This write-up will be a bit on the loose side as I wrote it up almost a week and a half after the session and then procrastinated tidying it up, so some detail was lost. Likewise, I don't have as thorough referee notes.
Previous Sessions : 1.
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My friend M. played as...
Creed (DEX +1), locked inside the Crimson Armour (armour 1, may defer a wound onto an ally) and armed with sword and pistol.
With their companions Bob (halberd, crude armour) and Doug (WIS +1, rifle).
We open on a dreary day. The party is moping about at a table in the Pickled Goose Tavern & Boardhouse. Bob is massaging phantom pains out of his new peg leg, while Creed keeps an attentive ear out for rumours of note.
Three looming men approach the table, almost bulging out of their suits. One removes a little black notebook from his pocket, opens it to a page, and asks: "Messieurs Creed, Bob, and Doug?"
The three look at each-other. "Who wants to know?"
The goon shuts his notebook with a snap and returns it to his breast-pocket. Then, with one swift move, his fellow sweeps all the glasses off the table, sending them smashing to the floor. They lean in and say: "We've heard that you've recently come into some money. Yet you have not begun paying off your debt. Curious. We hope you will heed this reminder."
Three looming men approach the table, almost bulging out of their suits. One removes a little black notebook from his pocket, opens it to a page, and asks: "Messieurs Creed, Bob, and Doug?"
The three look at each-other. "Who wants to know?"
The goon shuts his notebook with a snap and returns it to his breast-pocket. Then, with one swift move, his fellow sweeps all the glasses off the table, sending them smashing to the floor. They lean in and say: "We've heard that you've recently come into some money. Yet you have not begun paying off your debt. Curious. We hope you will heed this reminder."
They left.
Rattled, the party pays for damages and leaves, now uncomfortably aware of the thirty shillings burning a hole in their pocket.
Purchases: prybar, lockpicks, fire oil, and a mutt (named Slob).
Rattled, the party pays for damages and leaves, now uncomfortably aware of the thirty shillings burning a hole in their pocket.
Purchases: prybar, lockpicks, fire oil, and a mutt (named Slob).
While walking the dockside they pass a couple of funny men in cerulean robes hawking pamphlets in front of a blue painted ship. "Join our voyage to the stars beyond! Where you shall transcend and join in the congress of enlightened alien intelligences! We are sure to succeed this time!"
The party decide to engage an expert: Gullwin, the man who'd identified the poison when Creed asked the Pickled Goose's clientele the week before. He asked to be paid up front, at an expert's going rate, and they settled on five shillings upfront, five on return from the expedition, as well as one shilling bonus if any treasure was gotten.
Thus they assembled in the early morning on a mist shrouded wharf. Dorett was there to see them off and Gullwin arrived, out of the fog, polishing his glasses, a hefty revolver stuck in his belt.
After some time on the water...
The Iron Coral sat, a jagged island looming out of the sea. They land on the metallic sand of the cove and find, to their surprise, another little yawl already pulled ashore with footsteps leading into the gaping entrance-mouth.
The party sorted themselves out and proceeded into the depths.
After an indeterminable amount of time spent trudging down the sloping tunnel, they emerged, not into the hub chamber they were expecting, but into a space whose edges their lamp light cannot reach, nor can they feel it. The floor is soft underfoot. They creep about and find, dangling from some sort of shaft leading upward, a rope.
Upwards they climb (Doug hoisting the dog up after them). As they do, a rusty residue accumulates on their joints. At long last, they emerge out of the shaft and find themselves in the pit room where they slew the carapace beast. Sure enough, its corpse was where they had left it in jumbled pile on the floor. They noted that the rope was tied to a grapnel sunk into the pit's rim.
They move north and north again into the room with the metal boxes, retracing their map. North again, through the room with transparent walls and the mouldering corpse. They skirt the psychic ball-sack and enter the room with the bulging class dome only to hear a BANG on the doors at the top of the room.
The party decide to engage an expert: Gullwin, the man who'd identified the poison when Creed asked the Pickled Goose's clientele the week before. He asked to be paid up front, at an expert's going rate, and they settled on five shillings upfront, five on return from the expedition, as well as one shilling bonus if any treasure was gotten.
Thus they assembled in the early morning on a mist shrouded wharf. Dorett was there to see them off and Gullwin arrived, out of the fog, polishing his glasses, a hefty revolver stuck in his belt.
