Weird Marches Campaign Update: Be Still for there is Strange Music
The campaign as of late has been a sort of weird fiction inspired anime in some ways. Find the previous report here. We took a little break from that last session due to a lack of available players to delve a little more into more on-genre weirdness.
First off, the session before last was a delve into a dungeon featuring these fine people and characters:
Ayo, Drunken Monk, Follower of Ahuiteteo, Scary Lady played by Dan D
From Pianodao
First off, the session before last was a delve into a dungeon featuring these fine people and characters:
Ayo, Drunken Monk, Follower of Ahuiteteo, Scary Lady played by Dan D
Trapper-sama, Warrior, Yelly-boi, Brave and True also played by Jozo
Wyrd, Thief, Fortune Teller, Protector of the Weak and Innocent also played by Xela
Nettie, Cleric, Worshiper of the Stars, Devoted Companion played by Battie
In this session, the party boarded the golden barge piloted by PAW and rode to the dwarven ruins in the Suan Hi region beneath which lies the main fissure into the Void in order to seal it and SAVE THE WORLD. (Probably at least for now.) However, not before Ayo hired a Lantern Boy, a frail young illiterate lad who they renamed Lantern Boy. (This should surprise no one if you have played in one of Dan's games before.)
The ship teleported right in front of a great door in the middle of the ruins. The devolved dwarves scattered before them and an older member of their people actually managed to say a few words, warning of the dangers below and saying that, "The Mad Prince must be stopped."
They descended down the stairs, coming across a long hall where baleful green light shone down from a crystal suspended above, reflected about the room by the reflective eyes and shields of great dwarven statues. Discovering that flesh and clothing begins to burn in the light
They covered some tent material in dirt and rocks and carried it by its poles over their heads and began walking through the hall. It seemed to work for a time but that changed once mirror golems stepped forth from the great shields. Immediately, Ayo called for retreat and the golems didn't give chase, but the light had burned through the tent such that it fell apart upon their retreat.
Nettie discovered that she could cast darkness and filled the hall with magical shadow. Nettie and Wyrd snuck across while Trapper and Ayo flung rocks to distract the golems. This worked but then Ayo and Trapper tried to just book it through and managed to make it past with only a little damage.
Once again, the golems did not give chase and they made it into the next room: a great throne room with a gold rod sitting in the throne and the headless corpses of armored dwarves lying against pillars.
As they examined the corpses, the bodies began to stand and pick up weapons. Ayo blasted one with her Hell Fire hand and the fight began. In their first attack, poor Lantern Boy was cut down, slain in the dark. (RIP press F in the chat.) The twelve dwarves in the chamber were obviously too many and too well armored for a frontal assault. Wyrd was knocked unconscious int eh ensuing battle and revived by Nettie's Lay on Hands. It was becoming apparent that Wyrd was a little fragile for this kind of combat.
The party began to retreat but Ayo had a different idea. She suspected that the rod at the end of the corridor would control the dwarves and so she began to cartwheel across the floor (rolling Ref Saves to increase movement at the cost of the possibility of falling prone.) She stumbled and fell on the final step and a dwarf fell back to cut her off.
The rest of the party had begun to fall back. Nettie and Wyrd made their way back into the darkened hall and tried to make their way past the golems, managing to get by without dying. As this dwarf stood over Ayo holding his hammer high, the fallen torch next to the corpse of Lantern Boy, sputtered and died.
Wyrd and Nettie watched as Trapper and Ayo emerged from the darkness, scarped and bruised but alive. Future expeditions would require more force.
Next session began with only Ayo and Rope-kun, played by Thoobn, with Trapper-sama showing up later.
Morning the loss of dear Lantern Boy, Ayo and Rope-kun decided to attend a show. Figarus Cornswallow, conman and charlatan, had begun a very popular show: "Phantoms and Phantasmagoria! Hear the dead speak once more!" A party which neither Rope-kun nor Ayo had been in had encountered Mr. Cornswallow before where he worked a house of phoneys (think Mystery Shack from Gravity falls but medieval fantasy). He had a strange flute which acted as a key to a portal to a lost city and also had ill effects on listeners. All of this he ignored in the name of profit. The party intimidated him into giving them the flute.
Ayo bathed to the shock of everyone and wore some fancy orange robes and put a bowtie on Rope-kun. They paid their entry fee to a man who introduced himself as Sam Soot, who expressed an interest in any combustible materials the adventurers might find on their travels.
Entering the show, they sat next to an excitable young noblewoman who expressed her fantasies of a future where they no longer need mourn the dead since they will be able to speak with them any time. Ayo remained skeptical. The theater was a round space with the stage in the middle. At each of the seven corners of the stage, there was a copper pylon, connected to each other by metal wire, all hooked up to a console of switches and levers, manned by Sam Soot.
