Dramatis Personae
+Linlin Kins as Umquat
+Frotz Self as Varouj
+Anthony Fournier as Losco
+Ronnie Whelan as Ronnina
Loot
One red and one blue replica style 18th century military jackets.
One pair of Air Jordan sneakers.
One pair of JC Penny cowboy boots.
One wagon w/ a 4 Space Llama team.
Azurak’s Treasure Horde:
1. A wooden spear with a red stone spearhead. Enchanted. If thrown, deals a flat 15 damage on a successful hit.
2. A Tommy Gun. Make two attacks each round, for 1d6 each. d12 exhaustion die.
3. A heap of 82,954cc (20,739 cc/xp each)
4. A mysterious USB stick. A piece of tape on it is labeled “WARNING: Fritz”
5. “The C Bible,” a one-of-a-kind sacred text among the Technotopians.
6. Azurak’s Throne, sells for 8,000cc (2,000 cc/xp each)
NPC Interactions
Auju – A former sword swallower from the circus. Varouj’s new hireling.
The Circus Folk – Given a significant pay-out by Umquat. Mostly dispersed.
Leader of the Cult of Azurak – His religius rite was disrupted, his companions killed, and he was tortuously injured. He escaped, and will not forget this injustice visited upon his person.
Sheniqua’s Schoolmate – Very good at Bubble Bobble. Was “rescued” by the party, but only so Ronnina could sacrifice him herself.
The Entity Beyond the Door – Annoyed by the party, but not overly much. Will create a new door guardian to defend the entrance to its domain.
Haven Turn
Hazard Die: 1. Complication. 8. A great monster appears.
The giant robot which has been aimlessly wandering The Dome has suddenly become violent, and is punching various buildings as it walks past them, killing dozens of people every day.
Technotopia v. Dukes of the Dome: Technotopia continues to gain ground over the Dukes, though only in small increments. (Rolls: 3 and 2).
Ronnina: ???
Acheron: Continues skill training to raise Piloting to 4-in-6. Month 3 of 5.
Classified: ???
Losco: ???
Varouj: ???
Umquat: ???
Highlights Recap
We left our party just as they all lost consciousness, deep in hostile territory, with only 3 of the Gobbos left up to protect them from the horrors of Needletooth Jack’s domain.
The first thing the unconscious party experienced, as they slowly regained their faculties, was a distant, creepy circus music. Once they realized what they were hearing their eyes shot open to discover that they were in a bed, in a tent, with gobbos looming over them.
The gobbos explained how they dragged the party away from the scary place, and how they found the circuis, and they got to thinking: circuis life sounds fun. So they signed the whole party up to join the circuis! All paperwork taken care of! Ten WHOLE year contract! It was gonna be so fun!
Losco and Ronnina hopped out of bed, and discovered that their faces had been painted white, and their hair curled and dyed in a rainbow of colors. The pair marched outside, intent on leaving, and were soon approached by the ringmaster. A greasy man in a top hat, with the red jacket of an 18th century historical reenactment troupe. He was glad his new clowns were awake, since their room and board was getting expensive. He tried to extort the pair, noting that their fees up to this point had cost him about 80 credits, but that working at 3 credits a day, they should be able to pay him back (plus interest) well before their contract was out.
Ronnina tossed the man 1000 credits, insisting she had ‘bought’ the contract. She also took his coat, and insisted he rename his circuis to “Flurbo & Ronnina’s Fantastic Feats.” The man was just flabbergasted enough by his sudden windfall of cash that he agreed.
Of course, this whole time, the Gobbos were attempting to perform various acrobatic feats, and failing miserably at them.
It was also around this time that Varouj noticed his old companion Ronnina. Varouj was buying a ticket for the show, given that the sewer domain he had established for himself was nearby. He never expected to bump into Ronnina here, and the two old friends quickly got reacquainted. Ronnina introduced Varouj to Rosco, and Varouj explained that he’d been working on developing his holdings with his old friends Heather and Dayvo. He also mentioned that Robot Monster had gone off to seek his own fortune.
As if this was not enough of a shock, a few moments later the party heard a familiar roar. When they followed the sound, they quickly discovered none other than Umquat! She’d gone through an impressive growth spurt in the past year, reaching a height of 6’1″ after spending a year reuniting with her childhood girl gang, and working out in the forest. Now she was here, fighting off 10 other girls her own age for the entertainment of a popcorn-tossing crowd.
The mud-caked Umquat boisterously greeted the party, and reintroduced them to her companion Faylana; now with highly advanced robotic legs, and also now officially Umquat’s lover.
