Game log of a ToEE adventure that somehow turned into an Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. You can find the original google doc here.
Retcon occurred, the silver mount become a sky fortress which eventually become Moon Fortress. Essentially the original moon was destroyed/replaced sometime in the distant past and is now one giant fortress (mega-dungeon) run by a friendly AI called UNITY.
Rogues Gallery – “General Puggin’s Moribund of Mercenaries”*
- The Rogue – Giselle der Gauner the Soulknife due to a mutation granting her telekinetic powers (character #2, previous character was Mirka the Rogue – Deceased)
- The Monk – Augusta “Tof” Bamberger and her henchmen Elmo the Ranger and pet pug General Puggins.
- The Druid – Lilie the Elf and her henchmen Wolfram and animal companion Fuyuko, the white wolf.
- The Knight – Lintelfaden Toshcobble, squire of Rufus the Bold.
- The Fighter – Fencil the Android (brain tape swap) (Character #2, previous character was a cleric – Deceased) and his (henchmen Zof the Jarhead Wizard – Deceased).
- The Ranger – Bustov Daman and his animal companion (ex-human, reincarnated as an orc), The Mou-Mou Bird (bloodthirsty ghost sparrow).
- The Cleric – Lorenz Brandt (character #2), the scribe.
The Wizard – Boris the Jaws-Dodger (Deceased Session 25, retired from the game).
*Due to a transcription error by the Verbobonc mercenary company registrar, “Merry” become “Moribund.”
Session 41 Recap
Gisella slipped the pencil behind her ear and closed her notebook. “So that’s all the loot I believe. Has everyone gotten the magic items they wanted.”
“Uh, slight problem,” Lintelfaden admitted.
“What’s up?”
The scroll in his hand disintegrated and he started moving extremely slowly. Slow was an understatement; he made snails look fast. His body refused to move quickly no matter how hard he tried, almost as if he was glued to the ground.
“Haha, is that the downside?” Lorenz laughed. “What did you trade it for?”
“I feel slightly stronger…”
The scrolls were definitely cursed, empowering one skill while stealing from the other. Strength, dexterity, speed, intellect and much more; the trade had to be done before using the magic and it wasn’t always even. You could gain more than you lost or you could be like Lintelfaden, taking years to get from one point to another.
“It’s just my legs,” he complained. “I can swing a sword just fine but I can hardly get into my suit!”
The party watched while it took him over five minutes to climb into the space marine armour. And they stifled a laugh when it started walking slowly as well.
“Why are you doing this all in my lab?” Kwalish sighed. “I’m very busy…”
Regrouping with the rest, Aki, Augusta, Lilie, and… an orc teleported in. They had gone for a shopping trip at Shen’s Emporium and who knows what they bought. An orc apparently.
“Uh, what is that?” Gisella asked.
“It’s me, Bustov,” the orc replied.
Lorenz and Lintelfaden stifled a laugh. “Looks like the resurrection went badly,” the cleric chuckled. “Unfortunately it is about 33k in gold so we need you to cough it up.”
“It cost 33k to reincarnate me?! I thought you were casting resurrection!”
“Who gave you the reincarnate idea?” Lintelfaden asked. “We are loyal party members who tried our best to bring you back from the dead! Now pay up.”
For some reason, Fensal got uncontrollably mad when he heard lies. “No, we spent 700 on the reincarnate, not 33k. That was the price for true resurrection.”
Lorenz placed his finger over his lips. “Shhh, he was dead, he doesn’t know that! Now then, Bustov, 33k please and thank you.”
“You’re scamming me,” the ranger snapped.
“Always have been.”
Kwalish slammed his table and called over Robbie the Golden. “I can’t deal with all of your incessant chattering! I need silence to focus!”
One by one, Robbie kicked them out of the lab and shut the door. The sound of about 13 different locks echoed on the other side and a secondary door slammed over the first one.
They could head back to the earth temple but the party decided to do a quick detour to the lower levels of the space station and to the gene-splicer. Bustov also refused to be an orc for the rest of his life and wanted to be brain-taped from his body into an android one much to Lorenz’s excitement. In his eyes, he was all converting them to UNITY who will free them from their fleshy bodies; he already started to show signs of change when parts of his hair turned into golden wires.
Planning to spend no more than a week in the station and head straight back to the earth temple, they ignored everything that didn’t immediately require their attention, speeding through the first few rooms and heading to the first level.
