Session 87 – The Return of Robot Monster

Dramatis Personae

+Red Flanagan as Classified
+Anthony Fournier as Losco *
+Ronnie Whelan as Ronnina
+Linlin Kins as Umquat
+David Carli-Arnold as Achernar

Loot

2 Shaped Charges

NPC Interactions

Robot Monster – Is now highly placed with New Morthukia. Was pleased the party intended to end Queen Mechaela’s reign.

Queen Mechaela – The old giant robot first owned by xXxWizadSlayaxXx, and later by Don Harper of Mars. Now it seems to be much more powerful, and possibly self aware?

Highlights Recap

During this session, we decided to adopt a system wherein the players rotate which one of them is the “lead” player, with final say on what sort of adventures they pursue. By random determination, Losco was given first pick, and decided that the party really ought to check out that rampaging robot they’ve been hearing so much about.

The loaded up Flurbo’s Fantastic Wagon, and set off for where it was last sighted–Morthuk territory. On the way, they encountered the dragon Farago the Drunkard, who was–unsurprisingly–very drunk. He greeted Umquat’s riding lama Twinklepuff by name, as if it were an old friend, and thanked it for bringing it a snack in the form of the many humans behind it. What the nature of their relationship was is unclear, but it does not seem that Twinklepuff actually intended to bring the party to Farago.

The party tried to talk their way out of being Farago’s snack, but negotiations broke down, and Farago vomited fiery bile all over them, and the party fled.

When they reached Morthuk territory, it wasn’t hard to find where the robot had been. The swath of destruction was impressive. They followed it for a bit, and came upon a scene where a number of folks in fancy uniforms were examining the wreckage. Losco approached a woman using a measuring tape to examine the depth of the creature’s footprints.

Losco asked her a number of questions about the creature, how it acted, and what it was up to. He got some good information, and the party was about to set off after the thing, when the woman stood up and saluted her commander, who bellowed “What are YOU doing here!”

The party looked over to discover that Robot Monster, former companion of Varouj, was apparently now a person of rank in New Morthukia. They conferred with their old co-adventurer, who expressed a bit of frustration at “whatever it was Ronnina did” to the robot. (He recalled the party obtaining the thing, but did not know Don Harper had set it free.) He indicated that the creature had obviously been significantly magically enhanced. Ronnina tried to reassure Robot Monster, reminding him that the robot would eventually run out of souls. Robot Monster informed the party that the thing was now sucking souls directly out of bodies as it passed, pulling them into its mouth.

Unsettled by this, the party began talking about what equipment they might need to take this robot down: some grappling hooks, explosives, and magnets. Robot Monster–whose speech had become a great deal more fluent since the party last saw him–offered the grappling hooks and explosives that his team had brought with them, though lamented that they had no magnets.

The party accepted the kind gesture, and continued on their way with a full set of grappling hooks with climbing ropes, 3 shaped charges, and 1 building buster bomb.

They pursued, and finally caught up with the robot. Ashernar attempted to get its attention. Surprisingly, he was successful, and had a brief conversation with the robot which revealed very little, save for the fact that inside of the robot’s metal mouth was a second, massive, fleshy mouth. Also, the robot had chosen the name “Queen Mechaela” for itself.

Meanwhile, Umquat drank a potion of invisibility, and used her grapple to climb up to the Robot’s left knee (which they had noticed was damaged). She tried to place a shaped charge in such a way that it would cause massive structural damage, but all she did was blow a hole in the robot’s outter plating.

Noticing the explosion, the Robot started to move forward again at a rapid pace, attempting to step on Ashernar, but not bothering to finish the job when he missed.

Umquat managed to hold on to the robot’s leg, and with the help of a successful engineering check–a 1-in-6 chance–she shoved her weapon into the robot’s exposed knee mechanisms, and managed to cripple it. The robot started moving much slower, with a stilted, peg-leg gait.

Umquat leaped off at this point, using her grapple to swing over to a nearby building as Queen Mechaela continued to charge forward.

At this point, Losco took matters into his own hands. He hopped up on one of his Space Llamas, grabbed the Building Buster Bomb, and rode forward to try and jump onto the robots foot. He made a leap—and fell to the ground, narrowly missing being seriously injured. Undeterred, he climbed back up on his space Llama, and rode forward to try again. This time, he used a rope to strap himself to the building buster bomb, and threw a grapple line onto the foot.

This time he made the leap successfully, and spent some time trying to figure out the best way to set the bomb off. Unfortunately, without any means by which he could prevent the bomb from falling, he determined that his only option was a manual activation, which would certainly kill him.

He moved to press the button, and in the instant before he did so, Ronnina cast Cone of Time to freeze both Losco, and Queen Mechaela’s leg. He charged forward on the wagon, grabbed Losco, pushed the button, and turned to ride away.

The explosion was massive, spreading out in every direction, and taking off the whole of Queen Mechaela’s leg below the knee. The rear of Losco’s cart was blown to shreds, and everyone in it took a ton of damage. But, shockingly, nobody died.

Queen Mechaela, meanwhile, fell forward onto her face, unable to walk any further.

The session ended In Media Res