SESSION 229 (Side Session): Siege on the Gangrenous Pt. 6 – The Dream Forest
The B(oris)-Gang come to the end of the forest to find a river of pus before a wasteland pocked by bubbling lava pits that lead to a plateau housing a rotting space worm.
Day 174 continued (not of this world): With Willy (and Agolloch) avoiding what we had thought was certain death they instead revelled in their slaying of the ‘beast’. As Boris and Sloth opened up the slain dinosaur. Good times it looks like it had consumed a princess at some point its guts held a tiara, necklace, arm and ankle bracelets all of notable value.
Good times indeed.
As the crew stepped ever closer to starvation and or dehydration it was decided that even with a half day of hiking remaining they would camp and eat lizard instead. It was a hot and sticky “day’ in the forest as it was. They were able to butcher three days’ worth of food and bleed the beast to supplement the remaining half day of water in their possession. They were now blood drinking murderhobos .Meaning they were either badass or in big trouble. I think we know which. They hunkered down under a giant fern and webbed themselves in for safety reasons. Aside from the constant buzz of abnormal insects they made it to the next day.
Day 175: The day started with a reprieve. Thunder and heavy rain. How is that possible? I couldn’t tell ya. They used the first half of the day collecting water. This included making three dinosaur skin sacks. The skin bags actually worked pretty good for holding water. Before hiking once more they were able to collect two days of rationed water along with a full serving for this day.
An hour or so later they came across an armored dinosaur with a mighty malleted tail grazing. They were beginning to realize that resource management was the imperative and they should not be taking unnecessary risks – they went around the creature.
A half hour or so later, Sahsa began to see signs that the forest was thinning a ways ahead. It still took a while longer but they had finally traversed the forest and what they saw was.. not so good. The forest dropped down to a river of glowing pink ooze that was covered in the large mosquito like bugs that were sucking the gunk up. Even better, was the extensive charred wasteland pitted with smoking lava pits beyond. Far off in the distance a stone wreathed tableland could be seen at the extent of this lost land. Sasha and Ike figured that for better or for worse the outcropping was where we needed to go. “In the Dreamlands things lead to stuff and the weirder the stuff the better the chance to find things you need or to get to where you are going. Dreams or nightmares its all the same here”, Ike grumbled.
Sasha figured it would take about two days to reach the waypoint. They setup camp just inside the forest edge.
Day 176: The morning came and it was hot, like scorching. The mob considered hunkering down in hopes that tomorrow would be better until they realized that food and water was so critically low they had to press on. They would not survive much longer in these lands they had to press for escape. The ooze river was about 150’ wide, slow moving and only about 3’ deep. It was also mildly corrosive to flesh. This was only gleaned once it was too late. On the other side they did their best to clean the gunk off to ease the burning sensation.
The wasteland turned out to be a field of half cremated bone and ash with husks of burnt out trees surrounding the smoking lava pits. There had been a cataclysm here but the dead tell no tales. The dead do however love to eat flesh and this was the deadlands.
After some gruelling marching under infernal illuminator that lived at the top of the cavern a gross of zombies had caught the stink of hobo and were shambling this way. Once more considering resource management Wendull let loose a fireball that consumed the shambling host. The day ended with only ¾ of the journey complete. They setup camp doing their darndest to obfuscate its presence (hunkering down and webbing themselves into a crater). They were able to eat freely but only a single day of rationed water remained. The night was when the deadlands came to unlife and the howls carried across the barren land. Fortunately nothing found them.
Day 177: Awaking to ash flakes coming down like snow. It was cooler but still warm. All they could do was march. That evening they drank the last of their water to slow down the now evident dehydration. During the night a gaunt member of the mobile dead persuasion found the camp. It had the jump as the watch were suffering and were just not as aware as usual. Fortunately the watch were able to make quick work of the ambling corpse.
Day 178: They were now out of water and with rations about to become critical. The ash had stopped falling leaving the weather in possibly a transitional state. Time would tell. By late morning they had reached the base of the rocky outcropping. There was a rough trail up that appeared to have been carved by water flow over the ages. Marching on, there was no time to waste if they wanted to reach the top before nightfall. It did not take too long to stumble upon a hinderance. Once more thirsty hobos are less aware hobos. A 10’ snake skeleton with a fanged human skull head popped out of a hole and attempted to mesmerize the troop. It was partially successful and it seemed that stabbing and slashing weapon were only marginally effective against the bone thing. The creature however was having a hard time penetrating the metal shells of the hobo elite and this would spell its imminent shattering.
Pressing on.
