Session 36: Ha HA! The Curse is Defeated If We Don’t Say Anything!
Run on December 1st, 2021 | Week 37, Year 1
======
GOBLIN MARKET:
A Juiced-up Henry the Hoover for 700r (party passed on this), and a napalm grenade for 140r (party snatched this up!)
======
During session 36, when Samo was alone, he managed to be immune to the curse laid upon the party at the end of session 35, because he was exploring as an individual. However, now that the party is once again a party, they were forced to grapple with the dungeon while cursed to be unbearably rude. Hoping to avoid the consequences of this curse, the party opted to avoid going anywhere they might expect to meet people they’re friendly with.
And so they ventured for the first time down to the 10th level of the dungeon, where they encountered a fountain burbling with earl grey tea (Gross!)(?). They then met a woman who called herself The Happy Cobbler, and was engaged in making shoes presumably for sale, but she took a strong dislike to the party (due to their curse), and the party took a strong dislike to her (due to thinking she ought to be nice to them despite their curse). She tried to trick them to exit her shop through a door which led into an out-of-control bladestorm spell, but the party didn’t take the bait, and left.
Taking a different path from the elevator, the party came upon an ominous crystal which they chose to ignore. A little further in they encountered another fountain, this one flowing with molten glass. Samo ordered one of his skeletons to coat its body with the stuff, leaving room around the joints. As the party were pondering what to do with this stuff and where they ought to go next, another group came in through the elevator. The party heard them split into two groups, with one group heading in the same direction they had. They stopped in the crystal room, and the party saw it was some of the same tri-corner hat humans Samo had summoned in session 32. They were saying some pretty mean and racist stuff, so the party opted just to attack them in ambush rather than wait for a confrontation.
Each was armed with a gun, but the party managed to control the battle via the element of surprise. During the conflict the humans shouted to one another that once they subdued the party, they could force the rat person to touch the crystal, to be sure it was safe. So when the party instead subdued them via judicious use of Hold Person magic it seemed like poetic justice to force one of them to touch the crystal. Unfortunately, it turns out there was a demon trapped in the crystal who wanted to make a bargain. So, in exchange for giving up his body to the demon, the demon agreed to kill the human guy’s enemies.
The demon was formidable enough to send Samo and Pearl fleeing back towards the elevator, finger-guns blasting at their back. All Samo’s skeletons had to be left behind, and a flash bulb had to be used to distract the second group of pursuing tricorn humans, but the party managed to escape without any more significant losses.
======
NICK’S TO-DO LIST:
-Develop updated Magic in the Moment
-How will the slimes pay Samo back?
-How will the spiders demonstrate their friendship?
-Write rules for Barrel Roll technique
-Figure out if there’s anything interesting in “Necromancy for Teens”
======
NOTEs:
-The Jug of 3 Liquids has used Napalm Twice & Mutagen once.
-Skeleton Dragon has 2 damage.
======
LOOT: None
Session 37: Casting Stone to Meat
Run on December 29th, 2021 | Week 38, Year 1Run on December 29th, 2021 | Week 38, Year 1
======
GOBLIN MARKET:
A Bow of Faerie Fire (produces its own darts, but deals no damage) for 900r; and Snuff of Levitation for 120r.
======
Samo, Sarah, Samo’s Dragon, and 4 Skeletons under his control descended to level 6 via the second elevator, and made contact with The Children Who Cannot Help But Be Creepy. Samo inquired some about their way of life, helped prepare meals for them, and learned that they had a nearby fishing hole they used to acquire a good portion of their food. The water flowed through a large pipe, with a cut out in the top of it through which fish could be caught. Samo sent one of his skeletons down river and, as an experiment, had it drill a hole down to the lower level. Unexpectedly, the water began to drop! Perhaps the water is in a closed circuit?
Samo went to level 7 looking for the leak, and burst in on the territory of the Little Pink Engineer Ladies. Before they could attack he managed to get their attention with a warning about leaking water. And—seeing there was none in this room—the Ladies inferred from Samo’s description that their allies the Dogs must be in trouble. Some still wanted to attack Samo, but he agreed to retreat as they moved to act on his information.
Back up at the pipe, Samo summoned a swarm of ants to form a ball and temporarily seal the hole the water was draining through, then sent a skeleton in with a tarp to work on a slightly more permanent solution. Samo assured the Children Who Can’t Help But Be Creepy that he’d take care of the issue he caused, but it has currently been left in a precarious situation.
