deadSun -MAXIMAL- 14 Prism Tomb Rising

LOOT

> Nothing!

DEVELOPMENTS

> One of the strange mummy being's phantasmal eyeballs was destroyed by Kestrel.

RECAP

On that fateful day we returned with the Company in the midst of looting crystal tombs in a vast milk-colored chamber as gigantic prisms whirred and cast blinding light from the ceiling above. Immediately Kestrel struck out westward across the center of the chamber. Upon taking a step the glittering floor tile clicked into place and a searing light struck down upon Kestrel from above. Kestrel staggered back and collapsed into the looted crystal tomb, wounded, knocked unconscious, and half of their machine-eyes completely burnt out from the searing ray. Things were not looking good for the Company. Now warmed up, the prisms overhead began to crackle and whirr at a higher frequency.

In a fit of altruism Ottavi struck out on a north/south tile path to make a beeline for the wounded Kestrel. Likewise, the tile clicked into place beneath its feet, and another searing ray shot down. In a flash of light Ottavi was reduced to ash, becoming the second adventurer entombed in the Halls of the Damned.

All were stunned by the chamber's lethality. Gemini carefully picked his way across the diagonal, previously-travelled paths to retrieve the unconscious Kestrel and slung them over their shoulder, promptly leaving the deathtrap behind.

As they departed they immediately bumped into a wandering slime girl named Thalice Churmthal, a failed town crier and 1st renown Deviant errant, who was eager to help out these poor haggard souls.

At the chamber's doorway the mummy-wizard's spectral ocular -- a phantasmal eye of cold white fire -- bobbed and gestured toward the chamber, as if to indicate their work was not yet done. Kestrel responded by wagering that they knew the forbidden art of shooting and killing ghost eye orbs with guns, which succeeded, and the orb dissipated into nothingness as a faint groan seemed to echo throughout the tomb.

The Company kept their eyes on the prize and continued south toward the object of their quest, the stashed King's Crown. At the foot of the door was a slain and moldering corpse of a greenhorn adventurer they recognized as Tubbs, a long-ago fellow traveler and member of Adipose Mab's mule train. He looked as if he was slain by a million knives, covered in many shallow cuts. The door was barred on this side as if he was trying to keep something from entering from the south. The Company mused on the foul creature they did battle with (the bearowl) in like the first session of our campaign one thousand years ago in real life. They wondered if it had perhaps left young behind, or if it had itself been the young of some even larger creature... curious...

The Company made their way south and passed through a chamber where a foul-smelling sarcophagus sat filled with dark liquid, beyond which a staircase continued upward. In the nooks and crevices of the ceiling loomed glittering webs and they heard the clacking of sharp mandibles. Five dog-sized spider-creatures seemingly woven of glass loomed on the ceiling above and appraised the Company threateningly, eyes flaring. The Company resolved to make a break for it and run beneath them their sights still on the Crown. Thus concluded the session.

deadSun -MAXIMAL- 13 Enter The Prism Tomb

This might go without saying, but for the uninitiated... spoilers for Tomb Robbers of the Crystal Frontier abound!

LOOT

    > Tunic of blue lapis lazuli (2,00cp, 1 slot)

    > Amethyst helmet (1,000cp, 1 slot)

    > Green jade bangles (1,600cp, 1 slot)

    > 200cp worth of Mummified Disquette parts (200cp)

DEVELOPMENTS

    > The Company made the acquaintance of a gold-robed undead(?) being(?) chilling on a crystal pillar in a flooded chamber in the depths of Murkvey's Rock. 

    > The creature claimed it would deliver the the Orb of the King to the Company if they killed someone hiding within the tomb called The Sleeper. They could identify an entombed corpse as The Sleeper by the lack of purple stains upon its lips.

    > The creature seemed to control some strange phantasmal eye-orbs of neon purple flame. It sent one to accompany the Company on their errand.

RECAP

    We picked back up with the Company dusting themselves off from battle with a phantasmal revenant within Murkvey's Rock, having swung by on their way to the Sleeping Place of the Feathered Swine to pick up a valuable treasure -- a King's Crown -- they had hidden their previously, during their delve months ago on behalf of Adipose Mab.

    They found themselves in a small hall with two pink Tomb Crystal coffins--one shattered and its inhabitant's remnants strewn about from their melee last session, one intact--and a towering silver statue of a warrior.

    They noticed the silver statue had an upraised hand that was crudely hacked off and deduced it likely was the work of their longtime rival, Halaena Graf, and that it was where she had found her cool sword.

    Ottavi commanded a swarm of bugs to carry its mace and smashed a hole in the second coffin's lid from a distance, saving the Company from exposure to Tomb Crystal; they did so, leaving the silver loop intact, and peered within after the dust settled, seeing nothing of obvious value on the entombed corpse. The Company left the coffin with its silver loop intact and moved on to the next chamber southwards.

