Session 38: The World is Metatextually Coherent on Accident
With a few months left Fall, the party settled in for some rest and recuperation. Addy and her ladyfriend spent time working on self defense techniques. Cozyglow continued being a subtle bad influence on the youth, and Glint took some of the town’s kids and parents out into the wilderness to teach them bear survival skills.
Specifically Glint was hoping to un-teach some of Hibub’s toxic orcish worldviews. It wasn’t a disasterous attempt, but Hibub came away mostly bored and frustrated. Ecco was likewise hoping to use the opportunity to socialize Bluepie with some kids her age. Given that she’s a literal torture demon, that effort went about as well as could be expected. She doesn’t have any new friends, but she did participate in a few good activities and had some fun. This could defs be a stepping stone to building relationships for her.
Just as it was getting too cold for most folks to want to be out in the woods, Fon the Wizard returned from the Island of the Myrmidons. He’d been embarassed that the Brain Eater had come through one of his portals and slipped through his security. He was even more embarassed when he learned it had escabed back out through another of his portals. He’d set out to track it down, and eventually wound up in a coastal town. Apparently a captain had started acting strangely and hiring a crew to visit a far off and accursed island. No doubt this was the doing of the fleeing Brain Eater. In researching this island, Fon had discovered an 800 year old journal, ostensibly written by folks who had been there.
From here the play diverged as the players took control of the authors of the journal. Through play they will write history, giving them valuable information about the island’s dangers before they risk their own cahracters, but also determining how the island has changed over the centuries.
First order of business was to get a camp up. Lacking better materials, they created a surrounding hilll of small rocks and brambles, and dug an inner trench, and brought their food and animals inside. Their boat they brought well up on shore to be safe from being carried off by tides.
The party’s second day on the island began with investigating a red obilesk protruding from the sea with fish markings and strange writings on it. The Rabbi recognized it as possibly Sumerian in origin, specifically in reference to the god Dagon, but that doesn’t make much sense so far from mesopotamia. The rest of the day was spent surveying the island as a whole. The party noted the warmth of the land, the great number of birds, and found a few hot springs with fresh water. Roni’s ex-legionary marked some of the boulders with Trans Gang Signs as they went.
The party took another rest in their camp. On the morning of their third day on the island they set out for the base of the central mountain, and a drawbridge entrance to it which they’d noticed the previous day.
The session ended with the party looking at the drawbridge, trying to figure out how to get it open.
Session 39: “Everything was going really well, until it wasn’t.”
Continuing in the journal the PCs are reading of events from 800 years ago…
The Patrician Sorcerer used a “Knock” spell to drop the drawbridge. Within were 12 statues, a fountain, a door, a balcony. The party climbed up to the balcony, and through a curtain into corridors beyond. They discovered a ransacked storage room, and a strange satyr altar that seemed to be constructed differently from the rest of the dugneon. When they entered, candles lit automatically, and satyr shadows appeared to attack. The party took a little damage, but defeated the satyrs by simply snuffing the candles. They then doused all the candles in water to hopefully prevent them from lighting again.
The gladiator had a dog on a leash leading the group, and further on down the corridor the dog (F) was vaporized by two arcane symbols, which burned out after. The party reached an area where the floor was torn up, with razor glass sticking out at weird angles, and silver wires inlaid in the wall. They decided not to fuck with this, and turned around. They went down some stairs, discovered a store room with silver wire spools and a chest of glass objects, and decided to take these outside to their waiting mule. In doing so they went back through the statue room through the double doors. After loading up their mule they went down a new corridor, where they found a portcullis, beyond which was a natural passage down into the earth. Pointed directly towards this portcullis was a massive ballista, and two axe-wielding corpses standing stock still at attention beside it.
Shortly after arriving in this room, one of the statues from the first room came up behind the party. It was animate, and violent!
Thinking very quickly, the party managed to turn the ballista towards the statue and obliterate it with a single shot. The undead guards didn’t move to stop them, or move at all, but did give the players the side-eye. The party got the ballista reloaded while the Rabbi went to check on the statues. The remaining 11 weren’t moving. The party regrouped and tried to go outside, only to run almost face-first into a newly animate statue! They ran back to the ballista and obliterated this second one. The bolt was getting messed up from firing point-blank into stone so much. They reloaded the ballista, and returned to the room. They planned to destroy the statues individually, but wanted to tie all their legs together to make it more difficult if they animated. Unfortunately, tying their legs was enough of an act of aggression for all 10 remaining statues to animate.
