SESSION 211: Did the Murder got the Pay and then Paid the Tax
After utilizing the right tool (Boris) the gang gets loaded down with loot forcing them to return to base before further exploration. The trip back narrowly dodges a fumble right out of the gate.
Day 128 Continued (12.20/ 0305): As Ding-We contemplated how to get the most utility out of the metal detection wand, Bunny started working the gem of true seeing while the others began to earnestly inspect the walls of the large ‘empty’ chamber before the manticore lair. The bugger about for a while until frustration began to set into Ding-We. “There is treasure here somewhere why can’t we find it…”, his complaint trailed off as another thought bubbled up. He cursed and left the chamber. Back up the stairs and returning to the chieftain’s chamber where there was a bunch of dwarves, our new elf, the engineer and ‘man-ape’. Everyone knows that Dwarves and Elves have rather discerning eyes and not utilizing this talent was mud-brained. Ding-We told Chung and Boris the situation and they went back into the dungeon. A few moments after getting down the steps Boris noticed a sly architectural feature in a corner. “Looks like you dorks got distracted by the portcullis, just can’t see the tree through the forest – Ha”. Ding-We’s grumble was drowned out by Chung Li’s and Boris’s laughter as they continued to define the secret door.
Opening the hidden door reveled a short corridor that led into a chamber with an abundance of loot. “Pay dirt!” First things first Bunny noticed that the corridor was home to a pit trap and had to disable it prior to investigating the room. Doing that she moved in to examine the joint. An open chest oozing gold along with a couple of closed coffers along with some broken boxes and a smashed barrel in one corner and…. The distinct presence of yellow mold growing up the wall in the other corner. Raul remined all that fire was the only cure. Steve, with his environmental suit on produced a torch to burn it. Not worrying about spores he approached and touched his torch to the mold. It did not burn. Steve tried harder and then noticed that both hand and torch had passed through the yellow mold to no effect. “Something ain’t right I can’t touch it to burn it”. From the corridor behind smarter hobos observed a bit more closely, interrupting allot a absent minded finger nail picking. Saff was on deck with this, “It not real you dum-dum, make believe”. Steve processed this for a moment and then figured it out, remembering Saff’s fondness for throwing illusions around. He put the torch down and groped beyond the illusion. He pulled out a spear, two long swords in elaborate scabbards and a bundle of fine looking arrows. Ding-We directed him to put them in the centre of the room and just for fun check out the broken barrel in the other corner. It too was imaginary, hiding a small water tight barrel. Steve excitedly shook it, something hard was inside. After opening it he found not only an obsidian box but a map or perhaps a plan of another place. Once he passed Ding-We the document to review he put the box with weapons and gave Bunny and Bimbles room to do their assessments of the contents of the chamber. Bimbles gave the trap free status and Bunny began opening things. At the same time Raul came in to investigate the weapons. He quickly noted that all of the weapons carried runic inscriptions – “We got the good stuff boys”. The swords appeared to be the most complex. The first felt good in his hand it was, as a matter of fact, happy in his hand. The sword was Lil’ Smoker a flaming sword of enough forgotten renown to have rudimentary intelligence that it could pass basic information empathically. The sword was happy to pass along its capabilities an how to access them. The second sword was an altogether different bucket of fish. This blade was Malignant and hateful, with the ability to speak horrible things and it gave Raul a significant electrical shock that caused his hand to seize up. Unable to immediately drop ‘Burner’ the sword once more zapped him in hopes of killing this loser who had the audacity to handle it. Before a third and, likely, final fatal shock Raul was able to get Burner back into its scabbard and drop the wretched thing as it continued to spew profanities.
The portable hole was already open so they wrapped Burner in a blanket and tossed the evil thing in for latter resolution. The chests were packed with loot – gold, platinum, gems and jewelry. All gave praise to the god of level appropriate treasure allocation – Unka Gary!
Inside the obsidian box was a strange cable that radiated magic and a folded scroll that was clearly made of dried flesh. Ding-We ignored that fact as he snatched it from Steve. To his irritation he could not read the language and handed it off to Raul. It was written in the hill giant tongue and was directions on how to be transported to another place by laying out the cable in a figure ‘8’ patten and then stepping into the openings. Lacking the guts to leap into the unknown all the stuff was packed away. The loot holding contraptions were now getting real close to capacity. It was decided that a return to base was in order to lighten the load and ensure the wellbeing of the extra dwarves and the humans.
Back upstairs, they decided go exit via the back door.