They reached the crest without further impediment but night was falling. The wreath of ancient stones ringing the plateau had secrets, inscriptions and such, but they were well aged and eroded. The rocks would not give their up mysteries. Looking to the centre of the tableland the landscape was devoid of vegetation and was more of an easy slopping bowl that lead to what appeared to be another stone ring. Joy of joys. Sasha figured it would take the better part of a day to reach it. Sleep came easy for the parched and hungry murderhobos. The dead found, and surprised, them once again that night.
A group of despicable tumor wights. Their touch causing hideous boils from which rupture grotesque miniature homunculi replicas of those from which they hemorrhaged. Willy was the first to be near death, big surprise, after having a pair of little Willy’s came ripping out of his body. Sasha and Gurn were the rest of the watch group and they were only fairing slightly better. The alarm went out and the rest of the bums began to assemble. Things were messy and when the mini-hobos died it kicked back to their source hosts.
Day 179: Morning came with ash flakes atop the plateau. They ate sparsely and then marched towards the end of this. Whatever they would find at the centre of the ringed concave mesa would define their destiny. Moving much like Pig-Pen on a windy day motes of ash kicked up with every tired step they appeared as slow motion dust devils. As they approached the inner stone circle they heard a number of entities vomiting up some sort of black language. Speaking of the stones, the closer they got the less they looked like stones and the more they looked like 8’ teeth erupting along a raised circular berm. Ramrod the Ever Invisible crept up to get a peak at whatever things were communicating in the vile gurgling speech. He saw four creatures of almost indescribable wretchedness. They appeared to be arguing as they milled about a yawning 30’ pit that more resembled a maw, Rammer slunk away and reported back. “We got the jump if we act now”, and so that was what they did.
The gang pressed through the toothy ring to battle Spiny Ramhead, Putrid Birdhead, Bloody No-Nose and Larry. These things were demons and they were not as surprised to see murderhobos as we had hoped.
Getting into the ring around the maw things stunk bad, really bad, and it was not just from the four seeping blasphemies. The battle was on. Larry and Company had abilities and defenses that made things even more challenging. Agolloch bounced off of Larry’s knobby chipmunk-like head casting Willy off and almost into the pit, which as we well know propably would have been the death of him. Putrid Birdhead was climbing all over with its 10 insect-like arms as rubbery skin sealed up almost faster than holes could be put into it. Camillus was cornered by Bloody No-Nose as her strikes seemed not to penetrate beyond the layer of maggots that covered the entirety of the thing. It ended up being Wendull and Raul, with help from Ramrod’s ring of spell storing, that got the bulk of the work done as they released a wide and varied range of magics into the demonic opponents.
Afterwards, Ike gave a cryptic confirmation “It’s the Dreamlands, Hope you survive the experience. The weird is the way – waagh”.
Looking around it was now irrefutable that they were standing around the open maw of a colossal worm thing that was in an adavancing state of decay. The stench being rot rather than halitosis was a lukewarm comfort.
Next stop the guts of a space worm.
ROLECALL (Boris & the
Raul the Voyager (MD9) 241471 xp +10% <240000> CRT 1d12/III
Serious wound: permanent loss of CHA -4,
Removed one of his own nostrils.
Boris the Dwarven Lord (D9) 355396 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
Ramrod the Cloned Magsman (T8) 156577 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
Sloth the Bopper (L7) 172653 xp +10% <178800> CRT 1d20/IV or 1d6/G (vs. s, m)
Mental Illness: Mummy-a-phobic
Missing ten teeth
Sasha Plasha the Warden (R8) 118482 xp +10% <200000> CRT 1d10/III
Gurn Hammerhand the Dwarven Swashbuckler (D4) 23170 <36000> +5% CRT 1d12/III
Wendul the Magician (W6) 44918 <80000> 5% CRT 1d8/I
Camillus the Myrmidon (F7) 83099 <120001> +5% CRT 1d20/IV
Injury: -1 STR from brutal arm shatter
Injury: -5’mv from brutal arm shatter
Willy the Reformed Burglar (T6) 21306<20000>10% CRT 1d14/II
Ike the Duck (DF6)
RESERVES
BoB is the lone lawn ornament for the Basilisk Knights.
Chung Li needs 12 weeks (74 days) and a stack of coin to rewrite his lost spell book.
Elapsed: 29 days
Elapsed Campaign Time
600 (619) days at beginning of session (also applies to recuperation)
Join us for session Two-Hundred-and-Thirty when we ask the questions:
How far from cannibalism are we now?
Into the maw!?!
Tale of the Tape
Location hex: ????
KILLS
Bucklesaurus (avoided)
Zombies (18)
Tumour Wights (6)
Homunculi (4)
Necrophidius
Demons (4)
Putrid Birdhead
Spiny Ramhead
Bloody No-Nose
Larry
LOOT
A princess’s jewelry (4): 4100 gp
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