dimension consisting of a cramped London flat. For now, it's more than enough.

Total: 8000 exp

OOC:
- Chronicler and Treasurer: Carter
- Expedition Leader: George
- Vanguard: Ollie

Foes:

- A bronze golem (100 exp)
- A cool Elf (500 exp)
- A metal man (100 exp)
Total: 700 exp

Treasure:
- 460gp, 11000sp, 350cp (34035 exp)
- Bow of the Ram
- Emperor's New Cloak
- Wing Suit
- Soul River Jar
- Vaunted Prize
- Woman-Hating Sword
Total: 34035 exp

Exp Totals:

- Carter / Sydney, Level 6 Magic-User: 65759 (Level up at 72000)

- Ollie / Jojo Fullbeard, Level 6 Muscle Wizard: 42775 (Level up at 72000)
Level Up! +1d4 HP! +1 Mana! +Free spell! +1 to Saves! +Backstory!

- James G / Tyler Lockheart, Level 6 Specialist: 35101 (Level up at 48000)

- George / Poison Phil, Level 5 Fighter: 28175 (Level up at 32000)

- Kitty / Julian & Aximander, Level 5 Languid Wastrel: 19844 (Level up at 36000)
Level Up! +1d6 HP! +1 Mana! +Free Spell! +1 to Saves! +Backstory!