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| Liminal Space in his talk show debut. |
Session 46 - 2nd of Primes 1392
This week's adventurers:
Blossom (Rogue 4)
Sotar (Cleric 4)
Yevgeniy the Coward (Cleric 2)
Verinka (Changeling 2)
Liminal Space (Changeling 3)
Mechtild (Fighter 2)
Cherwe (Cleric 3)
Hirelings: Gerung Floating Disk (MU 1), Ticze (Changeling 1), Ditl (Cleric 1)
Downtime in the Village
Happy New Year from the Dreadful Wonderful World of Nightwick Abbey!!! As the calendar flips over in the Dark Country, news of trouble strikes the village. A group of Frogling traders comes, begging for protection with the village walls. The White Lady has been terrorizing the roads to the north with her army of elves and pig-men. Some wonder if the presence of Paladin Lord Fitzgerald in Lychgate has anything to do with her arrival.
The party briefly considers going north to meet the Lady before quickly realizing the great dangers that may pose. The familiar threats of Nightwick Abbey seem downright hospitable in comparison. We decide to go instead to level 2 to continue looting and scouting. Without Mayfly present to control the Manimals, we go to the eastern portion of Level 2 where the Manimals don't dwell.
Against the Cultists
We make it to Level 2 of Nightwick Abbey without incident and go to a room where we once fought a group of Devilmen. The room is still empty, but there's a door on the other side of it that we've never been through. Beyond it, we find a hallway running east-west and another door to the south. Blossom hears shuffling beyond the door. The front line clerics ready their weapons and we open the door, revealing a number of cultists in the room beyond.
Cherwe is hit in the opening salvo, but not badly, and Verinka puts four of them to sleep. Liminal uses hypnotism to make another cultist turn and hug one of his allies. The cultists, unable to run as their only exit is blocked by us, continue to attack. The next round, Verinka and Sotar each kill a cultist while Mechtild kills 3! (Fighters get to make extra attacks after killing a foe in our rules). This is the last of them. Mechtild goes to work finishing off the sleeping cultists and we discover a Devilman amongst them. He has blackened chain armor and there is 160sp on the bodies.
The Late Late Late Show with Liminal Space
We decide to spare one of the cultists because we've never interrogated one before. Liminal decides to take the lead, interviewing him "like a talk show host," and considers arranging the corpses into a desk or chairs. Through his natural charm and persistent friendliness, Liminal learns that the cultists have been waiting for us since our last encounter with the devilmen (Back in Session #40 on December 15th). Time must really work differently in the dungeon since they've not had access to food in this time. The cultist, whose name is Assman (The Referee insists that this is an authentic medieval name), is apparently somewhat miserable living in an evil dungeon with no food to eat. In exchange for his life, he gives us information about treasure - there's a valuable ruby in a pool to the west and more treasure in the room containing "a rainbow in the dark" (which we've seen before - or at least is on the party map).
We start questioning Assman about this treasure. It's far from our first time in Nightwick and we know there's no such thing as unguarded treasure. Once we make it clear that we're bringing Assman along with us, he starts to clear things up and explain that the pool the ruby is in is actually a giant Blood Pudding creature and we'll need at least a half dozen flasks of holy water or flaming oil to have a chance of taking it down. We endlessly question him about the rainbow room as well, but he insists there's no trap there.
Somewhere Under the Rainbow
Trekking back through level 2, we return to the rainbow room, with a different blood pool room right next to it. Along the way, Liminal Space uses auditory illusion to distract a giant gibbet cage monster so we can sneak by. The rainbow disappears as we approach with torches ("I told you, it's a Rainbow in the Dark," Assman reminds us), so the humans in the party stay back and the Changelings with Infravision approach the room. Searching underneath one end of the rainbow, they find a loose stone concealing a box with 150gp! We regroup and go into the room with the blood pool. Two lion statues flank the pools, blood pouring out of their mouths into the pool.
Yelling at a Wizard
What follows next is an argument that has probably been smoldering within the TTRPG community for decades. It threatened to derail the sessions tonight and boiled over the fourth wall. We suggested that Gerung could use Floating Disk to scoop up some blood from the pool and bring it into the room beyond to distract the vampire bats inside. This, of course, brings up a discussion of the nuances of Floating Disk:
- Can we turn the disk upside down if we turn Gerung upside down?
- Can Gerung sit on the disk himself?
- Can we attache a harness to the disk to allow Gerung to fly?
- How many of us can sit on the disk?
- If Gerung walk backward, will the disk stay behind him and go first?
- Can someone walk between Gerung and the disk?
- Can we use the disk to block a door?
Players were yelling at each other. Characters were yelling at Gerung (this was a role-play heavy session for the retainers). People were muted. Eventually, we harass Gerung enough for him to attempt to sit on his disk. He summons it and, as he sits back, the disk moves back with him and he falls into the pool of blood, his disk following. We quickly pull him out of the pool and his disk comes up with him, full of blood! Mission completed!
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| Our next step will be to weaponize the spell. |
Bats and Whatnot
Gerung and one of the sturdier party members go through the door to the bat room. As hoped for, the bats ignore us and start lapping up the blood out of Gerung's disk. At this point, we realize that we didn't really have a plan for the disk full of blood beyond trying it to see if it works. This reveal utterly crushes what was left of blood-soaked Gerung's spirit. We decide to search the bat room just for kicks and find 500sp in the bat guano!
Back to the Village
We consider the expedition a success at this point and return home. Some party members give Gerung an extra tip as a thank you for his efforts and perhaps to convince him to not abandon the party. Our haul was 660sp, 150gp, and a suit of chain armor. An excellent return for us! This is enough to push Mechtild to level 3. Yevgeniy and Sotar decide to take Assman under their wings to convert him to their true Eastern Church ways.
This wound up being a role-play heavy session for us, between questioning Assman and discussing floating disk with Gerung. That's not always typical for us but it was fun and made for a memorable session. We also showed some creative use of spells this session. Gerung, obviously, demonstrated the value of floating disk, since the rules specify the disk is concave, we were able to use it as a bowl, but Liminal also used auditory illusion to distract a monster and allow us to avoid a difficult fight.
Sotar's plan to make Gerung fly using floating disk.
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