Chapter Four: Late August

Spoiler: Market Street: Expedition 7
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Kumiko makes her way to the local gazette to deliver her report. Flossie and Feurlina do not accompany her, and say that nothing good can come of this; they are either going to look like fools or monsters.

Christopher Thorn is a man nearing middle age, with short reddish brown hair, a leather coat two sizes too large for him, unshaven cheeks, and blue eyes that are always staring off into space. Kumiko tells her story, more or less accurately, and makes Jesse out to be a hero who died so her companions could live. When she gets to the part about people living down there and three-headed dragons, Thorns asks if maybe they aren’t just going down there and getting drunk on ceremonial wine.

She clarifies that the people are kobolds, to which Christopher snorts and says those are vermin, not people. He also asks if they have noticed which direction the smoke of their fires goes while they are down there, and Kumiko shakes her head. As the day drags on, they get to talking about poetry and their mutual irritation with Flossie.

Flossie takes mid-August off to help with the feast of Vulcan, a craft fair and peddler’s pavilion. It is at this fair that the companions are able to trade some of the treasures they have found in the underground for high quality equipment, most surplus military gear left over from Thanatos’ conquests.

They hold a memorial for Jesse, though they have no body to inter. In her eulogy, Flossie emphasizes her heroism in giving her life to save the people of the town, but also chastises those who led her into danger in the first place.

Afterward, they are drinking at a local brewery when they are approached by Amadeesa, the half-elven ranger who first escorted Kumiko to the Sundered Lands. She tells them that she heard about what happened to Jesse, and is sorry for their loss. They ask how she could have possibly heard, and she says that it is her job to pay heed to such things, and besides, her ears are good for more than just picking up human guys.

The group asks if she will accompany them, and she says no, the underground is no place for a ranger, but she has brought them a surprise.

A rugged man with a shotgun on his back, six guns on his hips, and a jagged band of scars around his throat steps out from the shadows. Those who are local to the region recognize him by reputation if not in person.

Miles was a gunfighter who was instrumental in the resistance against Thanatos’ forces after the death of the evil sorcerer, and with every victory, his legend grew larger and larger. As the story goes, he made a deathbed promise to a girl to put his guns away, and became a monk, devoting his life to healing and trying to cleanse the smell of blood that stained his soul. But then his old enemies tracked him down and massacred the entire monastery, the gunslinger included.

Flossie says that she thought he died. The man shakes his head and points to his throat. Amadeesa explains that he survived his wounds, but lost his ability to speak in the process. He is looking for penance, and if he can save the town by lending his guns to the group, then so be it. They are glad for his aid, and after equipping him for spelunking, they descend into the underworld.

The group’s first course of action is to go back to the bank vault. They take a hard left, ignoring the kobold’s warnings. They find the door to the Rose Wine Bridge guarded by four humans in strange angular armor. These men do not speak Terran, and are killed after a brief skirmish.

As they push on, crossing the bridge itself, Flossie and Miles are struck by arrows coming out of the darkness on either side. The group falls back and decides to take the longer route, circling around using the hidden door in the back of the mortuary.

They travel down Tabernacle Lane, not noticing the rusted iron chains that now lie strewn across the ground. They go through the old boatwright, and attempt to follow Jesse’s instructions for planting the explosive charges.

They blast their way in, and find the vault mostly buried, although they are able to grab handfuls of coins, most bright copper pennies engraved with the crest of a bee, the family emblem of the Templar who once dwelt here.

As they leave, they see someone has some to investigate the explosion; a humanoid figure carrying an old lantern, but as soon as he spies the group, he extinguishes his light and disappears into the darkened corridors.

They head north, to the Industrial Park, and find a broad street with the rusted hulk of a carriage on one side. A pack of malnourished feral dogs lives here, and the group decides to put them out of their misery. The beasts fight with grim determination, and at one point overbear Kumiko. Flossie reacts by casting a spell that causes iron nails to shoot out from Kumiko in all directions, slaying several dogs and driving the others back, although she is wounded, with several gaping bites to her back, thighs, and buttocks.

They find no treasure here, and nobody knows how to skin a dog.