Figarus appeared, making his introduction in his usual overdramatic fashion. He had a sort of microphone and a great leather-bound book brought to the stage by a female assistant. He asked for volunteers and couldn't even finish before a young bonnet-wearing woman climbed onto the stage. Taken aback, the conman rolled with it and asked her who she wished to speak to.
"My mother."
He smiled and continued, beginning to read his incantation. Candle flames turned blue and cold spots began wandering through the crowd, brushing by Ayo and Rope. Sam Soot pulled a lever and blue electricity crackled up and down the pylons, skittering along the wires. On the stage, hazy shadows could be seen, giving the wandering shades a vaguely humanoid appearance. A shade approached the microphone.
"Why? Why did you leave us? We need you!" The woman said.
A wailing distorted female voice came from the microphone: "I looove yooouuu, darling! This juuust haad to beee!"
Rope-kun, who had kept an eye on Sam Soot and his machine, saw the female assistant leaning over a gramophone-like tube.
"That's not what she said!" The young woman said with an accusatory stare at Cornswallow.
He went very pale.
"She's asking to cross. She's telling you to give her permission! Tell her to cross!"
The lower class crowds began to chant: "Tell her to cross! Tell her to cross!"
Figarus gave into the pressure. "Spirit! I give you permission to cross the veil!"
The shadow began to grow, becoming a tall, sharp shadow, reaching out needle-like fingers towards the woman. Then the pylons sparked and the room was plunged into darkness. When lanterns were relit the woman was laying passed out on the ground. Rope-kun attempted to use his Void Navigator's Helmet to teleport over to her and ended up behind the machine.
After Sam Soot called out: "Saboteur! He sabotaged the machine!"
Ayo calmed things down, taking hold of Rope and the woman, who was awake but wouldn't open her eyes.
They began going towards the Guild House with the woman in tow. Rope-kun began drilling the woman, named Melissa Penny, about what happened and about her family's history of magic.
The woman said she thought the creature had touched her, sending up all kinds of red flags. She said there was a wizard in her family, a man by the name of Samwise Grail, her great uncle, who had gone to the arcane academy in Masonberg before being kicked out over a disagreement with the college. He returned to Whispershie and took up the violin, according to what her mother, Amber Penny, had told her about him. But he made such dreadful noise with his violin that it gave her nightmares. One day, he disappeared and has not been seen since.
Rope-kun suspected the man to be a necromancer or other such foul magician. When they returned to the Guild, Trapper-sama and Childermass, the guild master's manservant, met them. Trapper lifted up one of her eyelids to see orbs of pure darkness, looking very much like Void. The entire party attempted to do some research on Samwise Grail and Ayo discovered a news clipping mentioning him purchasing a house in connection with something called the Fermata Group.
Ayo then went off to fetch an exorcist as Trapper and Rope tried to get more information from Melissa. She responded rather strangely to getting food and water as if she had never eaten or drank. And then she began to copy everything they said word for word.
Ayo returned with well-known exorcist and priest of Mortarus, the Angel of Death. The large man announced his fear that this was a demon from beyond the gate of death but Childremass said otherwise. He said he had seen something like this before and it wasn't dead, it had never been. Heedless of Childermass, the priest continued his ritual, placing Melissa bound into a circle of salt, splashed with holy water. He began cranking a box of strange atonal noise, and Melissa began to thrash. Glass began to break. Void began to bubble up from the floor. Childremass fell to the ground and started to wail in pain as he aged rapidly.
Over Rope-kun's demands, the priest continued, his chant reaching a crescendo when the sound stopped. Absolute darkness fell and everyone could vaguely feel a very tall presence in the room. When sight was restored, the exorcist was dead, his chest ripped open, the door behind him torn asunder. Melissa was gone.
The party went immediately to the house mentioned in the clipping. They found it occupied by Figarus Cornswallow. Initially, the con man insisted they leave but he quickly gave in, dark bags beneath his eyes. He said that they ought to take it because he has been hearing things at night ever since he found it.
They turned from the doorway to see Melissa, her midnight eyes open and staring, standing in the street. They hurried inside the house and she remained standing outside. Trapper yelled loudly to try and warn the neighbors and maybe call for help but of course, the house was in a section of the town where a great number of nobles and the rich had built houses then mostly abandoned them so there was no one around to hear him scream.
They followed Figarus to the book. It had the symbol for fortissimo carved into the front and the pedestal they found it on had the symbol for fermata on it. Inside, it appeared that Samwise Grail had inscribed his name on the book but its original author was clearly an ancient dwarf, writing in a similar runic style as those the party had encountered in the Suan Hi forest. The last name of this dwarf had been that same name seen inscribed on all the dwarven coins they found. Still, none of the party spoke dwarven so they had no idea what it said.