Half the party ran out of the dungeon, half ran into the dungeon, and a group of 5 statues followed each. The ones who ran out of the dungon made a big loop, gradually gaining ground on the slow-ish statues, and managing to make it back inside and raise the drawbridge. The 5 statues couldn’t get them, but now the party was stuck inside. They went looking for the other half of their party, and found a group of 3 blood-covered statues coming the other way. Through a series of hijinks involving tripwires, jumping off balconies, and a natural 20 ballista shot, the party managed to destroy these last 3 statues. Unfortunately many of their hirelings had been brutally killed: two of the firemen and the slave were both dead. One of the dogs (M) was severely injured. The two undead guards still stood still, but were now covered in blood.
The party regrouped here, to resume next session.
======
LOOT: Four spools of silver wire, a chest of glass objects of unknown purpose but obviously high quality manufacture.
Session 40: A Fisherman, a Fireman, and a Rabbi Crawl Into a Ravine…
As the party were recouprerating from their battle, the gates into the mysterious cavern opened and a troup of 20 withered corpses came out, each holding a metal bucket filled with strange lumiscent plants that vaguely resembled anemone. They ignored the party, and the party followed them to a series of strange corridors: arranged in a strange shape, with geometric patterns of silver wire and glass baubles on the walls, and an acrid smell in the air. On the floor was a raised gold plate. The undead wandered off down the verious corridors, with four remaining here to place their buckets on the plate. Water in the buckets soon began to boil, releasing more of the acrid fumes into the air. The Rabbi turned the undead and carefully removed the buckets from the plate. The party poked around just enough in this area to get a vague sense of its shape, and to find one other group performing a similar plant-boiling ritual. However, the acrid smelling air was highly poisonous. The party used their first death tokens, and were lucky enough to succeed on several saves as they extricated themselves.
Wanting to experiment, they hid the four buckets they’d taken in the entry room. After about 30 minutes the majority of the undead returned to the gate with their buckets, while the other four wandered around until they found theirs, went to re-start their boiling, and eventually returned beyond the gate with their compatriots. The party did not interefere with them further, and the undead seemed almost unaware of their presence as they focused entirely on getting their task back on track.
At this point it was about 6 in the evening. The party’s food had run off with the donkey. Pretty soon they’d start taking hunger penalties. After much debate about how they might escape it was decided that the group would confront the 5 statues they’d left outside.
The Rabbi lowered the gate. One of the five tried to jump up and grab it, which the Rabbi had been prepared for. He cranked the gate back up. The statue held on, but was pushed free when the gate slid back into its niche. It fell 30′ into the ravine below. The Rabbi lowered the gate again, dropping it and running away once the tops of the statue’s heads became visible. By the time they got inside, the Rabbi had grabbed a rope, and the two firemen had him almost all the way to the balcony. The statues went around the corner towards the stairs only for one to be obliterated by a ballista bolt. The Gladiator turned the Balista to wedge it awkwardly in the hall, then ran up the stairs himself. By the time the statues made it up to the balcony the whole party had jumped down again, and were well on their way out of the dungeon. Rather than continue the chase, the statues closed the drawbridge.
The party returned to camp. They spent two days eating, resting, chatting with their hirelings about what they’d all buy with their share of the Silver Spool loot. (Successfully alleviating their fear about the terrors of the dungeon), and turning some of the heavy shipboard ropes into a large heavy-duty netting.
On the morning of the third day the party returned to the drawbridge, leaving only a single pictish fisherman and the dogs back at camp this time. Most of the party climbed down into the ravine. The sorcerer opened the gates with KNOCK again, and the Gladiator inched forward. When no statues came charging out he carefully spread the large net across the drawbridge, entered the dungeon, spiked the drawbridge’s mechanism, and attempted to grab hold of the nearest statue.
The statues had been acting frozen to attempt an ambush, so the moment the Gladiator made hostile move they all jumped to life. They got several solid hits in while the gladiator slowly retreated, but he successfully lured them out onto the net. Once the Gladiator was clear, everyone down in the ravine yanked. Two statues tumbled down, were badly cracked, and the ravine team fell on them with hammers and heavy stones. One statue managed to hold on to the bridge, but was shoved off by the Gladiator. Unfortunately this late-falling statue landed on top of the Pictish fisherman, killing him.
