Friday, July 6, 2012

Ferrous Fortune Hunters: Session XIX

Jorn's player is visiting family this weekend.



As the party lies down for sleep, Jorn watching over their bodies, the party awakes in Audrius's subconscious dreamscape. They're on a grassy knoll, with rolling hills and mountains to the right with large chunks of earth floating through the sky to the right of them, and a vast marsh of oil-covered vines & tortured trees with faces and a giant burning eye on the horizon with dragons flying around it.

As they got up, the noticed that the left side (the oily vines) was actually growing and slowly moving across to the right (at about half the speed of a shambling zombie). Antric was curious as to what would happen, so he threw Flynn's backpack (with his clockwork golem) into the mass to see what would happen, and saw the vines wrapping around it and ripping the entire thing apart and then slowly assembling the vine covered pieces into a new configuration.

Not wanting to push their luck, the party ran. They later found out that any inanimate equipment they brought to the dreamscape would be unscathed, though the same could not be said of themselves.

Across the field, they saw miniature parks (in area covered, not scale) with statues of park-goers in various positions (some with children mid-skip, others of adults mid-stride down the sidewalk, etc). They could hear the statues continuing to make sounds as if they were alive and not immobile. A little creeped out, they wondered how to find the flower they were after, and were informed by a new voice stating that it would be a good idea to find higher ground to look.

They discovered a medium-height old man (clean shaven, long sideburns) in a black suit, wide-brimmed purple hat, and yellow gloves. Taking his word, Kagemane climbed up a nearby gazebo and began a series of leaps and acrobatic maneuvers to scamper up various floating rocks with great ease. Audrius tried to follow suit, but finally gave up after the second 20' drop, while the only other person who might've been able to follow was Flynn who didn't trust himself for such an endeavor.

At about 80' up, Kagemane found himself on a rock with the stranger lying down in rest who then told him that if they're looking for a flower in a field of yellow, to look for something like that. Off in the distance, Kagemane noticed a caldera in the mountain range that glowed yellow. Before heading back down, he asked the stranger his name, who told him "Skald" and handing him a peculiar card written in Baatorian (lawful fiends). When Kagemane grabbed the card, Skald noticed it and told him to get rid of it quickly.

As soon as the card came into view, the burning eye to the 'left' turned to look at the pair, and a beam of green flame erupted towards them. Ducking and throwing away the card, the flame engulfed and incinerated the card. Apologizing, Skald pulled out another card written in Common, which simply had Skald's name and a picture of a pair of yellow gloves.

Kagemane jumped down the floating terrain, showed the card, and the party came to the conclusion that the dark side of Audrius's subconscious must be his evil, chaos-loving part; and any obvious signs of Law (such as Baatorian writing), would be smote down if in sight of the burning eye.

Taking note of which direction Kagemane saw the glowing calderra, they began their travel. Out of nowhere, they came upon an ocean, with giant upended feet breaking the surface. Laughing with glee at their chance to use a spell, Audrius broke out a jar of human toenails and began the incantation to create a viking longboat (made out of nails, and rowed by the footless souls of those used in the spell).

Moving along, they spied a scintillating city to the west, and something huge and dark moving beneath them from that direction. Erupting from the water, was a five-headed hydra with each head a different color (black, green, white, red, blue). It was a heated battle, and the most notable maneuver was when Flynn wrapped rope around its swerving heads, secured the base of the rope to the ship itself and then had Audrius command the ship to go full-speed ahead; literally scraping the hydra off the ship like a scab. Once it was defeated, the heads broke off and became dragons of equivalent color, and were shortly defeated. Kagemane did a nice maneuver where he would leap up, and literally climb the thing to stab it in the right place and jump back off before it could react.

Once that was dealt with, they landed at the base of the caldera, which was lined with giant stone lotus flowers. Just as they got off the boat, they noticed Skald on the rear of the ship playing a funeral dirge. The boat began to turn black and rot, sinking, then exploding in black tendrils and basically bringing the dark 'left side' right to the base of the party.

Moving up the side of the mountain, they came upon the lip of the calderra, lined with giant ice blocks that were constantly sublimating into large clouds of steam (without losing mass). Forming from the steam, entered the melnibonean the party encountered earlier, wearing yellow gloves and forbidding the party from passing.

This made the party quite terrified, as they knew what Audrius thought of the melniboneans, until they finally thought about the gloves and called him Skald. The figure promptly turned into Skald and admitted to not being an actual part of the dreamscape, simply having hung around for awhile, enjoying the sights. He did enjoy the dreams, and invited the party into Jorn's dreamscape, at which Antric agreed to, right after they got the flower; Skald said he'd hold him to that promise, and waved them farewell.

As the party moved across the field of yellow wheat, they began to be chased by three Inos, laughing and asking to play with them. Kagemane attempted to sprint away even faster, at which point one of them zoomed right behind him, and another turned into a hag and slapped each of the players for noticeable damage by sticking her hands into the ground and having a hand break the ground to grasp each player by the foot (causing withering damage).

Not wanting to dare take on three Inos, Antric said they'd play with them, and suggested a tea party. Someone suggested that a flower would make the perfect centerpiece, and suggested the girls get it while the rest of the party prepared the tea party.

What began was the equivalent of Calvinball for tea parties. Antric was the Captain of Creme & Audrius was the Sultan of Sugar (each with appropriate hats), the picnic cloth is a layered affair of cloth-cups-cloth, and every ten minutes they had to throw their tea cup over their right shoulder and pour a new one.

Eventually, as the party was winding down, there was a safe vault door off to the side with a knocking. Antric answered it, finding himself in front of an ogre with giant blades for hands screaming "Stab-o-gram from Jorn! You've got twelve seconds to gather aim tokens!" Slamming the door shut, Antric looked at the party pleadingly.

Kagemane reached into the picnic basket, pulled out a sundial, yelled 'crap!', then pulled out a window frame to set into the air and jump through it. Everyone else said they had do something random and opened the safe door and walked by, with Audrius remembering to take the flower with him. This caused all of them to wake up in the cave.

The dreamthief told them that Jorn was busy dealing with a sandworm outside, and that someone was at the door. The exit from the cave was blocked off by a safe vault door, which was being 'knocked' on with a force that would tear it apart in very short order. Antric went up to it, opened it, and was told by the ogre behind it "Times up!" The party dealt with it, and the door and ogre faded away.

Appearing inside the cave was Skald, who was glad the party could provide such fascinating activity, as he's never seen such a will to survive in a mortal before. He offered another card, and said to call for him whenever they decided what to do with the flower, as he was fascinated to find out what would happen; followed by walking off into the desert, fading away into nothingness.

By the way, the party has nicknamed that character as 'Q'.

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