Samo moved East looking for another access point to the water pipe. He didn’t find one, but on the other side of the room with the strangely jerry-rigged helicopters in it, Samo found a door painted to look like a little cottage door. Within he found a little old undead woman named Mildred who seemed to be nothing but pleasant. She doted on Samo and Sarah, and they learned that she is apparently one of Adolphus the Hateful’s first undead creations. A failure, by his measure, but one he hasn’t seen fit to destroy for whatever reason. She seems very crafty, and when asked what she might value she told Samo she’d love a musical instrument to play. Or maybe some other art supplies, she isn’t picky.
Samo briefly encountered a blue goo who loved dogs to a distressing degree, and a walk-in freezer, before needing to turn back. On his way out, Samo was accosted by The Giant Stone Head Which Vomits Zombies. He pulled out a scroll of Stone to Meat from session 32. The head, suddenly fleshy, was shot to pieces by a barrage of attacks from Samo & Friends, while vomiting zombie statues that could barely move. Having killed this long standing irritant to the party, Samo cut out its gullet, which—in death—functions as a kind of bag of holding.
======
NICK’S TO-DO LIST:
-Develop updated Magic in the Moment
-How will the slimes pay Samo back?
-How will the spiders demonstrate their friendship?
-Write rules for Barrel Roll technique
-Figure out if there’s anything interesting in “Necromancy for Teens”
======
NOTEs:
-The Jug of 3 Liquids has used Napalm Twice & Mutagen once.
-Skeleton Dragon has 2 damage.
======
LOOT: Gross Bag of Holding
Session 38: Crowdsourcing a Ukelele
Run on January 12, 2022 | Week 39, Year 1
======
GOBLIN MARKET:
The Goblin Weapons Master is exhibiting his wares for the next 6 weeks! First up is the battle seesaw for 400r. Built to slide one end under your foes, then have as many goblins as possible leap onto the other end to send them flying.
Additionally the party found a highly advanced prosthetic right arm with colorful decals on it for 1000r, and a thrown glass ball which afflicts the person hit with it with Polymorph for 1 hour.
======
The ‘bag of holding’ Samo procured last session was filled with a rancid substance akin to ground beef. He wandered out into the desert a ways and found a pit to dump it all out in. It took awhile.
Samo made a point of collecting some nice gifts for Mildred this session. At the goblin market he was able to find some paints, some paper, a few nice new cookie sheets, and some scrap metal that he and Sarah shaped into cookie cutters. They made Samo-shaped and Sarah-shaped ones. What Samo really wanted, though, and what the Goblins couldn’t provide, was an instrument.
Given the Boastful Bovine’s love of putting on shows, Samo inquired with them. They do indeed have some instruments (a concertina with missing buttons, and two banjos that each have janky strings, and one has a poorly repaired neck). Both are essential to their work, and they wouldn’t be interested in selling them for mere rations. They’d want something in exchange that could improve their performances enough to compensate for the lack of music.
Samo then paid a social visit to the Spiders on level 3. After trading anti-human pleasantries, Samo asked if the spiders could create some non-sticky threads in Diatonic scale. The Spiders, still enamored of the party after the events of session 32, were happy to provide.
Samo and Sarah then spent time constructing a long-nekc ukelele/banjo-like instrument. They constructed the resonance chamber from the shell of Samo’s largest pet turtle, the neck from a cut-down 10′ pole. Samo summoned colorful beetles, and used their shells to make frets along the neck. The neck had a right angle offset at the end, which the strings and tuing pins were attached to.
The party delivered the instrument to Mildred. She loves it! She insisted on feeding the party, and taking Sarah’s measurements for a sweater. (She always looks so cold, poor dear.) They talked with her about what information she might know. Unfortunately she didn’t have answers to many of their questions about the other residents of the dungeon, but she was pretty confident that the Porcs were originally summoned into the dungeon by Mondar the Malcontent, who thought they’d make good minions but was sorely disappointed and abandoned them.
======
NICK’S TO-DO LIST:
-Develop updated Magic in the Moment
-How will the slimes pay Samo back?
-How will the spiders demonstrate their friendship?
-Write rules for Barrel Roll technique
-Figure out if there’s anything interesting in “Necromancy for Teens”
======
NOTEs:
-The Jug of 3 Liquids has used Napalm Twice & Mutagen once.
