Session 11: Muscles becomes the party leader
Run on October 21, 2020 | Week 11, Year 1
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Goblin Bazaar:
Amid the rotted pumpkins, sticky children’s toys, and stacks of XPS foam, the party is able to find a shop vac in pretty decent condition for 500r, being sold by a goblin with a bandaged crotch and a listless 1000 yard stare. Elsewhere, the party finds a spiral notebook with most of the pages torn out. The few that remain contain the 1st level OD&D spell “Read Languages” for 160r. It’s a spooky version that requires tongue jam as a spell component, making it technically a necromancy spell.
(Both were purchased by the end of the session.)
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The party returned to their exploration of the first level, eager to get the whole thing mapped out. They marched straight through the Bovine rooms, down the Eastern corridor to the far South, past the skeleton & robot still pinned to the wall beside the “MeatLESS creatures stay out!” message, past the garbage dump, and into the fetid old battlefield still litered with rotting bovine meat and rusted robot hulks. On the way the party encountered a paper salesgoblin who gave free airplane-making lessons with every purchase of five sheets. Idoru didn’t think much of this hustle, and got pretty aggro about it, but Samo smoothed things out by buying some paper and a lesson.
Beyond the old battlefield the players came upon a cramped storage room stuffed with furniture, and beyond that an inscrutable machine apparently maintained by robots. They threw a rat at it, and it made some sounds, but did no harm, so they scooted right past.
Ahead of that they found a room filled with vending machines, one of which had clearly been retrofitted to be tamper proof, and to accept rations. After putting some rations in, getting some good food, and a starving snake, the party decided to test how tamper proof the vending machine was. They took an axe to the back panel, revealing a sign warning them to stop. They ignored it, and activated an explosive device which blew open the back of the machine, and charred Varza (who had been swinging the axe). Within the party found a number of dead animals, 80 good food, 45 rations, and a prosthetic hand. These are not listed among the loot because they were all gone before the end of the session.
Further on the party encountered a ghost named Frewgal. They threw a paper aeroplane through its body, which offended Frewgal. When the party offered to make amends, Frewgal insisted that they bring him some Bovines to eat. They agreed (perhaps sincerely, perhaps not), and asked to be allowed to go through the room’s other door. Frewgal wished he could oblige, but the Bovines had barred the door fromt he other side. Utilizing their friendship with the Bovines, the party shouted through the door that they were planning to blow up the Robot’s inscrutable machine, and wanted to flee through this door. The Bovines protested that opening the door was dangerous, and the party browbeat them for being ungrateful. The bovines agreed that when they heared the explostion they’d pry the barricade off the door to get it open for the retreating characters.
Moving alone, Sammo gathered some of the party’s explosives and one of their guns, and returned to the room with the inscrutable machine. They’d learned from Frewgal that it fired projectiles at moving targets, and was calibrated only to attack creatures of bovine size. Sammo approached to 30′, and the machine made some threatening noises as he did. He surmised that getting closer to the machine perhaps made him look larger, and that if he got any closer than this the machine might attack. He hurled his explosives–two firebombs and a grenade–then bolted from the room as the fire spread and the explosion went off.
The bovines were good to their word, and just as Samo returned to Frewgal’s room, the door opened. The party made it through…as did Frewgal. As the ghost performed greusome murder upon three of the Bovines, he loudly thanked the party for keeping their bargain with him, and assured them all was forgiven. Faced with having their relationship with the Bovines completely destroyed, Idoru gathered up all their treasures and bolted straight for the elevator and down to the goblin market, where she purchased the shop vac. (Fortunately there was a fairly safe path without encounters!). By the time she returned Frewgal had devoured four Bovines, and retired to his chambers to digest. The party engaged with him and–after several failed attempts which required clever thinking and teamwork to overcome them–managed to get him sucked up and trapped inside of a sack, which the party handed over to the Bovines. Their reputation is tarnished, but they managed to salvage it from complete ruin.
With a little time still left for delving, the party backed up a bit to check out some of the other rooms attached to the room with the large inscrutable machine (which appeared to be in pretty bad condition thanks to the explosives!). The party found an old bathroom, then an abandoned and ransacked room that appeared to have been decorated by the purple robed nerds. There the party met Muscles the goblin, very drunk, and convinced him to join the party. He immediately led them to his stock of booze–a nearby room which had been the Bovine’s distillery before the robots took this territory–and the party ended the session by rolling 5 of those barrels right out of the dungeon, managing to avoid any major encounters.
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INJURIES: Varza’s maximum hit points were reduced by 1.
