Dramatis Personae
+David Carli-Arnold as Asheron
+Red Flanagan as Classified
+Ronnie Whelan as Ronnina
+Moreven Brushwood as The Four Gobbos
Mutations
Asheron is an Outsider now.
Loot
None of consequence.
NPC Interactions
A Random Outsider Gate Guy – Asheron totally pwn’d him.
Highlights Recap
With the Asteroid taken care of, and the space ship completed, the party decided they were ready to take a bit of a vacation from doing Internet work. They wanted to take some time to pursue their own interests, and look into various loose ends they’d left on the path towards space shippery. And, to start with, they decided it was time to take their first trip outside the Dome.
Ronnina and Classified both put on one of the space suits the party had collected, while all four gobbos climbed into the third. They purchased a fourth for little Asheron, and headed off to Outsider territory, since they have the most well maintained and easily accessible airlocks.
When they arrived, Asheron got into a bit of an argument with the most notable Outsider on site, grilling him on how Outsiders can breathe on the surface of Mars, and why they won’t allow anyone older than a newborn to go through the ritual. The Outsider insisted that it’s merely a matter of Strength, and that an older person could not survive the ordeal. Asheron did not accept this, and walked away frustrated.
The party’s hirelings stayed behind, with particular instruction to Sheniqua that she stay within sight of the dome, in case they needed to make a hasty retreat, and Ronnina decided to cast Mage Portal. And with that, the party set out, setting foot on the surface of mars for the first time.
On this barren landscape, they were faced with three landmarks they could investigate. The Desert of Woe to the North, the Manarae Mountains and valley to the South and the Jarrett Crater to the West. During Asheron’s discussions, he’d learned that the crater is where the Outsider’s ritual took place, so they decided to start there.
After climbing the steep edge of the crater, they discovered it was filled with a dense field of baby skeletons. Only half of Outsider children make it back from the ritual, after all.
First thing first: Ronnina immediately raised fourteen 1hd baby skeletons, because it’s awesome.
Once that was taken care of, Asheron scanned the crater to see if there was any spot where the skeletons seemed a little less dense. And, indeed, he noticed that there were several such spots, dotted all around the place. The party moved to investigate one of these, but found nothing obvious. Even after Ronnina’s Skeletons moved aside all the bones, all they found beneath was soft, red dirt.
Only once the skeltons started digging did Asheron notice that there were little grooves in the soil. He stopped them, and gently exposed one of the tunnels, which seemed to have been made by a little worm.
Asheron came to a decision. He took off his space suit, laid down in the dirt, and suffocated to death. He did so, secure in the knowledge that consuming the soul of Jesus Christ a few months back had given him one guaranteed resurrection from death.
But, as it turned out, it didn’t come to that.
Before brain death really had a chance to set in, a worm wriggled its way out of the dirt, into Asheron’s nose, and crawled down to nest in his lungs. Asheron is now an Outsider. He rolls 4d6 for his Strength and Constitution, and keeps the total so long as it’s under 18. He can also breathe just fine in the thin atmosphere and punishing temperatures of Mars. He can also survive in a vacuum for significantly longer than a non-Outsider could.
The party returned to the Dome, and Asheron mocked the guy who’d told him he was too old to become an Outsider. They passed the now spare space suit to Spooky, and immediately set back out again, this time headed for the Manare mountains.
Passing through the valley, they spotted a nearby cave, which sloped down gradually towards the back, eventually becoming a nearly vertical shaft. The moved in to investigate, and Ronnina cast Cling to Stone so she could walk down the shaft easily, while Asheron rode on her back.
As they passed beyond sight of the rest of the party waiting above, they encountered a face.
And the session ended, In Media Res