Nightwick Abbey - Session 45 - "Like Mushrooms, But They're Body Parts"

Previously in Nightwick...

Some of our loot from the evening.

Session 45 - 23nd of Duodecember, 1391

This week's adventurers:

Blossom (Rogue 4)

Mayfly (Magic-User 3)

Sotar (Cleric 4)

Yevgeniy the Coward (Cleric 2)

Verinka (Changeling 2)

Fribblegupp (Frogling 1)

Hirelings: Gerung Floating Disk (MU 1), Ticze (Changeling 1), Ditl, Mikush

Downtime in the Village

We're back! Storms have come to Nighwick the past week. Heavy rains and lightning have kept most people indoors and the strange contraption on Halfdan the Black's tower has been the target of most of the lightning strikes. With the storms, a new adventurer comes to join our crew. Fribblegupp the Frogling has heard of the expeditions into Nightwick and is eager to join in on the festivities (we had a new player join us and there's still space for another new player). Additionally, rumors of a strange woman claiming to be Halfdan's daughter appearing in the village run amok. 

A Well Planned Heist

We've decided to return to level 2 and steal more of the machines (tesla coils) for Halfdan's experiments this week. Sotar brings in two planks to cover the pit trap we must traverse on our way to level 2. We take the first one out without incident, but on our return, find our planks removed. Verinka notices something in the trashed laboratory (by the pit trap). We notice a new trash pile. - A group of manimals? 

"You cowards, reveal yourself to the Master" Mayfly calls out. A manimal made mostly out of cat parts emerges from the trash pile and scrambles away, whimpering, towards the stairs. Mayfly and Sotar shoot missles into the trash pile and nothing moves. We replace the planks, Fribble jumping across the gap to reach them, and head on down. We take two more out before running out of floating disk spells, leaving one of the machines for a future delve.

Since we've mapped out the area so well and had a plan for how to steal the machines, our Referee abstracted parts of the journey. We gave him our route and he rolled for random encounters, not requiring us to manually make two trips through the dungeon. Not only does this save us time and allow for more dungeon delving in one evening, it feels like a reward for good mapping and planning.

Benihana in Nightwick

Out of floating disk spells, we decide to return to the southwest section of level 1, where we ended last time. We get there without incidence and notice that the room has two new puddles of blood. Sotar and Fribble notice the puddles quiver suspiciously. Sotar considers the practicality of punching a puddle as they approach the party when the two party clerics realize they have 8 oil flasks between them. 

One attempts to wrap itself around Sotar's calf, but is unable to make contact, his protection from evil spell still active. The other goes for Mikusch but misses. 

Next round, Mikusch is hit and we launch a salvo of flaming oil at the blood puddings, hitting them at least 4 times. The blood boils and we hear them squeal. We back away a little bit and one of them burns up to a blackened crisp as the oil continues to burn. Sotar pours another oil flask on the remaining smouldering one, like a hibachi chef. We let it burn to a crisp.

Supporting the Arts

After combat, we patch up Mikusch's wounds and Sotar pokes his toe through the dead remains of the puddings. There are 4 doors on the east side of this room that didn't get explored last time. We go to the first. Blossom and Verinka hear the sounds of something pumping, like a giant heart? Sotar pries it open with our trusty crowbar.

Inside, we see 2 robed figures with buckets of blood as something pumps blood out of the wall. There are fleshy stumps on the wall that the blood is pouring out of - necks without heads. We decide to shut the door and leave the robed figures be.

The 2nd room is empty, but the wall is covered in fleshy protrusions - fingers whose fingernails are brushes. Blossom and Mayfly check if the entrance is trapped, but notice nothing. Mayfly wants to cut off 2 of the fingers but doesn't want to go in the room. He offers Gerung 10sp to do it for him, but he is not pervasive enough. 

We go to the next room and Sotar attempts to open the door but fails. Mikusch, however, succeeds. The room is empty and the floor is entirely covered by pelvises that appear to be growing out of the floor. We briefly discuss how frog pelvises look a lot like human pelvises. Fribble grabs a pelvis as a souvenir, it was clearly once used as a painter's pallet, with all 4 humors of the human body used as paint. These rooms are where those robed figures get their supplies to paint horrible things in blood around Nightwick.

We move on to the 4th and final door. Sotar fails to open the door, jamming the crowbar in the wrong spot, and purple slime splurts out and covers the first two ranks. Mikusch opens it, revealing a room full of wooden buckets. Mayfly enters the room to investigate the buckets, but finds nothing. Fribble takes a small bucket with him.

Back to the Village

We leave the abbey at this point, Fribble wearing the pelvis as a hat, dragging our tesla coils in tow to sell  to Halfdan. We get 1,000sp each for them (for a total of 3,000sp).

We each get 365xp and 400sp from the delve and Yevgeniy leveled up!

In total, this wasn't a bad haul for us. Some weeks we leave the abbey practically empty handed. Learning to identify what was valuable and making a plan to get it really paid off. Party deaths have also been down lately, which is a plus. It will be interesting to see how selling these things to Halfdan will impact the world around us in Nightwick.