Session 15

On:

Party:

The Meek Sun (Thief 3) - Grey Woman 

Slough (Halfling 2) - Mutant Man

The Swirling Champion (Fighting-man 1) [Retainer] - Gold Man

Tusk (Fighting-man 1) [Retainer] - Green Man

As the lights dimmed and the hours passed and the night must have slipped on, whoever kept watch noticed that the mutants inched closer and closer. So that by the end of Tusk’s watch he hissed for the others to wake, for they had eyes on them. And they did, and slid away from the mutants and lit torches. Still there were no shared words.
In that night the watch-keepers had also noticed in the hall there was a chest, locked and latched, shoved into the far corner. But some sympathy struck the group and they simply departed from that camp.
Out in the shattered throne room their sudden entrance took them to the back of a massive spider-like thing. No Spawn, but some hairy horror in the middle of movement. Taking advantage of their surprise the archers headed south and the melee fighters east, and arrows went out but Tusk missed with his crushing mace. And then turnabout where all arrows were sent skittering across the furry carapace and Tusk swung true!

Then the spider-horror lunged and sunk its mandibles into Tusk’s chest and spat terrible poison into his face. Down again he went, spasming horrifically. Slough, seeing this, felt an abnormal compulsion to dance as well, like a poison slipping into his own body. He yelled to stay back and strike true, and Champion did with his practiced eyes.

And the thing died, but Slough and Tusk were still dancing—the latter gurgling through the poison. The others approached but were told to turn back, for there was a trick to the monster’s poison. Struggling, the mutant dragged the Green man back into that secreted armory, and told the others to keep watch and listen until the affliction passed.

So in that gore-crusted alcove they spiked the door shut and listened at it. Ten minutes passed. An hour. An hour and a half. In time, the slight shuddering sounds of the poison-dance subsided, and was replaced with the sound of ragged breathing.

In the dark, Champion asked how they might press on in that place, or even escape alive—for if the armored soldiers knew of the party’s entrance, they must have been guarding all the dungeon’s escapes. Meek Sun showed him the potion of mist shape, and said if even one of them would escape it would be by that way.

Shortly Slough and Tusk returned to them, bruised and sore but not otherwise harmed. Slough said that, in his agonies, the thought came to him of ripping the monster apart and offering the pieces to the sorcerer for payment. The others through this a reasonable plan, lit a new torch, and emerged again to harvest material. They extracted some of the hairy carapace, but found most of it soft and punched through by arrows, or hardened and cracked by a mace. Nor did they know how to extract a poison gland, nor where it might be.

Anyway. They decided to push luck once more and explore east before escaping. They padded back to that crossroads where the candles had been lit, and saw that coals and ash lay scattered all from the south doorway where the undead had lain in wait. East took them to a stone slab door not locked but so heavy and entombed in dust that Champion was the only one to lift it. Slough and Meek Sun both slipped underneath the opening and found themselves above a row of narrow cisterns, a damp, humid space untouched by the smoky air of the rest of the dungeon.

The cistern’s water was clear—too clear, and the two did not trust dungeon waters anymore. But looking into one of the cisterns showed a dark shape at the bottom. Treasure, most likely. So Meek Sun prepared to dive before the two hashed out to raise up the box with rope and grappling hook instead.

Lowering the hook and getting it lodged under the shape proved easy enough, but when it came time to haul neither could get a good enough grip. They knocked to get the door open again, and had Tusk lift it to bring Champion in. The Green man hissed he would die out in those tunnels, left alone by cowards who would not help him, and so Slough exited and took guard beside him.

With Meek Sun and Champion together the shape was securely pulled up; it proved to be a leather coffer treated with oil. They took it in hand and returned to their companions. Now was time to escape. They plotted to head past the shrine again in hopes it would offer healing, cut up through the tunnels, and burst through the cave entrance in a rush. They had no whiskey rations to burn, nor sorcerous tricks to use.

Worst came to worst, they would have Slough drink of the mist-shape potion, flee to the surface, raise an army, and raze the dungeon to the ground to avenge the dead party. Boldness and desperation in turn.

They headed west, and kicked the door open and rushed to the shrine—just as a protoplasmic, dripping ochre thing was seeping from the ceiling! With no time nor desire to fight, the party sped on while the protoplasm made a hundred shapes to move faster but could not.

On they fled, up past the excavated tunnels and into the warrens, past the bones and animate statue, on known paths where old foes had fallen and new foes lurked. Until at last their torchlight mingled with the natural light of the sun and they saw that escape from the dungeon.

In their rush their march brought them to mix with another troop—those dreaded veterans in the acid-etched armor! Bold and dreadful, horribly pallid in the daylight, and bearing grim expression the foes sent up an alarm call and reached to strike down the party. But even loaded down with treasure the party had swiftness on their side, and scrambled out of the dungeon and past the troop in the mutual confusion, and fled down the hill towards the hidden canoe.

Only to find in horror that old smoke drifted up from that place, and that the canoe had been burned where it lay in the reeds! With only seconds to decide the party hooked a northeasterly turn to follow the waterway, and fled splashing into swamp and thickest jungle undergrowth until the shouts of their pursuers faded under the hum of insects and the rush of wind over treetops. Still they fled, laughing at their luck, hysterical at the close call, while the trees gave way to massive fruiting bodies and the air grew thick.
They were once again in Láhág, but they were alive, as night fell on Carcosa.

