Belly of the Beast
Feb. 23rd, 2003 09:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothToday was Loxley's World Tree game. We were swallowed by an evil demon, and slowly and painfully digested over the course of 1000 years. Or that's how it felt, at times, anyway. All in all it turned out okay, though.
After a day of preparation, it was time to go into the sewers! Cimmanerova and Wonkotirip declined, citing the whole 'we're aristocrats and it's a sewer' thing. So Bruno, Kijji, Silverspray, Klepysydra, and Slytherinook set off the crush the ring of iron! And due to the convenient walkways, they didn't even need to get wet, which was good since half of them were orren.
There was some musing as to where all the sewage went, and when the walls changed to a weird, hard material that on closer examination was corpador (that is, flesh), they assumed that that answered the question. Clearly, the city employed large monsters underground to eat the sewage. What a clever plan!
But why was this benign sewer monster trying to eat them? They were forced to run as the tunnel squeezed shut behind them, herding them down a slippery slope into a room full of people. And zombies. Although the zombies were behind a barricade.
As it turned out -- after some initial hostilities and mistrust -- there were three groups trapped in the room along with the party. One was the wizard Ofec and his bodyguard. One was the Gormorror war party, led by Vadgrala, a woman -- almost unheard of, along with the heroes Mikh and Navarrah. The last was the ring of iron, led by Lydia and Tarmalac, two orren. The gormorror were chasing Ofec because he'd stolen their tribe relic. Ofec was chasing Tarmalac because he'd stolen the stolen relic from him. And all of them were trapped because the tribal relic was actually a demon egg, and it had finally hatched!
The zombies were the prisoners Brunotirip had brought the party to rescue, along with the Gormorror and ciminal thugs killed in the fighting earlier -- apparently, anything that died trapped here came back to life as undead!
But the worst part was that all the party's cley were sucked out of them almost instantly as soon as they set foot (and/or tumbled uncontrollably) into the room. Since they were all mages (except for the one thief), this was not a good thing.
So, there was much discussion. Ofec, under duress (which almost killed him, because he was weak as hell without his cley), claimed that he was the only one who could save them -- he had cley saved in a magic jar, and would use it to destroy the demon when it materialized in several days. Bruno and Tarmalac made peace -- they'd stop fighting each other and help each other escape.
Of course, there was no food or water to be had -- all the supplies were trapped with the zombies behind the barricade. Three days without food or water? That wouldn't do! Kijji rallied the troops, and they started carefully dismantling the barricade to let the screaming zombies through one at a time...
...well, that didn't work, but the zombies weren't very strong and were almost outnumbered by the living at this point, so they were dispatched handily [and without going through the ten hours of actual combat it would have taken]. But it was an empty victory -- the food and water were already fouled and useless. They were still doomed.
Kijji tried praying to the gods, but they weren't listening. He located the pirate booty, attached a note to it from a page ripped out of his journal, and sent it via curse express to the wizard who'd cursed him, but the wizard wasn't listening either.
The breaking point came days later when a zombie zi ri, Thimony, oozed out of the impenetrable walls to taunt Ofec, who was really only his apprentice, and had killed him. Ofec and his 'magic jar' were examined closely and found to be fake! All their hopes had been placed in a false savior! Thimony flew around the room, taunting them, and promising them eternal torment in service to his new master Vog Mor, He Who Devours Everything.
Navarrh couldn't take any more, and started fighting with Vagrala... and Kijji snapped, leaped up and grabbed Thimony, and bit off his head! The severed zombie zi ri head cackled at the orren as it sank back into the floor... and Navarrh and Vagrala took each other out.
But the fight wasn't out of the trapped group yet, and when Vog Mor finally arrived, as a huge tentacled oozy thing, they fought! The anger and frustration of days trapped underground came out, and they leaped on it as aggressively as they could manage. Mihk and Lydia were swallowed whole, but under the massed, insane assualt, the creature was dispatched before either of them could actually die. Mihk actually did more damage inside the demon than out!
With Vog Mor defeated for the moment, the way out opened up, and everyone ran outside as the strange leathery area retracted and vanished, presumably back into a small, pretty gem, although no one wanted to go back and look. They staggered out of the sewers and back to Brunotirip's house, and had a nice big meal, and a bath.
Yes, Ofec and the Ring of Iron deserved to be tracked down and put in prison for murder, torture, and slavery, but hey, priorities.
last session next session
So, what felt like 1000 years of torture? In a word... being online. So... slow... So much waiting for people to acknowledge everything. Or to take their turn in combat. World Tree combat is especially susceptible to that, since a lot of different dice need to be rolled in confusing ways for each attack.