    In the next chamber they found a stack of many small white coffins that had been haphazardly tossed about and a strange crawlspace in the corner, from which colorful light flashed irregularly; listening closely, Kestrel heard a strange revolving droning noise from the depths of the crawlspace. Kestrel sent their rat skeleton-bullet animal companion down the crawlspace. While they waited Gemini and Ottavi investigated one of the small coffins and found its contents delicately wound in burial silks, which they unwound carefully as they awaited the rat's return. 

 

    Inside the burial windings they found the corroded remains of some sort of copper and plastic machine emblazoned with two initials, C. D. They pocketed what remained of value in the parts.

    Kestrel's rat returned with its skeletal whiskers alert, indicating to the party that something interesting -- but partially dangerous -- lay beyond. Kestrel took the lead as the Company crawled on their bellies through the damp narrow winding corridor.

    THE MOLDERING FIGURE 

    The chamber emptied into the ceiling of a room flooded with black water, a pillar rising from the center, upon which sat a moldering gold-robed figure, which was orbited by two eye-like globes of phantasmal purple fire. As Kestrel surveyed the chamber from the narrow ledge, the crackling of the figure's ancient limbs echoed throughout as it raised its gaze to meet Kestrel.

    In a haunting wispy cadence the figure welcomed the Company, claiming it had been waiting for their inevitable return, which it had foreseen within its crystal pillar. It asked the party if they truly sought the Orb of the King, to which they said yes, hoping to avoid drawing its ire.

    The being replied that it was in possession of the the Orb of the King and it would bequeath it to the Company if they assisted with a simple favor. It mused cryptically that it was bound in disgrace due to the mockery of a foe which it called the Sleeper. It claimed that the Sleeper's disobedience brought it great dishonor and that if the Company could simply kill the Sleeper, the being would be able to give them the Orb of the King. When asking how they would find the Sleeper, the being noted that the Sleeper's lips would not appear frosted with poison as the others do. Ultimately the Company played along with the request to avoid drawing the creature's ire.

    With a gesture the being sent over one of its phantasmal orbs, claiming "its eye would light the way to their quarry", and the Company departed, crawling their way back to the tomb's halls.

ON THE HUNT

    As the Company regrouped they felt a strange sensation of a double-diamond-like shape impressed upon the darkness behind their eyes. The phantasmal eye gestured for them to continue south, and they did so, Kestrel unlocking a bronze door to another chamber where a corpse sat slumped against a further southward door. The chamber branched off to a hallway and another bronze door, which the phantasmal eye beckoned them towards further.

    As they opened the next door they found themselves nearly blinded by a large chamber filled with unnatural bright white light. Gigantic prisms clicked and hummed as they cast the light from above onto an opulent tomb of glittering crystal tilework arranged in complex geometries. Five immaculate sarcophagi sat upright along the walls.

With aplomb the Company got to work, traveling the shortest paths to the closest three sarcophagi. Ottavi and Gemini recklessly smashed the Tomb Crystal lids; Gemini advanced to Tomb Crystal poisoning level 3, his eyes clouding with tiny crystal growths, larger shoots pushing out from his flesh. Kestrel opted for a more delicate approach in faceting the face of the third sarcophagus, but the ensorcelled material cleaved unexpectedly and shattered in their face, bringing them to Tomb Crystal poisoning level 1.

Within each sarcophagus was a beautiful Empyrean youth, gaunt and green-skinned and lanky. As the Company looted their grave goods (above) they heard a skittering sound from the walls and noted glimmering cobwebs looming in the wall's crevices, the hot milk-colored prisms still whirring in the unnatural sky overhead.

deadSun -MAXIMAL- 12 A Swine of Wights and Roses

Back at it again!

Dramatis Personae

- Kestrel (they), 3rd Renown Deviant

- Gemini (he/they), 3rd Renown Violent

- Ottavi (they/it), 2nd Renown Violent

Loot + New Tools

- 1 Healer's Kit (1 slot)

- 1 Vial of Swine Sedative (1/4 slot)

- 1 occulith chip (fingernail sized, 400cp, 1/4 slot)

- 1 silver tomb ribbon (200cp, 1/4 slot)

Developments

- The Company agreed to harvest valuable cysts from the Feathered Swine to clear their debt with the Vermomancers. 

- Fearsome 'mirror men' now stalk the halls of Murkvey's Rock.

RECAP - 1st of Firstmonth, 1V39

A WHORMY OPPORTUNITY

    The Company found themselves on the first of the month in Scarlet Town, hungover and broke as shit with 7,549cp in debt to the vermomancers. The vermomancers mentioned there was a special opportunity available to clear their debt, though it was specialty work, not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach. The Company considered their options--including tailing a caravan that went missing--and then resolved to meet with the vermomancers to hear them out.

    Ottavi led them back to the vermomancers' yurt complex south of Scarlet Town. Their leader, Symanthe, was overjoyed to discuss the opportunity. Over tea Symanthe enthusiastically relayed the details, which I have copied and pasted from the module below (for real, they're gross):

Before hibernating, the Feathered Swine pulls most of the feathers from its pale pink skin to make a nest, which decays over the coming weeks and attracts strange mites. 