They were going just to walk away but Ding-We, as he is very apt to do, came up with another plan. They would go around and check out the stone stronghold and then go around and check out the giant geese. Saffron flew off to investigate the structure it continued to be all quiet. Returning with the info the moved around the hill giant longhouse. Returning to the front they noticed that the giant corpse pile had been buggered with. Atop the rearranged pile sat the heads of the chief and his wife. The gang was perplexed for a moment, until a voice came from atop the giant’s watchtower.
Strong and without fear, “Well wouldya look at that Harold more minions of the vile giants and these ones are real fresh”. From behind the corpse pile another voice, “Indeed Mildred, those that serve the giants must be eradicated”. “Nope you got the wrong bunch we killed them, giants are bad m’kay”. Ding-We exclaimed while riskily signalling Saffron to use her ability to see invisible things. As we all know using magic when in parlay is a very hazardous endeavour, perhaps Saff’s innate magicks are very subtle and beign really small and currently invisible helped. She did not care for what she saw not one bit. Four green dragons were perched upon the roof with another partially astride and behind the corpse pile. Zipping to Ding-We’s ear – “dragons dragons dragons five big green lizards!”. Ding-We prudently worked to maintain parlay. Mildred and Harold seemed to be the only two speaking, they must be the leaders with the rest awaiting orders. Now we all know that MurderHobos Incorporated™ are some tough mothers but Ding-We knew that it would be impossible to get through this without hobo and company corpses all over the place. Another tactical retreat was likely needed. “Maybe you are not thralls or co-conspirators with those wretched giants and maybe you did indeed slaughter them all. If that is so you have robbed us of our righteous labour seeking reparation for the murderous actions of the giants.” Harold was laying something down that our gang did not quite understand. Mildred cleared it up, “Since you killed the giants you are now responsible for our reparations… to the tune of 30,000 coins”. A lot of pukey jumped up many the hobo throat with this demand. After a great big yucky swallow the hobos agreed. Sacks were cautiously emptied so as not to show the remaining mountainous amount of coin, gems and jewelry still inside. “Now begone!” The team b-lined for the giant goose pen quickly glancing back to see the treasure disappear, presumably down the throat of an invisible dragon.
Getting to the pen there were eleven giant geese, ranging between 4 – 5’ in height. The animals seemed to be settling down in anticipation of the evening. So the upcoming plan to collect them and also bring them back to base was not too much of a gong show. Afterwards out came the folding boat and they started rowing upstream back to the Gormandia Ferry. The trip was sadly eventless. They all settled into a couple days of rest before returning to the giant stronghold.
During the camp time Carla provided potent divine healing to repair the crushed spinal columns suffered by Boris and Camillus. Like turtles from their shells there necks extended back to natural length from there torsos. It would take a couple of weeks of rehab prior to once more hoboing. Also during this time Ding-We provided Chung Li with an empty spellbook that he could make his own, it would take three months to complete. I guess he may technically end up being our most long lived Elven adventurer. On the morning of the third day the gang once more opened up the folding boat and sailed back to the giant longhouse.
Returning to the stronghold they discovered and followed the dragons wake of destruction into the structure. Fortunately they terrible beasts were gone. The group returned to the pantry stairwell and down to the marshalling area. It seems that the mountain of corpses had attracted things that move in the dark. Unseen and moving across the ceiling of the chamber were six large and ravenous subterranean lizards. Battle followed quickly when the creatures dropped from above thinking they would get some really fresh meat. Steve led the clarification, it was actually our murderhobos whom would get a whole lot of fresh meat. Poor dumb lizards.
ROLECALL
Carla the Green High Priestess of TMB (C9) 270110 xp +10% <300001> CRT 1d12/III
Scars: permanent loss left index finger and scarring on arm
Bimbles the High Priest of GSS (C9) 244226 xp +5% <300001> CRT 1d12/III
Lasting injury: -1 STR, mashed arm
Hobo Steve the Lord (F9) 255585 xp +5% <360,001> CRT 1d24/V
Brain Damaged: reduced mental capacity (tough night on the town)
Touched from Beyond the Grave (Sloth): Eating disorder (x2 food) -5’ mve
Blessing of Orcus (Consumption -1 CON)
Injury: -1 STR from brutal arm shatter
Rahgnar the Dwarven Superhero (D8) 200035 xp <280001> CRT 1d20/IV
Serious wound: permanent loss of an eye (-1 to missile fire)
Critical Wound: disembowelled less able to process poison (-1 penalty)
Missing thirteen teeth
Raul the Voyager (MD8) 215368 xp +10% <240000> CRT 1d12/III
Serious wound: permanent loss of CHA -4,
Removed one of his own nostrils.