After some time on the water...
The Iron Coral sat, a jagged island looming out of the sea. They land on the metallic sand of the cove and find, to their surprise, another little yawl already pulled ashore with footsteps leading into the gaping entrance-mouth.
The party sorted themselves out and proceeded into the depths.
After an indeterminable amount of time spent trudging down the sloping tunnel, they emerged, not into the hub chamber they were expecting, but into a space whose edges their lamp light cannot reach, nor can they feel it. The floor is soft underfoot. They creep about and find, dangling from some sort of shaft leading upward, a rope.
Upwards they climb (Doug hoisting the dog up after them). As they do, a rusty residue accumulates on their joints. At long last, they emerge out of the shaft and find themselves in the pit room where they slew the carapace beast. Sure enough, its corpse was where they had left it in jumbled pile on the floor. They noted that the rope was tied to a grapnel sunk into the pit's rim.
They move north and north again into the room with the metal boxes, retracing their map. North again, through the room with transparent walls and the mouldering corpse. They skirt the psychic ball-sack and enter the room with the bulging class dome only to hear a BANG on the doors at the top of the room.
After some argument, they decide to open the doors; weapons at ready. The metal doors grind apart, revealing a small room with three crystal spheres on pedestals surrounded by shuffling, pallid humanoids who hardly react to the intrusion. Cautiously, the party sidles into the left side of the room.
They observe the pallid husks for a few minutes, poking them a bit, and determine that they are fairly non-responsive. Creed decides to go for the leftmost orb only for the two husks guarding it to frenziedly attack. They wrestle it from them and the party blasts and hacks them to pieces, only to notice that Creed is now nearly catatonic wrapped around the orb, staring fixedly into it.
Bob pries it out of Creed's hands and shoves the crystal orb in a sack. The party flees, dragging Creed along with them, taking the stairs downward.
They catch their breath in the colorful coral room and watch some skittering fishbugs. Bob decides to re-enter the gladiatorial pit and this time fight the half-man, half-coral gladiator. His proposal: a grid of flaming oil upon the ground. The combat is tense, but Bob wins and collects the dead gladiators gear.
They head east, into the sticky room again, and hear slithering from down the dog-legged passage. They prepare themselves and blast the coral snake apart as it emerges; gunshots echo through the dungeon. They take the time to skin the snake and roll the long strip of leather up into a bundle. Then they continue and enter the room where they'd found the crimson armour. They are met with seven or so fish-men all clustered around poking at the corpses on the ground!
Both sides regard each other tensely but no one yet acts.
The party decides to slowly advance into the room. The fish-men respond by backing up, but flow around and suddenly the party is blocked off from the way they came in. Cursing themselves, they head north, and three fish-men followed while the rest split off down other routes.
The party follows the corridor north, dogged by the three fish-men, and end up pushing their way through a bristle-wall into a room with a little salty stream. They try to the room to the east and note that it has weird flexing holes in the ceiling. Nonetheless, they try and cross only for spikes to shoot out! Bob and Doug are injured and quickly retreat. They decide, fuck it, and blast their way through the three fish-men and flee south.
They make it as far as the dog-leg passage when they are ambushed. Bob, who was in front, puts up a fight but falls under the onslaught of hooked barb-chains. The rest of the party blasts away till the fish-men falter and the survivors retreat. Checking on Bob, they find he is dead. Doug retrieves some items from the body and then they flee back through the rooms and up the stairs, heading for the entrance shaft.
Somewhere around the box room they hear a gunshot, but ignore. Back down the shaft and then out into the fresh air and they pile into the boat, push off, and leave.
Afterward, Doug paid Gullwin the rest of his money, disgusted with how little help the "expert" was. Then he hocked the snakeskin and met with Darius, the port overseer, who gave him a substantial sum (1g) for the crystal orb. Finally, the beleaguered and mournful Doug took Creed to Doc Cruses and got them proscribed a powdery white stimulant in the hopes that it would shake them out of the listlessness that had predominated since the orb incident.
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M. enjoyed how things went sideways this session, though the loss of Bob was a tragedy. Gullwin could have been better run on my part. M. had stated that she wanted to hire a "naturalist or biologist" but within the dungeon I wasn't exactly sure how run that so he mostly didn't do much. The gladiator was a bit of an odd little diversion that didn't feel totally appropriate, and running combat as sport of that sort is tricky with the mechanics I'm using.
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