-Skeleton Dragon has 2 damage.
======
LOOT: None
Session 39: The Red Key
Run on February 9, 2022 | Week 40, Year 1
======
GOBLIN MARKET:
One goblin was selling magically heat-resistant socks for 1100r, which the party passed on. Another was selling an old pineapple-style grenade for 200r, which the party purchased.
======
The party descended to Level 4.
They checked with the animate instruments to see if any of them wanted to come on an adventure to become Mildred’s instrument, but none of them did.
They passed through the Horror Harem, and barged into Mondar’s seclusium. As a matter of great fortune for the players, Mondar was in a mood to be intrigued by the impressive magical accomplishments of the party’s Dragon-Mech, and the fine work done to endow Sarah with soncousness. The matter of his smashed door was set aside so he could have a long chat with Samo, who learned that Mondar specializes in Confusion, Control, and Binding magics. Pearl looked around to see if she could find the red key, but wasn’t able to. She did find some weird floating grey orbs though. Also Samo summoned some Porks here. Mondar recognized them as creatures he had originally collected from another world in hopes that they’d make good foot soldiers, but they were too chickenshit so he abandoned them. He said he was glad someone was getting good use out of them. Samo was polite to the Porks until they left. The party was left with the impression that Mondar is a dick, but also Mondar seems happy to have another magician to talk to.
From here the party set out to scour the rest of the Southern half of the level looking for The Red Key. They came upon a gallery of some incredibly violent “art,” they traversed several long corridors that went nowhere, they eventually found a path to the room where they’d harvested the Dragon’s armor from an old helicopter—thus finally connecting their maps of Northern and Southern halves of the level. Finally the party decided to check out the bar, where among all the various patrons they settled on talking to some goblins. They were comiserating with one another about the state of Goblin politics and the lack of good sandwiches lately, so the party offered them a deal. For 300 rations and directions to Mildred’s house (“if you’re nice to her she’ll make you some excellent sandwiches”), all the party wanted was directions to the Red Key. The goblins conferred. They really hoped it wasn’t in the Room of 3000 Drawers, because that room is unpredictable and the guy who lives in that room is scary. They settled on taking the party to a nearby hallway, where the path forward was guarded by a sentient, mobile, angry wall.
Exactly what treasure the Wall was guarding wasn’t clear at first, but he absolutely didn’t want anyone else to see it or touch it or even think about it. Some clever fasttalk on the party’s part caused the wall to suspect its treasure may not actually be there; or that it might be a forgery! The wall let slip that the treasure was a beautiful shade of red. The party produced the large colorful scales they’d acquired from the Room of 3000 Drawers, and offered the Red one in exchange for the creature’s treasure. It clearly wanted it, but refused. So the party offered both the Red and Purple one, and the wall accepted. It allowed the party to take The Red Key in exchange for their two scales. (Also during this process Pearl threw a mushroom into the wall’s mouth with a deft throw, and it caused torrents of water to come flying out of the creature’s mouth. Enough to fish in—and there were fish! This didn’t end up having much impact on the outcome, though.)
With all three keys in hand, the party took the second elevator to level 3, where a large vault door had slots for each of the keys. Beyond it was a portal, which led to a small metal room. This room also had two doors with similar key slots: one orange, and one green. The party quickly realized they could produce these colors by shoving two cards into the slot at the same time. The doors accepted this.
Through the first door, the party found themselves in an airlock. Apparently this area is built inside an asteroid somewhere up in space!
The second door let out into a large room with 5 destroyed robots in it. The robots were massive, heavily armored things with heavy cannons, but all had been destroyed by having parts of their bodies disintegrated. Sarah was able to recover some data from them. Apparently these are fairly dumb machines, who operate on simple instructions. Their last instruction was from a long time ago, instructing them to prevent anyone from coming up here from the Dead Planet. She was also able to recover some Black Box footage of what destroyed them, which she described to the party: a massive, sinewy dragon with and oily black appearance and dangling tendrils across its body. It caused spherical “voids” to appear seemingly at will, which destroyed the robots without any apparent effort on its part.
The party returned to the surface, and their homes, for now.
======
NICK’S TO-DO LIST:
-Develop updated Magic in the Moment
-How will the slimes pay Samo back?
-How will the spiders demonstrate their friendship?