The session ended with the party ready to enter a freshly statue-free dungeon!
======
INJURY: Gladiator at 3hp
DEATHS: 1/5
HIRELING INVENTORY: 2 Firemen, 1 Pictish Fisherman, 3 Dogs (2M, 1F), 1 Donkey
Session 41: The Roni Maneuver
With the statues gone and the immediate danger resolved, the party was free to return to exploring the dungeon. They had Four areas they could investigate futher:
*The candle room with the shadow satyrs (“Fuck that place!” they said.)
*The broken up hallway filled with sharp glass (“Eeeeuuuugh, nawww.”)
*The lower hallways filled with poison gas (“I mean…they’re filled with poison gas. Can’t do that.)
*The portcullis into the deep earth below. (“Let’s do that!”)
Using a combination of the balista and the Rabbi’s ability to turn undead, one of the two manequin-still guards was taken care of. The other ran into the poison gas, but was caught and chopped up when it attempted to return to its post later. With key in hand the party opened the portcullis into the depths and descended for about an hour pas the luminescent, amoeba-like fungus. The Gladiator tried to pluck one, but disocvered they had a powerful poison on them which numbed his hand and much of his body.
The party decided to poke ahead just a little further before returning to camp. They encountered a group of strange subterranean men who did not look friendly. From a hiding place they saw one of the men direct the other two (who had scarred heads and vacant expressions) in deploying some manner of complex survey device. After some time fiddling with it they put the device away and retreated, and the very puzzled party returned to the surface for several days of rest and recuperation. They made sure to close the portcullis behind them, and take the key.
During their days of rest the mood was generally good. Several people had died, but the party’s accomplishments outweighed their losses. It’s sad to lose a fisherfriend, but when you destroy 12 living statues it’s hard to argue their death was in vain.
Rested and recovered, the players caught a few of the friendly flightless birds from around the island, and an oar from the boat. They frist went to check the gate room, where they discovered both teams of undead harvesters trying to shove their way through the sealed portcullis. They heaved in unison against the gate, which didn’t budge much, but for sure they’d probably be able to get it open after a few hundred years.
The poison gas area was no longer filled with poison gas. They checked by tying one of the flightless birds to the oar, sticking it in the room, and it didn’t die. Thus the players were able to enter the space and move about freely and safely. They discovered three skeletons wearing a strange sort of glass plate armor, and moving arount frantically as if something was wrong. They’d noticed these skeletons doing maintainence earlier, and they now seemed to be panicked that something wasn’t working.
Much of the previously poison gas filled hallways were the same: pentacle shape, gold plated hotplates at each of the 5 points, silver and glass inlays on the wall. The only notable discovery was a door leading into the middle of the pentacle.
The door had a 6-fingered hand depression on it. At the tip of each finger was a glass ball, each of which were connected to the silver wiring that was inlaid on all the walls everywhere.
The players tried placing their hands in the depression, (using “The Roni Maneuver”), and tried constructing a six fingered hand out of the remains of the two undead guards they’d killed. Neither produced any result.
Roni suggested that the pentacle may be keeping some creature contained beyond the six finger lock door.
Elias suggested that the poison gas may have been powering the door, which would explain the maintainence skeletons being frantic.
Unfortunately the session had to end here, to be picked up next week.(edited)[2:46 PM]
======
LOOT: None
DEATHS: Still 1/5
INJURY: Gladiator got poisoned, but is healed.
HIRELING INVENTORY: 2 Firemen, 1 Pictish Fisherman, 3 Dogs (2M, 1F), 1 Donkey
Session 42: #Blessed
Not wanting to mess with the mysterious door any longer, the party turned about to investigate the last unexplored area of the dungeon: the cracked and broken corridor of blades. They moved upstairs, and told the surviving hirelings to wait on this side with the dogs. Alone the Rabbi, Legionary, and Gladiator sqeezed and wiggled their way down the hall, and opened the brass doors on the other side. Within was a spiral staircase leading up into an area of brilliant light, a burbling water fountain, and four statues: two titans holding up the ceiling, and two very large ones forming an arch at the base of the stairs.