Aki nervously glanced at Bustov, unsettled by his new look. “You’re freaky…”
“No I’m not!” he assured. “I’m the same gallant and dashing Bustov as before-!” He tried to flick his hair but realised that he now had a mohawk. “My hair!”
“Not blonde anymore,” Lilie chuckled. She pretended to be him and posed. “Ugly, orcy, mohawk Bustov scaring Aki with his fangs!”
“Are you scared of me?!” he panicked.
She looked at him again and took a step back. “Not scared but you do look freaky…”
He fell to his knees as if his whole life had shattered around him. But with renewed will and determination, imagining his new android body, he stood back up and placed his hands on his hips. “Do not worry, I will get a new body that will be ten times more dashing than this one! Fret not, my daughter, because I-”
“Shh!” Gisella interrupted. “Why are you shouting?”
She wasn’t being rude but had to interrupt their banter and discussions at the back. Elmo was investigating a fresh trail of blood that led off into a nearby room… and there was a lot of blood. Judging from the marks, it seemed like the creature was dragged off and most likely devoured by the beast inside. Curious and cautious, they pushed open the steel doors and pushed into the dimly lit room. Lorenz’s eyes glowed a pale blue and the light brightened thanks to his radiant manipulation.
Now that they could get a better look, the room seemed like an abandoned operating room. Broken appliances and tools littered the floor while others hung on the walls ready for immediate use. The blood trailed up to a steel table with what looked like a metal brain infested with plants and colourful flowers. As the party approached it began to float and cords and vines dangled from beneath it, serving as its limbs.
“Hello,” it whispered in a child-like voice. “More red liquid creatures?”
“What is that?!” Lilie screamed. “Who are you?!”
“Me? I do not know who is me… What is my name…?”
“Jack,” Lorenz stated.
“But what if it’s a girl?” Augusta interrupted. “You can’t name a girl ‘Jack’.”
“It’s a floating plant-robot thing. It doesn’t have a gender.”
“You’re assuming,” Lintelfaden interrupted. “We should go with Sam. So if it’s a boy, he’s Samuel or Samantha for a girl.”
Lorenz shook his head. “You are overthinking this. The plant doesn’t care about gender and Jack is a perfectly good name.”
“Sam is better.”
“Jack.”
“Sam.”
“Jack!”
“Sam!”
“Oh…” the plant muttered. “Jack-Sam… Yes, I is Jack-Sam.”
Taking the name they accidentally gave him, it started to make simple conversation but got distracted when one of the tendrils touched the blood. Completely absorbed by its texture, it floated towards and played with the red puddle, drawing messy pictures for fun. Suddenly, it flew into a frenzy and sucked it dry, syphoning the liquid through the tentacles and glowing a deep red for a moment. As the colour faded so did the excitement and it went back to acting dopey and clueless.
“We are killing this thing…” Lilie muttered, shivering behind Wolfram.
“That’s madness!” Lintelfaden retorted, growing quiet attached to the floating plant-robot. He let Jack-Sam rest on his shoulder without him going crazy for blood thanks to the armour. “We will teach him who to eat and who not to eat.”
“Or we could just, you know, purge the creature,” Lorenz sighed. “It’s not evil per se but it isn’t the best companion. It’s no Moi Moi.”
Jack-Sam knocked on Litelfaden’s helmet and stared hungrily at the party. “Is these all the red blood people filled with yummy-yummy juice?”
“Nope,” the druid lied. “No red blood here, not at all.”
Once again, the lie sent Fensal into a fit of rage but this time it was uncontrollable. He pulled out the onyx hammer and it glowed a deep purple, pulsing with magic energy unlike before. Surprising everyone, he swung for Lilie with all his might but Wolfram was quick enough to protect her. Even he shuddered from the strength of the hit but was able to force the android back in time for Gisella to hold him in place. It didn’t matter how strong he was, he wasn’t breaking out of her telekinetic grasp.
“What’s gotten into you?” she cursed and pried the mace out of his hand.
He regained his composure once the hammer was taken away. “Huh? Oh, uh, I don’t… really know.”
“Is it because we lied?” Elmo wondered. “He can perceive the truth while he holds the hammer and flips when it’s not being told the truth. The weapon also glowed with a strange lambent light.”
It was a little difficult because Fensal went out of control when someone lied but also lost it if the hammer was taken away from him, meaning trying to stop him wasn’t the simplest task. If he went crazy again, Lorenz assured he could shut him down for a moment to clear his head.