Besides scrawling dwarven text, inside there were also pages of musical notation as if someone had been trying to write down a song they were hearing and failing, repeatedly. At this point, there is a crash and the party rushed to look out a window.
Melissa is no longer standing in the street.
Nettie, Cleric, Worshiper of the Stars, Devoted Companion played by Battie
In this session, the party boarded the golden barge piloted by PAW and rode to the dwarven ruins in the Suan Hi region beneath which lies the main fissure into the Void in order to seal it and SAVE THE WORLD. (Probably at least for now.) However, not before Ayo hired a Lantern Boy, a frail young illiterate lad who they renamed Lantern Boy. (This should surprise no one if you have played in one of Dan's games before.)
The ship teleported right in front of a great door in the middle of the ruins. The devolved dwarves scattered before them and an older member of their people actually managed to say a few words, warning of the dangers below and saying that, "The Mad Prince must be stopped."
They descended down the stairs, coming across a long hall where baleful green light shone down from a crystal suspended above, reflected about the room by the reflective eyes and shields of great dwarven statues. Discovering that flesh and clothing begins to burn in the light
They covered some tent material in dirt and rocks and carried it by its poles over their heads and began walking through the hall. It seemed to work for a time but that changed once mirror golems stepped forth from the great shields. Immediately, Ayo called for retreat and the golems didn't give chase, but the light had burned through the tent such that it fell apart upon their retreat.
Nettie discovered that she could cast darkness and filled the hall with magical shadow. Nettie and Wyrd snuck across while Trapper and Ayo flung rocks to distract the golems. This worked but then Ayo and Trapper tried to just book it through and managed to make it past with only a little damage.
Once again, the golems did not give chase and they made it into the next room: a great throne room with a gold rod sitting in the throne and the headless corpses of armored dwarves lying against pillars.
As they examined the corpses, the bodies began to stand and pick up weapons. Ayo blasted one with her Hell Fire hand and the fight began. In their first attack, poor Lantern Boy was cut down, slain in the dark. (RIP press F in the chat.) The twelve dwarves in the chamber were obviously too many and too well armored for a frontal assault. Wyrd was knocked unconscious int eh ensuing battle and revived by Nettie's Lay on Hands. It was becoming apparent that Wyrd was a little fragile for this kind of combat.
The party began to retreat but Ayo had a different idea. She suspected that the rod at the end of the corridor would control the dwarves and so she began to cartwheel across the floor (rolling Ref Saves to increase movement at the cost of the possibility of falling prone.) She stumbled and fell on the final step and a dwarf fell back to cut her off.
The rest of the party had begun to fall back. Nettie and Wyrd made their way back into the darkened hall and tried to make their way past the golems, managing to get by without dying. As this dwarf stood over Ayo holding his hammer high, the fallen torch next to the corpse of Lantern Boy, sputtered and died.
Wyrd and Nettie watched as Trapper and Ayo emerged from the darkness, scarped and bruised but alive. Future expeditions would require more force.
Next session began with only Ayo and Rope-kun, played by Thoobn, with Trapper-sama showing up later.
Morning the loss of dear Lantern Boy, Ayo and Rope-kun decided to attend a show. Figarus Cornswallow, conman and charlatan, had begun a very popular show: "Phantoms and Phantasmagoria! Hear the dead speak once more!" A party which neither Rope-kun nor Ayo had been in had encountered Mr. Cornswallow before where he worked a house of phoneys (think Mystery Shack from Gravity falls but medieval fantasy). He had a strange flute which acted as a key to a portal to a lost city and also had ill effects on listeners. All of this he ignored in the name of profit. The party intimidated him into giving them the flute.
Ayo bathed to the shock of everyone and wore some fancy orange robes and put a bowtie on Rope-kun. They paid their entry fee to a man who introduced himself as Sam Soot, who expressed an interest in any combustible materials the adventurers might find on their travels.
Entering the show, they sat next to an excitable young noblewoman who expressed her fantasies of a future where they no longer need mourn the dead since they will be able to speak with them any time. Ayo remained skeptical. The theater was a round space with the stage in the middle. At each of the seven corners of the stage, there was a copper pylon, connected to each other by metal wire, all hooked up to a console of switches and levers, manned by Sam Soot.
Figarus appeared, making his introduction in his usual overdramatic fashion. He had a sort of microphone and a great leather-bound book brought to the stage by a female assistant. He asked for volunteers and couldn't even finish before a young bonnet-wearing woman climbed onto the stage. Taken aback, the conman rolled with it and asked her who she wished to speak to.