They first checked out the water, which appeared to be completely cool and safe and normal water. Next they tried to go up the stairs…which caused the two statues to animate and attack. The party fled back into the corridor, where the statues had to get down on their hands and knees, and could only move single file. All things considered the party did a remarkably good job of staying alive and causing damage to the first statue, in part thanks to the Rabbi’s powerful #Blessing. They even managed to get the thing pinned, and could probably have destroyed it if the second statue hadn’t dragged it away back into their home room.
At this point the injured statue moved to take the place of one of the truly titanic statues, and the party knew they didn’t have much chance. Rather than continue to fight, they bolted up the stairs with all haste.
The steps were so incredibly steep and precarious that a dexterity check was required. The Gladiator went first, and rolled perfectly. The Legionary went next, and also rolled perfectly. The Rabbi totally flubbed it though, tumbled to the ground, got stomped on by one of the active statues, and nearly stomped on by another, before managing to bolt up the stairs to rejoin her companions.
The party now found themselves in a place detached from the earth. Platforms without walls or ceiling, drifting through space, held together by magic that was rapidly weakening in the absence of the machine which held gravity and atmosphere together. With the whole of Xenophron’s inner sanctum in view, they could see fascinating treasures in every direction…but of immediate import was the cloud creature wearing armor: Xeonphron, sacker of Jerusalem.
The wizard summoned his guardians and attacked the invading party. The Rabbi used up the second of the party’s five Death Tokens when one of the Wizard’s guardians tried to push her out into space. The hand of G_d returned her to safety, and she called upon the fearsome might of her deity to Turn the undead creatures, causing them to flee, with half stumbling out into space.
The Legionary was balefully polymorphed into a rabbit. She munched on an onion for a bit, then darted back down out of the space lab.
The Gladiator was disintegrated by one of Xenophon’s spells, using up the 3rd death token. Then Xenophon used a prismatic spray which blinded both the Rabbi and Gladiator. The Gladiator was driven mad, and the Rabbi would have melted away to nothing, but G_d again intervened, using up the 4th death token.
Groping blindly–grappling with his own flagging control over his actions–the Gladiator managed to get hands on Xenophron’s breastplate, and the Rabbi managed to grab hold of the Gladiator. They tried to hurl themselves all together off out into space–but Xenophon held fast. He conjured up spikes from the floor to pierce his foes, but the Gladiator rolled a perfect saving throw, the the Rabbi was protected by the divine G_d one final time, using up the fifth and last death token. Once more they tried to hurl themselves into space–and they succeded. The Gladiator, the Rabbi, and Xenophon all drifted out into the void, lost for all time.
Only the journal bounced from the Rabbi’s satchel as she was lost. It was picked up in the Rabbit’s mouth, and by G_d’s grace the rabbit was blessed with the power of writing just long enough to record the final moments of the party’s adventure. Seeing this miracle, the hirelings knew that the Rabbit was indeed the legionary. Unfortunately, they were not wise enough to consider that her form might be disspelled.
The hirelings retreated from the island. Selling the silver wire earned them enough to buy nice plots of land for themselves, which they farmed to the end of their days. The rabbit lived comfortably with them to the ripe old age of 16. They recorded the rabbit’s death in the journal, as it seemed only fitting to do so. The family lived and farmed that land for 16 generations before they were driven off by Myrmidons. They sold all their posessions in town before sailing off to search for a new home. That is how the journal wound up in the town archives, and where it was discovered by the Wizard Fon, and how it was brought–finally–to our trusty party of adventurers.
Session 43: “Eh, so some kids got murdered. NBD.”
(Bad Myrmidon interlude)
The party had plenty of time to make secret plans while the referee overslept, arriving at his own game over an hour late.
The session began with a great deal of preparation for the journey to the island. The party bought a wagon (100g), hired 3 mercenaries (500g), and a crew of experts. Unfortunately the experts came quite expensive (1500g), but the party were able to hire an Animal Handler, 2 Lumberjacks, 2 Fishermen, and an Engineer with structural and surveying experience. The people were hired for 2 months of work, and the party purchased 3 months of food for everyone (675g). In addition to purchasing labor power, the party bought some adventuring odds-and-ends, like a kite.
They also did some research on the Brain Eater: learning that it was a post-human creature. Either an undead, or a mutant. It was a shapechanger, but always had the same weight. It could also charm people it bit. The party secretly arranged for 5 passwords they could use in case the Brain Eater tried to disguise itself as one of them.