When she discovered the party had been slaves to the Ringleader (however briefly and ineffectively), she became enraged, declaring she wasn’t interested in giving him a third warning. She marched right on over to where he was taking tickets–the reunited party in tow–and accosted the man. Losco used his rebar spear to knock the man’s feet out from under him, and Umquat mercilessly finished him off. (Though, not before the party retrieved his snazzy blue coat, and his Air Jordan shoes). She then warned the crowd that, so long as she was around, nobody who owned slaves would be tolerated. Someone in the crowd tried to skulk away, and Losco unhesitatingly threw his spear through the woman’s chest.
People began to file home, and a number of the circus performers relievedly began to disperse, hoping to get away from this life now that the ringleader was dead. One of them, a sword swallower named Auju, sought employment with Varouj, which Varouj granted. Before they left, however, Umquat made a point to break into the man’s safe, and distribute his money (about 8,000cc) to all the performers. Losco also claimed the man’s wagon–an old H3 hummer, with the top and engine block torn off, lashed to a team of 4 Space Llamas.
With no particular goal to pursue (Ronnina was not interested in returning to the territory of Needletooth Jack), the group decided to check in on how that Block War from last session went. They traveled a few hours, and were nearly there, when Umquat decided the journey hadn’t been interesting enough, and chose to take the party on a little detour to see if they could encounter something fun.
Whilst crossing over the roof of a small building, the party noticed a group of people in orange safety vests, hard hats, and grass skirts standing in a circle. They were atonally chanting the lyrics to “The Sound of Silence,” as one of their number pushed a pair of shopping carts towards a pit.
The carts had been welded together, top to top, so as to create a cage, in which a thin young man was trapped, and begging them to let him go.
From their place high up on the roof, the party inquired as to what the group was doing. According to them, it was the Day of Solaces, and they were presenting a sacrifice to honor the 12th aspect of Azurak.
Having heard enough, Umquat leapt from the roof, and Ronnina quickly cast Feather Fall on everyone, so they could all descend down to fight together. The party made embarrassingly short work of the cultists, wiping out the whole lot of them in a single round, save for the apparent leader, who they left alive to extract information from. Then they forgot about him, and now he’s out there plotting his revenge.
Before the party wiped out their foes, however, a few cultists did manage to drop a ramp down into their pit, from which Azurak itself emerged. A large beast of a creature carrying a spiked mace. It looked like it was shaping up to be a heck of a fight, but then Ronnina opened a fire portal beneath its feet, and it fell into the plane of eternal fire, where it will be incinerated again and again for all time.
The party went to investigate the victim that was going to be used in the sacrifice. When they discovered that he was a Technotopian, they weren’t terribly disposed to actually let him go. And actually, Sheniqua recognized him! He had been a schoolmate of hers growing up. Always praised for his Bubble Bobble skills by the teachers. She didn’t like him much either, which basically sealed his fate. The party kept him in his cage, stuffed him into Losco’s wagon, and Ronnina settled on using him as the “innocent” for the ritual spell she intended to perform.
With nothing more pressing on their minds, the party clambered down the ramp into the hole Azurak had come from. It seemed to be a natural cavern, and fairly deep. A little deeper even than the sewers commonly were.
The party made their way through the various passages cautiously, checking always for any traps or other dangers. They found a heap of bones, a room intersected by a broken pipe, and an Azurak-sized throne of wood, but nothing that really struck their fancy.
Then they found the cave that spiralled ever downwards. Four or five loops, leading the party a good 15 or 20 feet lower into the martian crust. There, they found the wall.
It was completely inexplicable. Made from an unknown metal, with seemingly no seams between it and the stone of the cave wall. It was covered with reliefs in a Classical style, but with no recognizable relation to any known Classical subjects. There was a door in the wall, but it had no obvious means of opening. Even Ronnina, with her staff of Architectural Knowledge, could find nothing recognizable about it.
The party took a crowbar to this door, and immediately a narrow slit in the door moved aside, and a massive eye looked through it at the party. The door vibrated, and those vibrations became sounds. “How have you disturbed me?” it asked.
The party explained that they took care of that pesky Azurack, which the voice seemed exasperated by, explaining that now it would need to make another door guardian. The party apologized, and asked if there was anything they could do. The creature asked them to leave the caves, not to cover them, but not to encourage anyone else to come down. It would take a few days to create a new guardian to kill intruders with.
By way of a bribe, the creature directed the party towards where Azurack kept the various treasures he found. The party thanked the eye, and went off to find the treasure. They then loaded it all onto Losco’s new cart, and trundled their way home to Trumpquatia.
Thus ended February 2519