RELATIONSHIPS: Boastful Bovines feelin’ pretty neutral right now.
HIRELINGS: Muscles joined the party. Level 1 Goblin Fighter with 17 STR and 10 CON
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LOOT:
“Read Languages” spell
Shop Vac (requires battery)
1 pet snake. Normal size, not poisonous.
5 barrels of grain alcohol (1000r)
TOTAL: 1000r / 200r each for Chris, Ava, Elias, Phil, and Moreven
Session 12: The Goblin Sub-King’s Sandwiches
Run on November 4, 2020 | Week 12, Year 1
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Goblin Bazaar:
Among the jewelry made from old socks, board games with missing pieces, and boxes filled with mailing envelopes, the party finds some goblins selling Walkie Talkies for 800r, and some others selling a smoke grenade for 180r.
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Deeming that their exploration of the first level would not be able to continue unless the party invaded robot territory–a thing they wished to avoid–they chose to move down to level 2. The situation there remained much as they had left it: the goblins held firm control of roughly half the space, and the wizard Bogdar Beefirned (former ally to the goblins) held the remainder. Common goblins remained devided about whether the party should meet with the King, or the Sub-King regarding contributions to the war effort, and so the party chose the Sub King, on the assumption that it would be better to build a relationship with someone with a little less power who might value their aid more.
As it turns out, in addition to being a lower ranking administrator, the “sub” in sub king has a complicated etymology that descends from sandwiches. He gladly welcomed the party’s help, outlined his best case scenario (return of all former Goblin territory + Bogdar being brought to heel) and the reward he would be willing to offer in exchange (8000r, or maybe some intangible foot-in-the-door to Goblin policy making), but also noted that some lesser success would also be nice, and rewarded comensurately. Before the party set out the Goblin Sub King shared with them portions of his daily ritual sandwich. Each day a different magic sandwich could be prepared, and today was one which caused any water the consumer touched to become instantly frozen.
A goblin guard led the party towards the boundary between Goblin and Bee territory. On the way the party spotted some humans canoodling, and pointed this out. Their goblin guide seemed highly agitated about this, because the humans living in goblin territory had been specifically forbidden from making any new humans. The party recommended the goblins search out some condoms in their scavenging missions.
After passing the goblin front lines, the party skirted and dodged their way past the bee-addled giant babies, through rooms with walls covered in hives and honeycomb, past some giant bee growing vats, some corpses poorly animated by swarms of bees, a spell-fueled battery charging operation, and finally to Bogdar’s private seclusium where they discovered that Bogdar was an absolutely unfuckable nerdling. Like…just the worst. The party had been planning perhaps to negotiate with him, but decided to kill him just to stop the referee from doing that stupid voice. And–fortunately for them–they were able to get a solid drop on him with a combination of Pearl spraying water-turned-to-ice, and Samo having a convenient vermin killing spell that destroyed Bogdar’s bee armor.
The party thoroughly looted Bogdar’s home, then set off back to safety. On the way, they stopped in the tunnel leading to the hole which restores bodies. Varza removed all his gear and ran down the hallway at all speed, hoping to make his body a little more whole after all the injuries it had suffered. He did make it to the hole, and it did restore some of his maximum HP, but on the way back Varza was killed by giant babies.
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INJURIES: Varza died.
RELATIONSHIPS: Goblin sub-king appreciates the party’s effectiveness.
HIRELINGS: Muscles has a max HP of 6.
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LOOT:
-A full library of Bogdar’s experimental research.
-Bogdar’s Spellbook
-Scroll of Invisibility
-Fancy mechanical bee (1000r)
-Bogdar’s Hoard (3000r)
-Sub-King’s reward (6000r)
-3 Jars of Honey (500r)
-12 Gallons of Honey sucked from the walls (11,000r)
-10 Batteries (200r)
Totals: 21,700r, or 5425r each for Idoru, Pearl, Samo, Phil’s new character
Session 13: “They were nerds. They pissed me off. Now they get to be whipped by spider people.”
Run on November 18, 2020 | Week 13, Year 1
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The players did not visit the Goblin Bazaar this session.
After reviewing what there was to find on the various levels of the dungeon, the players chose to venture down to the fifth level, which the party had only explored two rooms of back in session 6. After clambering along the pipe-laden walls to avoid the acid pit, the party headed East. They found a great hive of grey snake-bodied creatures who seemed mostly to be sleeping, and avoided it. They also found a room with shelves stacked high with car batteries. The batteries were not attached to anything…save the ones on the top shelf, whose contacts were touching a set of metal plates on the ceiling. Neither of these rooms seemed worth messing with, so the party pushed onwards.
