Dramatis Personae
+Red Flanagan as Classified
+Ronnie Whelan as Ronnina
+Moreven Brushwood as The Four Gobbos
+David Carli-Arnold as Asheron
+Chris Wilson as Cockvedawnya
Loot
The Christmas Beast Cometh!
Ronnina – Spell glue. Spread on something, cast a spell on it. The spell will stick to that thing and wait for the caster to activate it at will. Spell glue has a 1d12 exhaustion die.
Classified – A bag which opens into a pocket dimension of Mall-Ninja nonsense weapons, enchanted so they deal actual damage (2d8), but prone to breaking at the end of every combat.
He also got regifted Don Harper’s Wish from last year, which he never used.
Asheron – A fancy set of acrobatic apparel: frilly shoes, a leotard, and tights, all very colorful and covered in geometric designs. The designs are mesmerizing enough, and the clothing mobile enough, that each piece grants +1 armor rating. (Base AR 11 altogether)
The Four Gobbos – A set of POWER WHEELS. Little electric cars with onboard computers that allow them to be set in self-driving mode.
Cockvedawnya – At his egg before opening it. Fortunately, it contained a mouse with a very useful ability. The mouse was so easy to digest, that it didn’t require a poison save, and gave him stretchy limbs.
Unfortunately, the egg also contained 5,000cc. Eventually, these will pass through Cockvedawnya’s system, and he can retrieve them with a colander if he likes.
Blue Mage Ability
Cockatrice Bite Rules The blue mage must make a successful bite attack. (which, given human teeth, may be difficult with opponents who are armored). If successful, the target must make a saving throw versus paralyzation. On a fail, they will begin to turn to stone one limb each round for 4 rounds. (1. R. arm, 2. L arm, 3. R Leg, 4. L Leg). On the 5th round only their head will remain non-stone. On the 6th round, they will be completely stone’d.
Stretchmouse Rules The arms and legs of the blue mage can stretch out up to 15′, and bend like rubber. Basically like becoming Mr. Fantastic, but only in your arms and legs, and not quite to such a great extent.
NPC Interactions
The Hangman – Gave the players a new mission.
Leoness, Trosin, & Bort – Getting Drinks, asking questions!
The Christmas Beast – Presents!
Highlights Recap
Given that the asteroid is only one month away from hitting the dome, the party decided it was time to get to work on that whole “Space Ship” thing. Ronnina put a call in to The Hangman. First, she asked if everything was alright re: someone suicide bombing Internet HQ. The Hangman said all the equipment was fine, the bottom 30 floors of the building were just filled with guard monsters anyway. Unfortunately, all of those have escaped, and are now wandering the dome. Every encounter, everywhere in the dome now has a chance to be with one of these monsters.
Furthermore, since it was obviously an attack directed at the Internet, and not a random act of violence (ironic, since it was literally random), The Internet are distributing their operations around to more locations. Though, unfortunately, it’s just not feasible to move everything out of the pillar.
Second, Ronnina asked about what the Internet thought of this whole…”asteroid” situation. The Hangman agreed that it was a troubling development to have a giant space rock hurtling towards the only home of humanity. However, she also said that according to her calculations, the rock wouldn’t destroy the dome. There would be damage, to be sure. The dome’s various environmental supports may go on the fritz. But she wasn’t worried about armageddon. Though, she noted, she would much prefer to get the space ship finished, fly out, and blast the rock to bits before it can get to Mars.
Which brought her to what she wanted the party to do: the ship is basically complete. However, one of their coders, a man named Dergan Timkis, sabotaged the project at the last minute. Apparently he held quite a grudge about the means that had been used to motivate him in the past. While putting the finishing touches on some vital navigation software, he added in an encryption protocol, that allowed him to lock off all 3 million lines of code when he deserted his post. The Internet has people working on it, but they probably won’t get the ship running in time. It’d be much better if someone could find him.
The Hangman noted that he seemed to have fled into Outsider held territory. Ronnina suggested that, instead of capturing him and bringing him back, it might be easier just to get him to fix the problem remotely. The Hangman agreed to live-mail the party a terminal whenever they gave a signal. She also explained how to use their phones as internet hotspots, so the terminal could communicate with Internet HQ.
The party set out, eager to get the job done. On their way out of Fighting Mongoose territory, they saw a group of about a dozen young mercenaries heading off to do a job, jovially bragging to one another about how they were going to kick ass. Some of the party wanted to investigate, but Ronnina pointed out that they were probably off to do something terrible and racist. And if the party got involved, they might want to put a stop to it, which would be a big distraction from their whole “stop the asteroid” thing. The party more or less agreed to mind their own business, and waved to the younger mongoose as they passed. The youngsters were momentarily starstruck by Ronnina, but eventually cheered and waved back. Asheron tried to flip over one of them but failed, and bumped them with his baby butt, then strutted sexily away.
Further on, in No Man’s Land, the party was ambushed by a hunting party of Cockatrice, which moved in to surround them from all sides. The party moved quickly, and made short work of the beasts. Six of them were just dropped into Fire Portal Pits, while the remaining two were killed with more conventional weapons so that there would be something left for Cockvedawnya to eat. The cockatrice didn’t even get a single round to act, and Cockvedawnya walked away from the fight with the ability to turn people to stone by biting them.
The party eventually reached Outsider territory, and made a call to their old drinking buddies, Leoness, Trosin, and Bort. The group met up at The Upturned Kilt, and Ronnina bought a round of drinks for everyone. The party got down to business then, asking their Outsider friends if they knew of any way they could find someone. The three Outsiders didn’t seem to have much to offer until Ronnina showed them a picture of who they were looking for, and all three exchanged knowing glances.
JUST THEN, the crimson claw of THE CHRISTMAS BEAST burst through the tavern wall, exposing the white void of the Polar Zone beyond. It pushed its head into the hole, and vomited up its merry bile upon everyone in the bar, leaving the traditional paper eggs at everyone’s feet, before disappearing.
The session ended In Media Res