They went through the portal which led to the island that was formerly home to the Myrmidons. The fortification on the other side was coming along quite well! The wooden structures were in place, and stone walls were being built. The lands outside had been converted into good farmland. Not yet fully productive, they were engaged in some winter planting of vevegables like garlic, onions, peas, and kale. As the party moved through town they heard a lot of talk about dangerous giant worms, and surmised that these might have become a problem because of the giant bird / crow they’d killed back in session 24.
Not wanting to drag a second wagon through the mountains of this island, the party headed South. Along the road they encountered some farmers killing a group of children. Sensing that there was probably more going on here than met the eye, the party none the less stopped the farmers from doing their killing. They wanted a clear idea of why the killing was happening before allowing it to continue.
Unfortunately this was just the opportunity the creature maturating within the children’s husks needed. They all vomited up a purple goo, which coalesced into a heap, leaving the children as nothing but deflated skins. (Which Ecco secreted into his pockets.)
Turns out the kids–teens really–had done some cool edgy-to-the-max evil rituals in the woods, thinking it was all fun and games, and in the process had become hosts for this terrible goo demon’s pupa. It began moving towards the sea, but the party were able to tangle it up in a tarp and burn it away to nothing. The toxic fumes that came off the burning goo required a saving throw, but everyone passed, so it’s fine.
======
LOOT: Hollowed-out tween skins
HIRELING INVENTORY: 3 Mercenaries, 2 Lumberjacks, 2 Fishermen, an Animal Handler, an Engineer
Session 44: Hireling Color Commentary
Bad Myrmidon Interlude
As the party rounded the horn of the mountain range, they came upon a great turtle-like creature with a serpentine neck, which had apparently become disoriented after beaching itself, and was near death. They cautiously fed and watered the creature, and helped it find its way back to the sea. As the group leaves the scene, the Animal Handler hired during the previous session wondered aloud to the other hirelings why nobody consulted her. The fisherfolk agreed.
Further on they encountered a strange fellow who claimed to be Achilles himself, and challenged them to a deadly battle. The party bargained the fellow down to a wrestling match, and managed to convince him to sweeten the challenge by offering his magic sword as reward if they won. The guy turned out to be pitifully weak, easily trounced by Glint. After going through a brief denial, “Achilles” decided it must be because the party was composed of gods. He embraced them as “Zeus” and “Ares,” handed over his sword “for the gods giveth and they taketh away,” and continued on his way. The Lumberjacks chatted amongst themselves about how in the Deep Woods, an obviously mentally ill person would be cared for, not left to fend for themselves.
As the party traveleled, they gradually left the familiar looking farmlands of the Keep’s outpost, moved through untouched rolling plainsland, then once again into farmland, but now of a distinctly different sort, with different crops bound by a different style of fence, harvested with different tools by folk in different dress.
Shortly thereafter, by sheer concidence, the party encountered a group of well armed men looking for a man who claimed to be Achilles. From what the party gathered, these men were that man’s half brothers. All were heirs to a substantial fortune, but these six would not get their shares unless they could return their mad brother back home, safe and unharmed. After some deliberation about whether or not these men had the fellow’s best intentions at heart, the party decided to give them accurate directions to where they’d last seen Achilles.
They reached now the gates of the city of Achopolis: a small port with thick cyclopean walls, guarded by bronze-helmed warriors marching around it. The city is somewhat out of place on the island. It is more reflective of the lands it shares sea lanes with than it is of the island itself.
The party were able to get into town, resupply their wagon, find a ship that would ferry them for a month in exchange for 1000gp (2 weeks there, 1 week on the island, 2 weeks back. Any more time will cost more money.) They found rooms for their party and were just settling in to wait for their ship to be ready when they received an invitation from the city’s Prince, one “Canthiles,” to dine with him at his manor. After some consideration they accepted.
It was a fairly modest home for a monarch, in keeping with the modest circumstances of the town. He turned out to be a relatively humble, affable fellow, and the dinner was all delightfully pleasant until the other shoe dropped and he confessed that his primary hobby in life was consuming the flesh of intelligent creatures. He assured everyone he did so in the most ethical manner possible, but that didn’t really make anyone more comfortable when he asked Hibub and Bluepy if he could have his chef cut off bits of them because he’d never eaten creatures like them before.