They party came upon a room where meat fell a grate on the ceiling. Just…plopped down onto the ground. There was a snow shovel, a bag full of plastic bags, numerous burrows in the walls, and streaks of grime on the floor suggested this room was highly trafficked by denizens of the dungeon. Using Samo’s noise surpression ability to mask their work, the party set about prying open a hole in the grate so they could go up and discover where this meat was coming from. While they worked one of the grey snake-bodied creatures from the adjacent room came in, and asked what they were doing. The party learned a great deal from this conversation:
• This fella’s name was Siccsi
• The snake bodied creatures are a sleepy, mostly chill bunch called Gorgonites.
• Gorgonites worship Medusa.
• The Gorgonites don’t know where the meat comes from, and don’t think anybody does.
• The dragon lives on this level. The dragon has worshipers, and slaves. Gorgonites who wander off alone are often taken as slaves, which is why they learn from an early age that going off exploring is dangerous.
• Everyone on this level shares the meat room. The players are welcome to take some meat for themselves, but are warned that if they make a habit of it, or if they try to take enough to feed a whole community of people, then all the factions on this level of the dungeon will set their differences aside to protect their meat room.
• The meat is very regular. Once you learn its patterns, you can always predict exactly when a certain sort of meat will drop in.
The players offered Siccsi a blanket, which he was enthused to receive, and went back to his place to take it for a test nap.
Up beyond the grate they were confronted with an array of chutes and conveyor belts leading off out of sight.
The first converyor belt they went down (after taking AMPLE safety precautions) led to a tiny room with no other exits. On the floor was a 10 by 10 red square, and a young man standing at a table with his back to the conveyor, butchering a cow. The players watched until all the meat was ready. He turned, dumped it onto a slide that led onto the conveyor belt (without ever leaving the red square), then noticed Sammo and Pearl.
The young man called out for someone named “Mr. Richmur,” accused Sammo of being a “Dimensional Alien,” then suddenly he jump-cut back to the table, standing beside the now-living cow. He killed it with a bolt gun, and knelt to drain its blood. The haphazardly discarded bolt gun come to rest exactly where it had been before the jump cut. Exactly. The meat, however, remained on the converyor belt.
Following another conveyor, the party found a young woman plucking chickens. She was startled in much the same way as the young man: accusing Samo of being a “Dimensional Alien,” and calling out for “Mister Richmur.” They party left without waiting for her to reset.
Up a chute the party encountered a middle aged woman shearing a lamb in preparation for slaughter and butchery. This time Pearl took the lead, claiming to be Mister Richmur’s neice. The woman was quite concerned about a child being up here, and even more concerned when she saw the ladder she had used to climb up here was gone.
It was around this time that the younger woman from the previous room climbed out, and began having a noisy panic attack. The party and the two women had a lengthy parley, and learned that both women believed the current date was over a century ago, and that they had only been here a few moments. Both were also professional butchers who had been hired to stand in the red squares and perform their tasks only a single time, and had been told their actions were going to be recorded exactly for some future use. They were instructed to work with their back to the conveyor.
The party convinced the two women to go back to their tasks for now. They reasoned that if they left now, they would face not only the great dangers of the dungeon, but also the additional danger of everyone on the 5th sublevel being angry about their food source being disrupted. Samo promised to animate some skeletons to replace them soon, after making arrangements for them to live safely in the dungeon. They agreed with trepidation. The poor middle aged woman is now re-living a constant terror until the party returns. The younger woman had the presence of mind to thoroughly calm herself before reentering the loop.
They party went up to the 3rd sublevel to talk to the densely crowded and practically enslaved purple robed nerds, to see if they would take in the butchers on the grounds of shared humanity. The purple robed nerds pointed out that they were a religious group, not an ethnic one. And also that they were over crowded and enslaved.
The party took offense at this, and gave the nerd’s spider masters some encouragement in future abuse of their nerd slaves. They also learned that the spiders eat nerds who are too elderly or weak to work, and inquired about where the bones are discarded. The spiders provided a map to the 3rd level landfill, though noted that they already boil the bones for broth. The party thanked the spiders, and returned to the safe, spacious freedom of the surface community where they live among all the other humans.
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LOOT:
Bag of Meat (200r)
100r each for Pearl & Sammo
(a 250g steak contains 679 calories, roughly equivelent to 1r. A plastic grocery bag can hold 17lb, or 7711g, ergo a plastic bag can hold 30r worth of steak. Multiplied by 5 because it’s good rations, and rounded up quite a bit because I’m nice.)
Session 14: “It’s like NATO, but meat.”