Boris the Dwarven Lord (D9) 335258 xp +10% <400001> CRT 1d20/IV
Serious wound: permanent loss of CHA -3, carved up face
Lasting injury: -1 STR, mashed arm
Wound: Bad leg (-5’ MV)
Multiple Injuries: lost 25 teeth (7 remaining), drools a lot CHA -1
Serious Injury: Brain Drain -2 INT
Serious wound: permanent loss of an eye (-1 to missile fire)
Injury: -Crushed -8” H
Ding-We the Peg-Legged Sorcerer (W9) 429933 xp +10% <470001> CRT 1d10/I
Critical Wound: Left leg obliterated, runs at ½ rate (peg required)
Bunny the Thief! (T9) 223717 xp <280001> +10% CRT 1d20/II
Light wound: permanent loss of pinky finger, off hand
Ramrod the Cloned Magsman (T8) 153935 xp +5% <160001> CRT 1d20/II
Serious wound: Bad Back (-1 stone CC)
Scars: Neurological damage to hip, noticeable limp (-5’ mve)
Missing eight teeth talks with a lisp
The Henchmen
Saffron the Mad Fairy Queen of Ribbits (FY7) 159994 xp <200001> CRT 1d10/III
Moderate wound: Scar on abdomen
Lasting injury: -1 STR, mashed guts
Sloth the Bopper (L7) 159369 xp +10% <178800> CRT 1d20/IV or 1d6/G (vs. s, m)
Mental Illness: Mummy-a-phobic
Missing ten teeth
Nara the Nearly Naked Purple Swami Girl (PS7) 97971 xp +5% <125000> CRT 1d16/II
Wraith Drained: -1 CON
Biff Bartley the Half-Orc Blackguard (HO7) 101166 <120000> +5% CRT 1d12/II
Lasting injury: Crushed spinal column -6”H, -5’mv, -10% thieving
Sasha Plasha the Warden (R8) 116826 xp +10% <200000> CRT 1d10/III
‘BOB’ the Deadly Shade (N7) 64817 <90000> +5% CRT 1d16/II
Felix Ignatius Hemlock the once skeletal Sleuth (I7) 47017 <80001> +5% CRT 1d16/II
Mason the Lama of Yrrrg. (C7) 55787 <100001> CRT 1d10/III
Charles in Charge the Myrmidon (F6) 53918 <64000> +10% CRT 1d16/IV
Critical Wound: Punctured lung (-2 CON)
Mostly DEAD. (-1 CON)
Gurn Hammerhand the Dwarven Swashbuckler (D4) 21514 <36000> +5% CRT 1d12/III
Wendul the Magician (W6) 43262 <80000> 5% CRT 1d8/I
Dolec Da the Hero (F5) 38738 xp +10% <64000> CRT 1d20/IV
Missing five teeth
Camillus the Myrmidon (F7) 72796 <120001> +5% CRT 1d20/IV
Injury: -1 STR from brutal arm shatter
Injury: -5’mv from brutal arm shatter
Willy the Reformed Burglar (T5) 18256<20000>10% CRT 1d14/II
Chung-Li the Myrmidon Warlock (E6) 97000 xp <120000> +10% CRT 1d8/II
Brett & Jermaine Kobold Cooks Extraordinaire
RESERVES
BoB is the lone lawn ornament for the Basilisk Knights.
Boris & Camillus rehab (correction of structural injuries) for 14 days: 12 remaining.
Chung Li needs 12 weeks and a stack of coin to rewrite his lost spell book.
Elapsed Campaign Time
576 days at beginning of session (also applies to recuperation)
Join us for session Two-Hundred-and-Twelve when we ask the questions:
Was there really five green dragons?
What is left deep in the dungeon?
Will the magic chain of transport be utilized?
Is there actually something ‘bigger’ going on or are we just making shit up?
Do we want to activate something bigger?
Tale of the Tape
The six dwarves and twelve giant geese were successfully delivered to base camp.
Shaken down once more, paid off Mildred and Harold to the tune of 30,000 gp
Exploration
Location hex: 12.20
KILLS
Subterranean lizards (6) 3420
LOOT
4,139 pp
23,840 gp
Gems (62) 18,600 gp
Jewelry (17 x 500 gp) 8,500 gp
Heavy gold necklace with Fire Opal 2,000 gp
Arrows +2 (11)
Spear +2
Lil’ Smoker +1 Flaming sword (Neut; 6 Int – empathic) likes to burn flyers and plants and other stuff
Burner +1 Flaming sword (Chaotic; 12 INT – Speech) – Hates Raul for touching it and wants to incinerate Saffron
No comments:
Post a Comment