-Write rules for Barrel Roll technique
-Figure out if there’s anything interesting in “Necromancy for Teens”
======
NOTEs:
-The Jug of 3 Liquids has used Napalm Twice & Mutagen once.
-Skeleton Dragon has 2 damage.
======
LOOT: The Red Key
Session 40: Puzzles Are For Lamers
Run on February 23, 2022 | Week 41, Year 1
======
GOBLIN MARKET:
The goblin weaponsmaster demonstrated the Giant’s Colander, which many goblins can move around in and stab out of! The party didn’t buy it or hire its services.
There was also a tazer on sale for 600r (which they party bought) and an information broker who could sell info for 70r per question. They party didn’t ask anything.
Samo sold 1 of his Scales for 800r. He still has the Silver and Black ones.
======
Back up to the Space Station, the party encountered a bunch of doors with keypads they couldn’t figure out how to open, as well as a room where a number of dead bodies had been left long enough to mummify. They discovered a poisoned botany lab filled with a tree with pollen that makes you lethargic, then bumped into some goblins. The goblins were suspicious of them, saying they’d learned not to follow humans to a second location. The party pointed out that they weren’t human, and Gorgeous cast a spell on them to ensnare them with her cuteness. 12 Goblins followed her around the dungeon for the rest of the evening.
In an engineer’s drafting office, the party found plans to build a biodome on mars to escape the apocalypse, which were never acted on. They also found the blueprints for the dungeon they’d been exploring. Despite definitely, 100% being the blueprints for their specific dungeon, the way the rooms connected to one another didn’t match their experiences exploring it at all. As they rummaged through the room they goblins asked if they were looking for portal-machine schematics, which aren’t here, because the goblins have them.
The goblins then took the party to see their portal machine, which wasn’t quite operational yet, as the goblins needed a couple more parts and significantly more power than the station is currently outputting. They did loan the party a blowtorch though, which they used to return to those earlier rooms, and cut them all open so they could access all the sweet loot inside. In addition to the stuff listed in loot below, the party gained access to a number of informational resources they didn’t really spend any time investigating; save to learn that the purpose of the facility on the surface below had been to experiment with portal technology over interstellar differences. They also learned that the world had ended because another such facility had opened a portal to a world with an incompatible atmosphere to earth, and they hadn’t been able to close the portal.
While doing this the party was attacked by a plant called The Fungal Devourer, which swallowed a goblin whole before it fled. They also wandered into a nest of RatMonkeyMen. Samo threw a grenade into the middle of the nest, killing a few and breaking the rooms’s vaccuum seal, causing it to be cut off from the rest of the station. Still, 8 of the creatures got through to fight the party, and inflicted heavy damage on Sarah, reducing her to 0 hit points.
While working to repair Sarah, the dragon they’d seen in the blackbox recordings from the end of last session came upon them. It was at first confused by the undead dragon mech, recognizing it as an unliving thing. Pearl got the drop on it with a machine gun blast right into its eye, but the dragon is tough. Its disintegrating breath dealt significant damage to both the Dragon Mech and Pearl. Pearl managed to escape by user her gun to propell herself through the zero gravity environment, succeeding on some dex checks to change direction and hop back on through the portal back home. The Void Dragon retired from the chase, and Samo snuck back to earth with Sarah to continue his repairs.
======
NICK’S TO-DO LIST:
-Develop updated Magic in the Moment
-How will the slimes pay Samo back?
-How will the spiders demonstrate their friendship?
-Write rules for Barrel Roll technique
-Figure out if there’s anything interesting in “Necromancy for Teens”
======
NOTEs:
-The Jug of 3 Liquids has used Napalm Twice & Mutagen once.
-Skeleton Dragon has 14 damage.
======
LOOT:
-Blowtorch
-Circular Saw
-Power Drill
-Angle Grinder
-Dremel
-Portable Lift
-ShopVac
-Laser Rifles (2d6 damage)(Enough for everyone)
-Plastic Armor (AC 16, Lightweight)(Enough for everyone)
-4 Plasma Rifles (2d12 damage, need a round to cool after being fired, also fragile and prone to breaking)
-Large collection of music (worth 10,000r to the goblins)
======
Dragon Mech’s Stats
(Because I can’t freakin’ find them anywhere!)
HD: 10
HP: 46 (currently only 32)
AC: 16
Attacks: Claw/Claw d8/d8