Run on December 2, 2020 | Week 14, Year 1
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Before the party could rescue the time-looped humans, they needed to get those bones the spiders had directed them towards. The map led them through nerd territory, past that wind tunnel fan (which was now creaking uncomfortably), and into a particularly fetid trash heap. Wary of what might be lurking beneath it, the party went back to the fan room to remove the protective grating to serve as a sort of trash raft. Unfortunately, as they were prying it off, the creaking of the fan turned into a horrible rending sound as the blades spun free, twirling through the room, injuring Idoru, and embedding themselves in the far wall.
Rattled, but with everyone still on their feet, the party returned to the trash room. Their preparation paid off, as the grating protected them from several giant centipedes. They collected dozens of skeletons worth of bones, leaving still dozens more behind. On their way out the fan’s still-spinning impeller looked about to give way, so Pearl used her Sundering Word to break it for good. Samo glimpsed something lurking in the darkness behind where the fans had been, but there was no time to figure it out now. Onward to the meat room!
In the acid room the party spotted a tripwire which would have sent them tumbling into the acid. They climbed carefully over it, made their way to the meat room, where who should they find but Siccsy! He thanked the party once again for the blanket, and let them know that the very slight alterations to the meat schedule had been noticed by inhabitents. Nobody was angry or anything, cuz the meat was still showing up, but it had people feeling a little nervous. Out of respect for the blanket, Siccsy hadn’t said he’d seen some humans climb up the meat grate right before it happened, but warned that he wouldn’t be able to protct them if the meat was really disrupted. The party thanked him, and continued on up. (He also told the party that the tripwire was probably set by Goblar, an oversize outcast Gorgonite who believed meat only tasted good if it experienced pain before it died).
They started with the young woman butchering chickens, who earned the nickname “Plucky” because the referee referred to her one time too often without actually deciding on a real name for her, and now that’s just her name. They took her out of the cycle, animated one of the skeletons (which was very shocking for her), and had her teach it to do the job she’d been doing, then sent it into the time loop to replace her.
The party repeated this process with a grumpy 30 y/o woman cleaning a fish, and with the nervous middle aged woman butchering sheep. Samo was only capable of animating three skeletons today, so that was all the party could do for now. They stored the remaining bones here so it’d be easier to come back and continue freeing people, and made a quick inspection of the other rooms up in this weird meat ceiling place. There were 17 in total: 3 for cows, 4 for chicken, 4 for pork, 3 for fish, 2 for lamb, and 1 for octopi.
Leading this group to freedom, the party came upon a second trap in the acid room: one of the pipes they would usually put their weight on–one they had used on their way in–had been sawn nearly all the way through! Presumably this was Goblar again, and now that the party wasn’t in such a rush they decided to deal with the matter. They set up some of their remaining bones near one of the acid room’s entrances, and a tripwire near the other, then pulled down the pipe and screamed as if they were in pain. When Goblar ran to check on his catch, Samo animated the skeletons and they easily grappled him down into the acid, where they and he were melted away into useless sludge. Goblar the Torture Beast is dead! (Samo’s final spell for the day was a different sort of skeleton animation than the one used to replace the time looped workers.)
The party moved to loot his small territory. His trap room was now baited with a fake bazooka, but they saw right through the trap and the deception. They freed some of his prisoners, looted his private chambers, and fled back up to the goblin market, then finally to home!
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GOBLIN MARKET:
Idonno bought a laser tripwire for 600r. It requires a battery to operate, and by default makes a loud sound when someone walks through it, though it’s set up to be easily connectable to other devices.
Samo bought a treasure map to the location where a secret cult is leaving offerings to a god they’re not even supposed to be worshiping.
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RELATIONSHIPS: The party rescued 3 humans from time loop captivity and brought them to the surface. They also rescued 6 goblins, 8 humans, and 5 gorgonites from Goblar the Torture Beast. Most of these fled home, but the goblins accompanied the party to the goblin bazaar, and 3 of the humans accompanied them to the surface.
HIRELING INVENTORY: Plucky joined the party as Idonno’s hireling. She’s a level 0 human from the pre apocalypse, and a butcher of supurb skill. HP: 6, STR 14 CON 12 DEX 12 INT 12 WIS 7 CHA 13
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LOOT:
Goblar’s Ration Stash (200r)
Goblar’s Stash of 15 Batteries (300r)
Goblar’s Stash of 55 Ammunition (550)
(1050 total, 263 r each)
9 Flash Grenades
AK-47
Pearl: A spongy green mushroom with a fuzzy stem.