Eh, well.
After a day of preparation, it was time to go into the sewers! Cimmanerova and Wonkotirip declined, citing the whole 'we're aristocrats and it's a sewer' thing. So Bruno, Kijji, Silverspray, Klepysydra, and Slytherinook set off the crush the ring of iron! And due to the convenient walkways, they didn't even need to get wet, which was good since half of them were orren.
There was some musing as to where all the sewage went, and when the walls changed to a weird, hard material that on closer examination was corpador (that is, flesh), they assumed that that answered the question. Clearly, the city employed large monsters underground to eat the sewage. What a clever plan!
But why was this benign sewer monster trying to eat them? They were forced to run as the tunnel squeezed shut behind them, herding them down a slippery slope into a room full of people. And zombies. Although the zombies were behind a barricade.
As it turned out -- after some initial hostilities and mistrust -- there were three groups trapped in the room along with the party. One was the wizard Ofec and his bodyguard. One was the Gormorror war party, led by Vadgrala, a woman -- almost unheard of, along with the heroes Mikh and Navarrah. The last was the ring of iron, led by Lydia and Tarmalac, two orren. The gormorror were chasing Ofec because he'd stolen their tribe relic. Ofec was chasing Tarmalac because he'd stolen the stolen relic from him. And all of them were trapped because the tribal relic was actually a demon egg, and it had finally hatched!
The zombies were the prisoners Brunotirip had brought the party to rescue, along with the Gormorror and ciminal thugs killed in the fighting earlier -- apparently, anything that died trapped here came back to life as undead!
But the worst part was that all the party's cley were sucked out of them almost instantly as soon as they set foot (and/or tumbled uncontrollably) into the room. Since they were all mages (except for the one thief), this was not a good thing.
So, there was much discussion. Ofec, under duress (which almost killed him, because he was weak as hell without his cley), claimed that he was the only one who could save them -- he had cley saved in a magic jar, and would use it to destroy the demon when it materialized in several days. Bruno and Tarmalac made peace -- they'd stop fighting each other and help each other escape.
Of course, there was no food or water to be had -- all the supplies were trapped with the zombies behind the barricade. Three days without food or water? That wouldn't do! Kijji rallied the troops, and they started carefully dismantling the barricade to let the screaming zombies through one at a time...
...well, that didn't work, but the zombies weren't very strong and were almost outnumbered by the living at this point, so they were dispatched handily [and without going through the ten hours of actual combat it would have taken]. But it was an empty victory -- the food and water were already fouled and useless. They were still doomed.
Kijji tried praying to the gods, but they weren't listening. He located the pirate booty, attached a note to it from a page ripped out of his journal, and sent it via curse express to the wizard who'd cursed him, but the wizard wasn't listening either.
The breaking point came days later when a zombie zi ri, Thimony, oozed out of the impenetrable walls to taunt Ofec, who was really only his apprentice, and had killed him. Ofec and his 'magic jar' were examined closely and found to be fake! All their hopes had been placed in a false savior! Thimony flew around the room, taunting them, and promising them eternal torment in service to his new master Vog Mor, He Who Devours Everything.
Navarrh couldn't take any more, and started fighting with Vagrala... and Kijji snapped, leaped up and grabbed Thimony, and bit off his head! The severed zombie zi ri head cackled at the orren as it sank back into the floor... and Navarrh and Vagrala took each other out.
But the fight wasn't out of the trapped group yet, and when Vog Mor finally arrived, as a huge tentacled oozy thing, they fought! The anger and frustration of days trapped underground came out, and they leaped on it as aggressively as they could manage. Mihk and Lydia were swallowed whole, but under the massed, insane assualt, the creature was dispatched before either of them could actually die. Mihk actually did more damage inside the demon than out!
With Vog Mor defeated for the moment, the way out opened up, and everyone ran outside as the strange leathery area retracted and vanished, presumably back into a small, pretty gem, although no one wanted to go back and look. They staggered out of the sewers and back to Brunotirip's house, and had a nice big meal, and a bath.
Yes, Ofec and the Ring of Iron deserved to be tracked down and put in prison for murder, torture, and slavery, but hey, priorities.
last session next session
So, what felt like 1000 years of torture? In a word... being online. So... slow... So much waiting for people to acknowledge everything. Or to take their turn in combat. World Tree combat is especially susceptible to that, since a lot of different dice need to be rolled in confusing ways for each attack.
Eh, well.