Bluepy was actually pretty willing, and skillfully negotiated away two of her toes in exchange for the right to execute a prisoner. (Ecco, as a responsible guardian, insisted it could not be a political prisoner). Canthiles said they had a 7-time repeat offending thief he’d been wondering what to do with. If Bluepie wanted to kill him in whatever manner she deemed fit, that could be arranged the following morning.
As Bluepie’s toes were cooked and prepared, Hibub remained firm in his absolute refusal to have any bits cut off of himself. Canthiles seemed…very disappointed, but hopeful that Hibub would change his mind eventually.
Canthiles delighted in the exotic flavor of Bluepie’s toes, and the dinner party came to an end. The party retired for the evening, still with 2 days to go before their ship would be ready to sail.
======
HOOKS: How will the dragon-turtle “repay” the party’s good deed? What happens to “Achiles?” Will Canthiles be satisfied with Hibub’s refusal?
LOOT: None.
HIRELING INVENTORY: 3 Mercenaries, 2 Lumberjacks, 2 Fishermen, an Animal Handler, an Engineer /// Bluepie, Hibub, Bulgurd
Session 45: Eating is weird! | Winter
Thulian Echoes / Bad Myrmidon | Played on September 19, 2020
======
Only Ecco was able to make it to this session, which resulted in 99.9% of it being spent in casual chit chat between real human people, none of which described the actions of fictional characters within the game world.
However, after leaving Canthiles peculiar banquet, Ecco found himself curious about eating. He’d always been surrounded by it, but being a construct filled with wool he neither desired food, nor was he desired as food, and so it was something of a foreign concept to him. While the rest of the party was sleeping, Ecco went around the city looking for folks to talk to about eating. Obviously they needed to do it to live, but what was so pleasurable about it? Ecco did not take any great pleasure in repairing his stitching every night. He would never over-indulge in it the way eaters often do.
After a few truncated conversations with folks who found him kinda creepy or odd, Ecco got into a really good chat with a mediocre seamstress named Rolla, who had been anorexic as a teenager, and had spent a lot of time thinking about food. The two were able to have a lengthy conversation about it, and parted as good pals when Rolla finally had to go home and get some sleep, lest she be late for work the next day.
Session 46: The Animal Handler Was Going to Waste Anyway | Winter
Thulian Echoes | Played on October 3, 2020
======
Cozyglow caught up to the party just as they were boarding their vessel, and off the party went across the sea in winter into the arctic north. It was a bitterly cold time, but was not beset by any terrible difficulties. The ship was beset by a slightly caustic slime at one point, but it was easy enough to clean off with venegar. (Ecco kept some). Cozyglow raised everyone’s spirits with some of her famous pies. Then there were these biting insects, but the party soothed the crew’s itchiness by repurposing some of the nicer ingredients that were meant for the captain’s table. This made the captain grumpy, but Cozyglow is a good cook and was able to whip up some lovely foods to satiate the captain. The cook didn’t like having her kitchen usurped much, though.
Once on the island the party saw that another ship had been dragged up on shore. Its hold was still full of lumber, and a few other trade goods. No owners were in evidence anywhere, so the crew of the party’s vessel set about loading all that cargo into their own ship. Cozyglow found a keg of good black pepper and made a gift of it to the ship’s cook, but apparently the rift between them was just too great. She will be Cozyglow’s enemy for life probably.
Unlike in the journal, the island was covered in trees, and had no birds at all. It was unusually warm for an arctic winter, no doubt due to the geothermal heat mentioned in the journal.
The group did a bit of cursory poking around, and spotted a few faded bits of graffiti left by the long-dead legionary. They approached the dungeon and discovered the drawbridge was still stubbornly raised after all these centuries. Fortunately, unlike their counterparts from 800 years ago, the party had Cozyglow to fly up to the top of the bridge, and a hired engineer who was easily capable of rigging up a device to pull the ancient door down. It did break the mechanism inside tho.
Just as the gate dropped, a band of brain-eaten sailors, clearly on the verge of starving to death, charged the party with intent to do violence on them. Having expected danger to come from the other direction, all the party’s most vulnerable people were the first ones exposed to the violence. The Animal Handler was killed in the first volley of spears before anyone even knew what was happening.