Samo: A treasure map which I will send to him directly
Session 15: Degloved
Run on December 16, 2020 | Week 15, Year 1
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GOBLIN MARKET:
A highly advanced prosthetic left hand was avaiable for sale for 900r. There was also a potion of Heroism available for 180r. The party purchased both items from the same shady dealer who clearly thought he was lying about the effecacy of the potion, even though it is legit a real magic potion.
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The party loaded up on supplies and returned to the fifth level of the dungeon to free the rest of the trapped butchers. Though Idono was not present, Plucky accompanied the party anyway, as she has a vested interest in this particular situation.
The party passed a group of Gorgoites using a tin boat to carry salvage taken from Goblar the Torture Beast’s home, across the acid pool, and back into their own territory. They had a brief friendly parley in which the party were identified as “Those Humos Siccsi mades friends with.” Samo gave them some tasty yoghurt, they exchanged jokes about how weird humans are, and the party moved on to free the first three butchers. One of the three turned out to be a person whom Plucky had a hostile relationship with, but the party simply had one of the other butchers they’d freed talk to that fellow, and everything worked out alright. The party also had each of the three spend a little time collecting other useful animal produce: feathers from chickens, wool from lambs, and hide from cows, before teaching the skeletons to replace them at their original meat producing tasks.
As the party escorted these folk out, they were startled by a piece of pipe dislodging itself from the ceiling and tumbling into the acid pit. The splash caused no harm, but it nearly capsized the Gorgonite’s boat. Before returning to the ceiling meat chambers to rest for the day, the party met with Siccsi and proposed that they could arrange to have non-meat animal byproducts begin to appear, and that if Siccsi collected them on the party’s behalf, they would pay in goods produced with the items (blankets, pillows, and such). Siccsi wasn’t opposed to the idea, but warned that if the items dropped into the meat room they would be fair game for everyone on the dungeon level. Not enthused about this idea, the party decided to investigate the possibility of digging out a new path that would drop their animal products into the battery room North of the Gorgonite’s lair. Siccsi agreed that if they could manage it, that would probably be a safe and effective plan.
DAY 2: With an extra spell slot available, Samo was able to replace 4 more of the time looped butchers with skeletons. One of these four wasn’t able to calm down after the shock of what they’d been through, and attempted to flee from the party whilst crying out for Mister Richmur. Samo and Pearl got the drop on them and were able to knock them unconscious, and they were carried out of the dungeon along with the other three newly freed butchers. On their way through the acid room they discovered that a great swarm of ceiling-clinging turtles had emerged from the broken pipe. Pearl tossed a bone up at them to see what would happen. Two of the turtles launched long elastic tongues out to catch the bone mid air, fought over it, and the winner easily snapped the bone in half to suck out the marrow. The party contrived to capture 3 of these turtles, and set up a small terrarium for them. Plucky was set the task of finding some excavation equipment, but her luck was bad. Only 2 rusted pick axes were available.
DAY 3: Another set of 4 butchers freed. Among this lot was one who seemed a little overly enthusiastic about the existence of interdimensional aliens, and in particular seemed eager to engage in debased and erotic forms of play with Samo. Samo was not interested. On the way out the players discovered that the ceiling turtles had constructed a great orange globule on the ceiling, which seemed to hang there like a great droplet of water. They moved in and out of it. Samo collected a sample, and on the surface discovered that their own three capture creatures had constructed a smaller and similar ooze within their terrarium. After removing it the party were able to wittness the creatures excrete the goo from somewhere behind their heads and underneath their shells. Its purpose remains unclear.
DAY 4: The final three butchers were rescued without any particular hiccup, save that one of them seemed a little over-eager to get out there and start doing violence in this brave new world of dungeon adventure. Among this last group was a fish butcher whose loop included repeatedly fucking up on one of his cuts, such that he cut through the skull instead of behind the neck. Samo noticed that the skull and brain of this fish had a sort of magical effluvience about it, and removed the mangled head for further study. Upon doing so the fish no longer respawned when the time looped, and continued not to spawn even after the head was placed back within the loop. The meat room will now produce one fewer fish. Hopefully this will not be noticed. The party returned this final group to the surface, and ended their adventures for the week.
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RELATIONSHIPS: In addition to rescuing the remaining 14 butchers from time loop captivity, Samo spent most of each day getting to know them and helping them cope with their new realities. Meanwhile pearl used chicken feathers to make crowns for the Gorgonites, which were considered a good and kind gift.
Also the party named their three weird turtles “Fizzle,” “Sizzle,” and “Rizzle.”
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LOOT:
-A modest supply of chicken feathers, sheep’s wool, and cow’s hide.