Instead of camping they pushed through the night, following the river until once more the lights of the river settlement met them. Come the dawn it had been six days since they had departed, and they could not rest in their usual corner in the drinking-pit for the weeping mob had been barred in. The bartender met them as they tried to enter, and complained at the trouble: the mob was harmless when bound but set up a terrible din. Many were disturbed in their daily work. The party assured they were on the path to a cure, paid to have the mob fed yet another week, and paid for another canoe to be brought for them the following day.

Then they bothered the Judge at the Tower of Judgement, who would not meet them for it was dawn and they had interrupted her sleep. So they returned to the bartender and asked to borrow the floor to sleep on; it was so. They rested for two days and supped and counted their coins. Tusk grumbled heavily but liked the treasure and so would stay, and Champion remained resolute.

While they rested Champion showed a small talent he had: though not strong, if he spent two days in succession he could divine the history of an object—such were the strange gifts of the psychic brain. They asked him to do so on a recovered tablet, and he hemmed and hawed but spoke a little of an ancient Orange court counting out measures of—something. Food? Treasure? It could have been that dungeon was once not buried beneath a hill but open to the sky. The party marked this talent for later use.
They also visited the horror-struck mob, and in their way sought to comfort and reassure the affected that relief was on its way. The mob continued to weep and would not believe them, and seemed to not even know their faces. It was a pitiable sight.

The bailiff accosted them as they were preparing to depart. He asked of their intentions, and they told of how a sorcerer was preparing a cure for the mob, and how they only needed to gather payment. He intoned that payment for the longship was also due, and may the party find that cure before the month was up, and may they be swift and find success. For all the past slyness and deception, he did not want to dislike the party.

They wished him well in turn and left upon the river. He watched them from the docks until the treelike obscured him. A day in and all they encountered was a vast shape swimming fast under the placid lake, which nosed at their canoe but passed on.
At the drug-lab they spent the night, supped on their own rations to save cash, and talked little. The mutants were busied with some concoction and the whole lab was thick with noxious fumes and steam, and lit in flickering reds, oranges, and ulfires. A curious art that ran deep into the night.

In day they left quietly, for the mutants slept off their night’s labors—but not before Meek Sun, curious, crept silently into their works and saw bulbous shapes in metal and glass, and amphorae of fermenting materials, and sticky red oil in shallow clay pots. A taste proved it to be bitter and vegetal but not poisonous. Leaving silently and returning to the party, they spoke of how the river settlement sent out its product. Slough explained that most of the product was harvested and processed at home—he himself worked the fields—and sent out in sticky hash blocks. Beyond that he knew nothing of trade.

Upon the lake they spied a flock of wind mantas, come far south from Ux-Mar and heading further north still and deigned to hunt but marked the far places beyond the horizon. What lay south? What lay north, west, or east? Were there places that even the Old Ones did not see, or lay claim to? What then beyond the planet, and into the cold dark from where the stars watched? Tusk said they all thought too much. Meek Sun, head fuzzy from just a taste of oil, said he knew nothing and rolled over.

They also spoke of whether to head southeast and recover that statue of melancholy metal. Such a curiosity might yet pay for all The Flower of Peace’s research on its own, and they would not have to part with their own coin and artifacts. None were sure if the canoe could hold such weight, and they decided to split the difference and send two out while two set a bargain with the sorcerer.
So it was decided by coin flip: first Meek Sun and Slough, heads and tails respectively, and it came up heads. Then Champion and Tusk, and it came up heads again. Tusk rolled and hooted at not having to go out into danger.

When they came up to that sorcerous stepped tower and called up to have the ladder thrown down, the guards seemed surprised to see them again. For travelers gone so long, it was safer to assume all had died somewhere out in the wastes of Carcosa. Not so, and the guards took money just as happily as before, and took a little more to allow the party to sleep out on the tower. For it was a mild evening, and not so humid as the swamp, and with the multitude of stars splayed across the night sky like treasures uncountable.

At dawn the sorcerer, who they guessed never slept, woke them to ask their business. They did so, and Tusk spoke out before all else to talk of a metal man creating a monolith with his metal blood—this got the sorcerer’s attention. It was then explained (with many dirty looks to Tusk) that the monolith and statue were of the alike melancholy-metal, and whether or not it would do to pay her price. Perhaps the statue could be turned back if it was in fact a man. The sorcerer said she would need to see it first, but was interested.

A promise was struck: they would head out immediately if she would start on her research for the horror-dust cure. It would take two days for the round trip, and rain gathered on the horizon.

Kills - 1x Tarantella (125xp)

Book of The Dead

Boss - Abandoned in a temple

The Lurking Minion - Sacrificed for power

The Quiet Breath - Struck down by a ghoul

Rattlebones  - Killed by a vengeful acolyte

The Burrowing Excellence  - Frozen in place by a Spawn

The Eyes of True Men - Putrefied from within by delayed poison

The Dreamer of Skies - Dragged to watery doom

Book of The Lost

The Plumage of Spring - Doomed

The Last Walker - Doomed