Elrica the Black Knight stepped foward as everyone else fled onto the bridge. (She’d been hired by the ship’s captain to protect them from pirates, but got bored and decided to join the party during the voyage). She cast a spell of darkness on the bridge, even as Ecco threw his jar of slippery and slightly caustic slime onto the bridge. The emmaciated and addle-brained sailors were made short work of by this tactic. Unfortunately, as some of the heads were flying off, one landed in the scummy fountain in the dungeon’s foyer, from which two gargantuan salamanders emerged. Once again the party was being attacked from behind, but Glint and Hibub were quick to react. Glint wrassled one salamander, and hurled it off the bridge where a spear from Cozyglow ended it. Hibub’s wrestling was less dramatically effective, but did stun the creature enough that others were able to slay it.
The party began poking their way through the dungeon. Its layout was certainly the same as described in the journal, and details like a mouldering ballista in the stairwell, and a broken gate to the underworld (whcich presumably the undead workers had finally broken down after a few decades of work) were all in place. The work of maintaining the poison gas seems to have resumed, and since Ecco does not need to breathe, he separated from the party briefly to check out the door they had determined could perhaps only be opened if the gas were active. Indeed, after solving a little puzzle (with juuuust enough failures to get a good electric shock for 5 damage), the door disappeared to reveal a room FILLED with those electrified silver wires. Perhaps something to come back for later.
The party moved upstairs, where Elrica took the Vril infused dagger from the centaur altar, smashed the candles, and moulded them into a single huge candle for unknown reasons.
The party also checked the storage room, which is still empty.
The only way forward now is through the corridor of blades.
======
CASUALTIES: Ecco -5hp, Animal Handler is dead.
HIRELING INVENTORY: 3 Mercenaries, 2 Lumberjacks, 2 Fishermen, an Engineer
LOOT: Vril Infused Dagger
Session 47: Short Work | Winter
Thulian Echoes | Played on October 17, 2020
======
The party, hirelings and all, inched their way through the corridor of blades, and came to the door beyond which they expected to find giant animated statues and stairs up to the portal that led to space. Notably, the walls were covered in water, making the party suspect that perhaps the room with the statues was filled with water waiting to burst forth? Particularly dangerous given the electricity charging the corridor of blades just behind them. It was decided that the hirelings would wait in this hallway, and the door was carefully tested before it was opened, and only a few inches of water slooshed out. The statues were right where they were supposed to be, though appeared severely eroded.
Taking a skeleton crew of 6 out of the 15 people present, the party used animated rope to make a lede up to the portal, then made a mad dash up stairs. It wasn’t entirely elegant, with a lot of tripping and stumbling, but everyone successfully made it through the portal before the statues were able to get in any attacks.
Beyond the portal, the space was much as it had been described in the journal, but barren. The “rooms” (if they can be called such without walls or ceiling) were empty. All but the one containing the inscrutable wooden device. The party made their way towards that and noticed that one element of it stood out from the rest. There were four barrel-like pieces on the side, but only three seemed nicely mounted, while the fourth looked like a slapdash addition. Recalling that the Brain Eater had snuck into the Keep on the Borderlands disguised as a pumpkin, they surmised that it must be a shape changer, and this barrel may be the creature. Adelaide tested this theory with a thrust from her rapier, and was rewarded when the barrel unfolded itself to reveal the brain eater in all its gory, and the two giant salamanders it had enslaved, and which it had been hiding within itself.
The battle was swift and brutal. The Brain Eater, though hardy, could not survive a sustained attack from Adelaide’s sword, even when three more allies attempted to hurl their bodies like projectiles onto the party by leaping from the platform above. (These appeared to be some of the scar-headed sub men described in the journal.) One of these Bluepie took out on her own, flaying it, and breaking its jaw so she could wear it on her head like a crown and cape.
The party was grossed out, but glad to be victorious. The final looting of the island dungeon, and searching for answers to its many mysteries, will have to take place next session.
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CASUALTIES: Hibub Karate reduced to 2hp, and Ecco still -5hp.