Heading onwards, Lintelfaden forced the party to take Jack-Sam with them, another ‘pet’ to add to their menagerie. Riding atop Murphy the Unicorn, almost completely unable to move on his own, he taught Jack-Sam the difference between ‘bad fleshy thing’ and ‘good fleshy thing’. On the bright side, the new pet was rather dumb and extremely child-like in nature almost like a toddler so it believed anything it was told.
“Good fleshy things are like us,” Lintelfaden explained, pointing at his comrades “Like Lilie, Bustov, Gisella…” She looked at Lorenz for a moment then skipped him. “Aki and Augusta.”
“Hey!” the cleric snapped. “How am I different?”
“I seeses, I seeses,” Jack-Sam acknowledged.
The fighter continued. “Now bad fleshy things are like animals we point at or scary enemies-”
One of the skymetal doors was forced open and a black dragon crawled through, roaring at the party. Half a dozen intellect devourers hopped around excitedly, lunging for the party and charging their bodies with psychic energy.
“Bad fleshy things!” Lilie ordered. “Go eat them or something!”
Just as happy as the intellect devourers, Jack-Sam leapt giddy towards his meal and caught one of the devourers within his tendrils. Piercing the flesh with ease, he began to glow red again as the blood was syphoned out of the creature, leaving behind an empty grey husk.
“Intellect devourers?” Gisella muttered. “Another dragon surrounded by them? Don’t tell me we ran into Makau again on another hunting trip.”
There was no doubt about it when the dragon’s eyes rolled back into its head and its temple slit open. It revealed its brain and it shone with energy over ten times the strength of the smaller devourers. An illusory web spread across the ground and moved on their own to snare the party but they were much more real than they seemed. Augusta and Wolfram were instantly caught and were marked for the other devourers.
Targeting the knight, his armour meant nothing to their psychic attacks and a single blow to the mind brought him to his knees. Though he didn’t seem physically hurt, he didn’t flinch when the devourers started climbing on him.
“Does he recognise us?” Lorenz wondered. “He’s casting spells instead of relying on the dragon body.”
Shaking off the weak ranged attacks, Makau tore a hole beneath the party. If they could escape the web, the hole was waiting for them and so were the spikes beneath. A few of them managed to leap out of the way but those stunned by the devourers fell all the way down.
“I’m falling!” Augusta panicked, seeing the spikes at the bottom. “Oh no, oh no, I’m too young to-”
She was so small she fell in between the spikes.
“Oh… Oh!” she laughed. “I’m fine!”
Wolfram fell with a crash and blunted the spikes, unable to pierce his armour.
Gisella ran over to the edge of the pit, using her telekinesis to resist the webbing. “Climb out of there! Makau’s going to fill the hole with acid!”
Steam began to seep from between the dragon’s teeth and its throat began to glow with heat. The body didn’t seem as old as the previous dragon Makau had controlled but its breath was no less dangerous. But he was suddenly interrupted when loud music blasted throughout the room and Lintelfaden cranked the sound gauge up to eleven and raised his katana to the conveniently placed light in the roof, reflecting off its sharp edge.
“Do not worry!” he assured. “I will-”
Are you tired of ads?! The speakers asked, interrupting the music and killing the mood. For just 50 gp a month you can go ad free by upgrading to Premium Kwalish Tunes! That’s right, absolutely ad free!
“Uh, sorry. Just, uh, give it a sec… Murphy! Hey, Murphy!”
Once the ad finished the music picked up again and it leapt gracefully over the hole and delivered a powerful blow to Makau’s puppet. Small rockets flipped out of the armour’s arms and empower the strike, cutting straight through the neck and even slicing the skymetal floors.
Second time around nobody let their guard down, fully prepared when the severed head burst open and Makau crawled out, screeching in rage. It deflected lasers and arrows with a barrier and began to glow bright with energy. A wave of psychic power rocked their minds and chained between them, randomly swapping their personalities and bodies with each other until complete chaos ensued.
“I hate this guy!” ‘Lilie’ compalined, now in Bustov. “Now I’ve got this ugly orc body!”
“Hey!” the ranger snapped. He found himself in the space marine suit, confused with all the contraptions and devices. “I’m 2-feet tall in a suit I have no idea how to pilot!”
