Dramatis Personae
+Ronnie Whelan as Ronnina
+Moreven Brushwood as The Four Gobbos
+Adventures of the Mind as Don Harper of Mars
Loot
Jar of Used-To-Be-A-Howler – 30sp for Magic Lab (15sp if sold)
Samples of Howler Horticulture – 80 sp for Magic Lab (40sp if sold)
NPC Interactions
Sheniqua & Albert the Great were present, and participated in the group’s adventures.
The 3 Brain Slaves, Sarah, Burdle, and Yom; Sorta tagged along at the back of the party, looking forward to being free, but never getting close enough to the action to really participate. They’re starting to feel nervous, as the party doesn’t actually seem to know how to help them.
Highlights Recap
With the ground floor of the complex now fully investigated, Ronnina went upstairs to meet with Don and Albert, while the three Brain Slaves waited at the bottom of the stairs. (Stairs being a notoriously difficult challenge for them). Seeing an opportunity, the Gobbos decided to occupy themselves by jumping and lazing upon the massive tumorous sacs of the Brain Slaves. They didn’t appreciate it, but they’re a browbeaten bunch, and did not protest.
Upstairs, Don Harper and Ronnina made a closer inspection of the devices which seemed too amazing to be real–which it quickly proved they were not. Drawing upon his technical expertise, Don Harper discovered that despite being labelled “Recombination Goo,” the vat of green fluids was actually a disposal chamber. The goo was a powerful acid, and the mechanisms built into the vat were meant to chop up, separate, and strain anything placed into the vat.
Moving then to the enlarged ration he had produced, Don discovered that it was not a ration at all. It was nothing but paper mache around a wire frame. And, indeed, that seemed to be all the machine was equipped to produce when Don inspected it. There were a few rudimentary motors and gears, but nothing more complicated than that. Certainly nothing that could handle producing organic material.
Unsure what to make of these machines, the party decided to postpone further investigation until they had explored the rest of the building. Don Harper began by sneaking upstairs, where he found a sumptuous arboretum, tended by a Howler gardener with a small set of clipping shears. Don placed himself in hiding and took aim with his crossbow. He was spotted, but still got a well-aimed shot off. The two exchanged a few blows before Albert leaped on top of the Howler, and managed to pin him to the ground.
With the enemy secured, the party began asking questions with their weapons poised over the Howler’s body. When he proved intractable, the party did a little stabbing, then asked the questions again. As he continued to prove completely unwilling after several injuries, the party decided just to knock him out and test the acidic disposal vat in the chamber below. It proved…very very effective. There was a lot of crunching as the creature’s bones were broken to the whole of it could fit into the vat. By the time the process was over and the goo was pumped into a spare tank through a filter, only a small heap of used-to-be-Howler goo was left to be scooped out.
Ronnina and Sheniqua, meanwhile, made sure to grab samples of any of the interesting plants in the room above. When they got downstairs, they also scooped the used-to-be-Howler into a jar, for experimental purposes.
This left only the basement of the Hall of Science to be explored, and so the party descended into the massive dark chamber they’d briefly seen during the previous session. There was a rustling, shuffling in the darkness. Rather than exploring slowly, they opted to make a quick jog for the stairs leading to the room that overlooked the manufacturing floor. They were stopped only briefly when they discovered the door was locked, but Don Harper quickly unlocked it and pushed it open.
They were struck, immediately, by how long the door must have been closed. Not only was there a distinct change in pressure between the outside and the inside, but when they pushed the door open they caused a human skeleton that had been leaning against the door to crumble into a heap of bones.
Looking around, they saw a window from which the whole manufacturing floor could be seen. There was a control panel with a variety of switches on it. One wall had been covered in the 12 pieces of art Cheetoes-themed art from a company poster. Another wall had been covered in what must have been hundreds of tally marks. The final wall–on the back of the door where the skeleton had been leaning–had been carved with a message. “I am so sorry. We didn’t know this would happen.”
It was then that the party noticed that a crowd of creatures had gathered outside at the bottom of the stairs. Plump crusty bodies with narrow arms and legs. Powdery orange skin. A wisp of yellow mold growing from the top of each. The creatures were terrifying, and without any hesitation, Mogmurch threw a bomb at them, killing 7, but diminishing the mob barely at all.
The horrible creatures started to charge forward, and Don Harper shouted at them to stop. Given the success of the bomb the referee determined that a morale check was in order, and the cheeto creatures rolled a 12, so they stopped their charge. Don Harper called for their leader to step forward to represent them. At first, everyone started to move forward, but after some scuffling between the folks at the front, one managed to make it up the steps, and the others didn’t dispute him.
Don insisted that they make way for the party or die, but the cheetoman leader refused. He insisted that the cheetomen were the best at killing, and that they were going to kill the party like no one had ever killed the party before.
During this whole process, Rita and Chuffy, who had stayed behind as lookouts, had been rolling a barrel of gasoline into the building, and using cups to coat the Chester Cheeto statue @ the entrance with it. Chuffy hid behind the thing, they lit it on fire, and Chuffy began to speak in his most commanding (for a gobbo) voice. This did not impress the apparently irreligious Cheetomen.
After an exhaustive amount of further trump references, including referencing the cheetomen’s predilection for walls and their absolutely, unerringly, stellar record of respecting women, the party determined that there was no way to resolve the issue peacefully. They punched the Cheetoman leader through the face, killing him, and slammed the door shut and locked it. They expected this to be a temporary solution, but apparently the Cheetomen were too weak to force the door open once it was locked. The party began to plan.
Using one of the Gobbo’s cookie jars, they mixed together Mogmurch’s last bomb with the salve of butts, a maltov coctail, some bullets for Don’s Uzi, and one of the bear traps. It was a very big cookie jar. They then broke the window, lit the wick of the bomb, and threw the concoction into the massed crowd below. It exploded, killing dozens, and cursing dozens more with tiny farting butts growing up through their powdery orange skin.
As the smoke cloud of cheeto dust obscured the battlefield, the party popped open the door and sprayed Uzi fire into the crowd below. Another morale roll was called for, and shockingly, the cheetomen rolled another 12. Apparently they are a deeply cowardly race. The cheetomen ran for their holes, where they cowered in fright away from the party.
With the press of danger alleviated, the party turned their attention to the control panel. They’d attempted to use it during the battle with little success, but now had some time to experiment with the switches and their various possibilities. In addition to lights, and a bevvy of controls for the conveyor belts and the machinery, there were a few unusual options.
The “Lockdown” switch caused metal doors to slide into place above the stairs leading down into the manufacturing floor.
The “Disposal” switch opened a large door in the middle of the manufacturing floor. This the party put to good effect by dumping all of the cheetomen’s containers into the disposal, perhaps finally getting rid of them.
The session ended In Media Res