HIRELING INVENTORY: 3 Mercenaries, 2 Lumberjacks, 2 Fishermen, an Engineer (separated from the party)
LOOT: None
Session 48: A Dangerous Intelligence | Winter
Thulian Echoes | Played on October 31, 2020
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After a good long morning chat, the party consisting of Glint, Wob, & assorted hirelings decided the most expedient way to discern what the inscrutable wooden device was would be to give it life. Wob cast a spell of animation upon it. The infant creature was able to communicate telepathically, seemed to be able to detect minds at a great distance, and seemed to derive joy from shattering those minds via some unknown process which consumed its reserves of energy. It described to the party how to make what it would eat (including derivations from several underdark plants), and the party told it they would “put it to sleep” while they gathered these components. They then de-animated the thing, scrapped it for parts, and burned the remains, lest it ever be put to wan use again.
On their way out, the party collected the many additional hirelings they’d left outside the statue room, and returned to the gas-filled corridors of the giant pentacle. They rigged up some quick gas masks using magic which the referee explicitly indicated set no precedent for future use. The room was filled with a great tangle of silver wires, which were animated by magic to disconnect themselves from the devices they powered, and roll themselves out of the dungeon. At no point did the party touch anything in this room.
Treasure in tow, the party returned to the vessel they’d come in on, loaded everything on board, enjoyed a safe trip home across the see and across the island of the Bad Myrmidons, and returned at last to the keep with the terrors of the Brain Eater, and Thulian Echoes, behind them.
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Note: This session was played in an accelerated form, since only the denouement was left, and there were so few players able to attend. Sometimes the players get lucky, and everything just sorta goes their way.
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HIRELING INVENTORY: 3 Mercenaries, 2 Lumberjacks, 2 Fishermen, an Engineer are returned to the keep. The party only lost 1 of the people they hired, and considering it was understood to be a dangerous mission, they are considered to have done a pretty good job. Though, obviously, the family of the dead Animal Handler are devestated. This ends the contracts of these hirelings. They’d all be willing to hire on for future adventures.
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THULIAN ECHOES NOTES: I thought it might be fun to share how some of the player’s actions while reading the journal affected the island they visited in the present:
The island is filled with apple trees because the PastParty ate a bunch of apples, and took no care about the cores. They are short because the island’s heat is geothermal, and any higher than 12 feet exposes them to arctic winds. The birds are all gone because the PastParty brought rats to the island on their boat, which escaped while the dogs were away, proliferated, killed the birds, then starved to death before the apple trees started producing fruit. A cargo vessel is run aground on the beach, and placed in slapdash drydock, because the Brain Eater is here.
The machine was down long enough that Xenophon’s laboratory lost atmosphere and gravity. Any physical treasure which was not bolted down drifted away. It took several decades of work for the undead maintainence workers to break down the gate. They resumed their work, which got the machine working again, and returned both gravity and atmosphere to the laboratory.
Their destruction of the gate exposed the entirety of the dungeon to creatures from the Inner Earth, but because the drawbridge was left sealed, the creatures were not able to venture out onto the island. Their habitation made the dungeon squalid, which led to the water pipes becoming clogged up. The burbling fountain at the laboratory entrance began to overflow, eventually filling the whole of the entry room with water. The smaller statue nearly destroyed by the party was damaged enough that erosion destroyed it completely. The remaining three statues still stand, but their features have been flattened somewhat by exposure to water and algae, resulting in each one having 6HD instead of 8HD.
Some of the contents of Xenophon’s study were unique objects. 300 years ago, another magic user learned of their existence, consorted with demons to discover their location, and spent decades on a device that would allow them to retriefe the items from orbit around 1SWASP J140747.93-394542.6. At some point after reading these, the Brain Eater devoured this magic user’s brain. Xenophon’s journals described the building of this place, and when the Brain Eater realized what part of the world it was in, it realized this laboratory might make for a handy bolt hole to escape pursuit.
The Brain Eater left the crew of the ship in the forest to ambush anyone who followed it, then turned itself into an ant so it could enter without opening the drawbridge. It made its way to the laboratory, opened the door, and was surprised when a wall of water burst outward. The water then hit the Corridor of Blades behind the Brain Eater, delivering a massive electrical shock. The machine’s operation was not disrupted by this. The Brain Eater then fled into the laboratory to lick its wounds, and plot.
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LOOT:
Heaps upon heaps of silver wire (75,000gp)
Remains of “Loomy” the inscrutable brain destroying device (12,000gp)
Total: 87,000gp. Split between all participants (Wob, Ecco, Glint, Adelaide, Cozyglow, Elrica) this comes to 14,500gp/xp each!