"My mother."
He smiled and continued, beginning to read his incantation. Candle flames turned blue and cold spots began wandering through the crowd, brushing by Ayo and Rope. Sam Soot pulled a lever and blue electricity crackled up and down the pylons, skittering along the wires. On the stage, hazy shadows could be seen, giving the wandering shades a vaguely humanoid appearance. A shade approached the microphone.
"Why? Why did you leave us? We need you!" The woman said.
A wailing distorted female voice came from the microphone: "I looove yooouuu, darling! This juuust haad to beee!"
Rope-kun, who had kept an eye on Sam Soot and his machine, saw the female assistant leaning over a gramophone-like tube.
"That's not what she said!" The young woman said with an accusatory stare at Cornswallow.
He went very pale.
"She's asking to cross. She's telling you to give her permission! Tell her to cross!"
The lower class crowds began to chant: "Tell her to cross! Tell her to cross!"
Figarus gave into the pressure. "Spirit! I give you permission to cross the veil!"
The shadow began to grow, becoming a tall, sharp shadow, reaching out needle-like fingers towards the woman. Then the pylons sparked and the room was plunged into darkness. When lanterns were relit the woman was laying passed out on the ground. Rope-kun attempted to use his Void Navigator's Helmet to teleport over to her and ended up behind the machine.
After Sam Soot called out: "Saboteur! He sabotaged the machine!"
Ayo calmed things down, taking hold of Rope and the woman, who was awake but wouldn't open her eyes.
They began going towards the Guild House with the woman in tow. Rope-kun began drilling the woman, named Melissa Penny, about what happened and about her family's history of magic.
The woman said she thought the creature had touched her, sending up all kinds of red flags. She said there was a wizard in her family, a man by the name of Samwise Grail, her great uncle, who had gone to the arcane academy in Masonberg before being kicked out over a disagreement with the college. He returned to Whispershie and took up the violin, according to what her mother, Amber Penny, had told her about him. But he made such dreadful noise with his violin that it gave her nightmares. One day, he disappeared and has not been seen since.
Rope-kun suspected the man to be a necromancer or other such foul magician. When they returned to the Guild, Trapper-sama and Childermass, the guild master's manservant, met them. Trapper lifted up one of her eyelids to see orbs of pure darkness, looking very much like Void. The entire party attempted to do some research on Samwise Grail and Ayo discovered a news clipping mentioning him purchasing a house in connection with something called the Fermata Group.
Ayo then went off to fetch an exorcist as Trapper and Rope tried to get more information from Melissa. She responded rather strangely to getting food and water as if she had never eaten or drank. And then she began to copy everything they said word for word.
Ayo returned with well-known exorcist and priest of Mortarus, the Angel of Death. The large man announced his fear that this was a demon from beyond the gate of death but Childremass said otherwise. He said he had seen something like this before and it wasn't dead, it had never been. Heedless of Childermass, the priest continued his ritual, placing Melissa bound into a circle of salt, splashed with holy water. He began cranking a box of strange atonal noise, and Melissa began to thrash. Glass began to break. Void began to bubble up from the floor. Childremass fell to the ground and started to wail in pain as he aged rapidly.
Over Rope-kun's demands, the priest continued, his chant reaching a crescendo when the sound stopped. Absolute darkness fell and everyone could vaguely feel a very tall presence in the room. When sight was restored, the exorcist was dead, his chest ripped open, the door behind him torn asunder. Melissa was gone.
The party went immediately to the house mentioned in the clipping. They found it occupied by Figarus Cornswallow. Initially, the con man insisted they leave but he quickly gave in, dark bags beneath his eyes. He said that they ought to take it because he has been hearing things at night ever since he found it.
They turned from the doorway to see Melissa, her midnight eyes open and staring, standing in the street. They hurried inside the house and she remained standing outside. Trapper yelled loudly to try and warn the neighbors and maybe call for help but of course, the house was in a section of the town where a great number of nobles and the rich had built houses then mostly abandoned them so there was no one around to hear him scream.
They followed Figarus to the book. It had the symbol for fortissimo carved into the front and the pedestal they found it on had the symbol for fermata on it. Inside, it appeared that Samwise Grail had inscribed his name on the book but its original author was clearly an ancient dwarf, writing in a similar runic style as those the party had encountered in the Suan Hi forest. The last name of this dwarf had been that same name seen inscribed on all the dwarven coins they found. Still, none of the party spoke dwarven so they had no idea what it said.
Besides scrawling dwarven text, inside there were also pages of musical notation as if someone had been trying to write down a song they were hearing and failing, repeatedly. At this point, there is a crash and the party rushed to look out a window.
Melissa is no longer standing in the street.
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