Laughing, Makau leapt on the space marine and glared through the visor, flooding the armour with energy. He overflowed his mind, knocked him unconscious in seconds, and leapt away as fast as he could. Though vicious in nature, he disliked fighting without a corpse to control and began to retreat, leaping off the walls and bounding out of sight. He was ready to fight back if need be but the party was willing to chase.
Thankfully, non-lethal damage was done and Jack-Sam had drained the other devourers dry of blood. Lorenz wasn’t hit by the mind swap and was able to heal the party but ‘Bustov’ had to teach ‘Lilie’ how to cast any spells.
“Like this?” Lilie asked. And energy coalesced on the roof and detonated.
“I said heal, not blow up things!” Bustov snapped. “The hand motions are like this, okay?”
“Why are the motions for ‘cure wounds’ almost identical to ‘exploding earth’?”
Gathering everyone up, the first step was trying to figure who was actually who. It seemed like Lilie was in Bustov, Lintelfaden was in Lilie, and Bustov was in Lintelfaden. The only two who had a perfect swap were Fensal and Gisella, trading each other’s minds one for one.
“This is getting more and more confusing,” Lorenz sighed. “And the curse isn’t lifting like last time.”
“Do you have an idea on how to lift it?” ‘Fensal’ asked.
“If it is a curse I can remove it but I don’t have the spell for today. I’ll need to ask UNITY the next time we can rest safely.”
“So we should head straight back up,” ‘Bustov’ panicked, clearly proving that it was really Lilie’s mind. “Let’s just leave this scary place and get me out of this icky body.”
“Nah, we’ll be fine,” Lorenz assured. “If we can get to level 6 the Zhevs near the auto-forge will be a safe place.”
Despite how much she protested, continuing down was the best way to save time. Luckily, nothing dangerous was left on the current level or the one below, meeting a few robots performing their maintenance duties but it was otherwise uneventful.
Level 2, 3, and down to level 4 was rather quiet until they got near the border to level 5. A hologram manifested before them identical to the angels with the Enginseer. She was not hostile and greeted the party as friends but she was stern and had her mission to complete.
“Please head to your designated rooms immediately,” she ordered. “If you are walking about, we cannot guarantee your safety from our attackers.”
“Who’s attacking?” Elmo asked.
“Entities of Typhon. Please head to your designated rooms now.” The party tried to walk past her but she created a baton of light and blocked their way. “This is a direct order, do not disobey.”
“Our designated rooms are down below,” Lorenz assured. “On level 6. We don’t live up where the other rooms are on level 1, we’re more of the worker type and live near the site.”
With no reason to suspect falsehood, she dismissed her baton and let them past. ‘Fensal’ on the other hand flew into a rage hearing yet another lie from the party and bashed the back of the cleric’s head with his fist. Cursing the weapon, Lorenz raised his holy symbol and channelled his power into it, shutting down the android temporarily and breaking the curse.
“Why do you attack me?” the hologram asked, readying her weapon. Though she was not an intended target, there was no control over the light from the holy symbol and she clearly resisted its effects. “Are you infected with the Typhons? I will bring you to the genetic lab straight away.”
“Lorenz!” ‘Gisella’ snapped.
“My bad!” he apologised. “But we can blame the mace for attacking in the first place, right?”
“You shut down my body and now this thing hates us-!”
She was knocked out by the hologram but the blow was non-lethal. It was definitely holding back, taking care with its strikes so as not to kill any humans.
“Shut it down!” Elmo ordered.
“I’m trying!” the cleric assured and his holy symbol glowed again.
It worked the second time and the hologram began to break in the light. Its core flashed and fell to the ground, leaving behind a dormant bead, though it did glow with energy. Before it could restart itself, the party ran for level 5, not stopping until they were sure they were safe with the autumn veggiepygmies.
The plan was to not make any stops until level 10 but the pygmies insisted Aki stay with them for a week, not only missing their princess but fascinated by how she changes colour as time passed. Concurring, they left her to spend time with her family and they took a rest at the auto-forge for now and dispelling the mind-swap curse on the party. Opting to wait for Aki, they upgraded their weapons at the auto-forge with the new materials they had found at the earth temple.
“Where are you going?” Bustov yelled, chasing after Lorenz.
“Uh, nowhere!” he laughed. “Nowhere at all!”
“Trying to sneak to level 5 again, huh?! Not on my watch!”
This continued for the rest of the week and the cleric was caught every single time.