The mites don’t live long, but where their bites infest the Feathered Swine’s skin with their own parasites, cysts begin to form full of a vibrant green fluid. Each cyst forms a digestive sac full of ever-repopulating microscopic Ensorcelled Whorms, copulating in the green liquid even as it dissolves them, feeding the Feathered Swine while it sleeps. 

The Feathered Swine sleeps with its head retracted into the plump folds of its fatty flesh on a bed of rotting feathers.

The proper method for extraction is to slice through the subcutaneous fat under the cyst, and tie off the feeding tubes connected to it before severing them. Never take more than half of the cysts, or the Feathered Swine might die of starvation.

    Symanthe told the Company that the Ensorcelled Whorms were of great value to the vermomancers, and she would happily pay them 1,000cp for each Whorm Cyst that they were able to recover. Thus bringing 7 or 8 of them could easily wipe out their debt. Her hooded and chained associate Jreengus provided the tools necessary to perform the extraction along with a dose of a powerful sedative.

    The Company was quite amenable to the opportunity and took the job. Symanthe provided a map to the Sleeping Place of the Feathered Swine, a cave at the foot of a mountain on the edge of the Yellow Lands. They set off northeast towards the rising desert sun.

TRAVEL

    On the way the party resolved to pass by Murkvey's Rock and recover the opulent crown that Kestrel had stashed there many, many moons ago... though the best laid plans of mice and men and etc.

    As they rode on their bikes with their iron mule Mischief in tow they passed by the scorched wreckage of a wagon. Combing through the hot ashes and glassed sand Ottavi uncovered a single fingernail-sized piece of occulith (magic crystal gemstone).

    After several more hours of travel they encountered a group of strange men clad in heavy black armor piling into a massive strange mosquito-helicopter machine whose mirrored wings beat the air mercilessly. Around them stretched more scorched wreckage. One of the soldiers called out to the approaching Company that there were "slim pickings left for you vultures, after Green Hive has been through with them." The Company sized them up and considered laying waste to them but noting their superior numbers and armament they let them go on their way, the strange machine taking flight to the southeast.

Ornithopter from Vaults of Vaarn

MURKVEY'S ROCK

    The party rolled into Murkvey's Rock in the afternoon and noted a scent of cooked spiced meat on the wind, like barbeque. As they approached a familiar hoarse drawl called out. "Kestrel, you ol' kid of a gun. Is that you?"

    Murkvey and his men seemed to be in bad shape. He spoke with a rasp and had a corpse's pallor, glassy eyes, jagged crystal protrusions erupting from his flesh. In conversation he drawled and repeated himself and lost the thread regularly. Despite his condition he warmly welcomed the Company to join for supper in their "base of operations" -- bits of shattered wooden furniture half-covered by a tent flap, the "supper" a whole man that one of his associates was roasting on a spit over an open flame, "some goatherd who went stickin' his nose where it don't belong."

    Murkvey had feared the worst after the Company had left them behind without handing over the Orb of the King and were shortly followed by intrusions led by Adipose Mab, but they assured him they had no connections to Mab and had returned to bring him the Orb once and for all, which he greatly appreciated. 

    He told them they had bravely fought off Mab's expeditions but were driven out of the tomb by an onslaught of what Murkvey called "mirror men" - horrible creatures woven of glass that attacked with greater and greater numbers following the Company's departure. In response Murkvey and his men collapsed the tomb's entrance, through which the Company had previously conducted their delves on behalf of Adipose Mab, but that there was another way in he would happily show them to. The Company obliged.

THE DELVE

Map from Tomb Robbers of the Crystal Frontier

    The Company picked their way down a twisting crystal tunnel and found themselves in a chamber covered in feathers and stinking of animal. In one corner sat a pile of tar-soaked broken bones. Kestrel took a fragment of one. They found that the southern door was stuck, and Ottavi bashed it down with their greatmace, causing a ruckus that echoed throughout the silent Crystal Tomb, and incurring Ottavi a point of Exhaustion.

    On the other side stood a hall with various niches in its walls. In one stood a massive silver statue with its upraised hand hacked off. In another rested two coffins made of Tomb Crystal. On closer inspection the Company found that each coffin was wrapped about with a loop of silver, like a ribbon on a present. Despite copious joking about "this being the Dragon's Dogma coffin with the guy in it that gets you," Ottavi proceeded to remove the silver. Immediately a mummified figure burst through the coffin's lid, sending toxic Tomb Crystal dust everywhere. It grabbed Ottavi by the forearm with its cold cold hands and a strange light seeped into Ottavi's eyes.

    Springing into action Kestrel and Gemini struck at the creature, Kestrel with a gout of flame from their new sword-hand-cannon and Gemini with a runed emerald spear, both of which made contact with the strangely phantasmal creature. 

    Under the revenant's curse, Ottavi was filled with the inclination that Kestrel and Gemini had taken it their to kill it and steal its treasures, and that it would be best to do it to them first. It first whiffed dramatically but then struck a mighty blow against Gemini, shortly after which the creature was dispatched and the compulsion dispelled. 

    Licking their wounds and plotting their way forward to recover the King's Crown -- and perhaps the Orb of the King Itself ?? -- we left behind the Company as the session concluded.