To the left is another street, and a sign proclaiming that it leads to the Lonesome Tabernacle. Ahead is a store; The Unknowable Dynamo, and to the right a tavern; Time’s Gone Past. They choose to explore the latter.

Inside they find half a dozen rat-like hengeyokai, drinking and scrawling graffiti on the walls. Upon seeing the invaders their fur bristles and their eyes glow red in the gloom as they draw filth-encrusted blades. The invaders do not seek to engage them inside, rather they have Feurlina hold open the door while Miles shoots at those behind the bar.

The rat-folk respond by throwing knives at their attackers and smashing bottles on the floor in the doorway to make improvised caltrops. One stabs Feurlina in the wrist and she pulls back. Flossie then conjures a rift to the astral sea, and tentacles fill the bar. One of the rat-folk escapes into the park, and is captured. The rest are easy pickings while constrained by the writhing mass of extra-dimensional flesh.

Once the spell fades, they enter the bar. It is in better shape than most of the ruins, but still in shambles. Behind the bar is booze gone to rot, but a few bottles of aged red wine are still preserved and will likely fetch a good price back in town.

A sign on the back door reads “To Rat Heaven” and there is a symbol upon it that marks the way to an outhouse. They find themselves in an alley, where several of the Nezumi who escaped the barfight fell prey to a trio of Chupacabra that dwell here. The irony is not lost on Miles.

Chupacabras are strange predators, like a cross between a tiger and a kangaroo, with long fangs that they use to drain the blood from their prey. These three attack almost immediately.

Kumiko and Feurlina guard the doorway, but the creatures rush past with great agility, seeming intent on taking down Miles, and by the time they are slain, he has lost a lot of blood.

They search the alley and find an expensive silver pocket watch amongst the bags of refuse that are piled high along the walls. At the end of the alley is a door to “The Soothsayer’s Den” and the business on the opposite side of the alley labeled “Albrecht’s Charge”. The group debates pushing on, thinking that it would be nice to mark this whole wing as explored and head off in another direction next expedition, but in the end, they decide against it and make their way back to town before their injuries get the better of them.

On their way, they drop their prisoner off with the manticore, who is incensed at being fed literal rats.


Spoiler: Market Street: Expedition Eight
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A week later they return, and find a new addition to the dungeon, a burning brazier huge above the main junction. Feurlina goes to take it down, and a bolt flies out of the darkness and lodges in her belly. The group finds itself in an ambush, attacked on three sides by the strange human interlopers. Flossie saves their lives by conjuring ramparts of ectoplasm around them, and they are able to defeat the attackers. Those that survive beg for mercy in strange tongues that nobody can comprehend, and are given over to the kobolds for sacrifice.

They make their way back to the alley where they left off last time, and as they move through the mortuary the door to the secret passageway bursts open. A leech the size of a draft horse oozes its way in, and riding on its back is a leprous man wearing a mish-mash uniform built from Templar armor and clerical vestments.

He proclaims that the tabernacle will no longer suffer incursions, and that if the invaders do not retreat, they will face retribution. Kumiko, not realizing that this man does not know who she is, stands her ground and challenges him to a duel.

The man is mighty and skilled, and his mace inflicts grievous injury on the group, while his mount seeks their lifeblood. When the leech is slain, the rider shouts out his name in Atlantean, a long formal title that roughly translated into Big Mister Worm, but still sounds dignified in that ancient tongue. Soon thereafter, Kumiko slices his throat, and as he dies, the odd friar sprays his foul arterial blood upon the group.

They curse their luck, after these two ambushes they are in almost as bad a shape as they were a week ago, but still, they press on.

The Soothsayer’s Den is a very small room, and when the door is opened it fills with mechanical laughter. There isn’t much there, a table, a chair, and a curtain leading into a tiny backroom. Kumiko looks beneath the table and finds forty small ceramic disks stuck to it. She pulls one off and it reads “Ask a question.”

She thinks for a moment, and then asks “What is the great three-headed beast’s weakness.”

She then pulls off another disk and reads “Invest 30 thari in the Lanafel shipping company of Nightholm and return for another tile”.

They leave, perplexed.

Albrecht’s Charge looks to have once been an open-air market, and as such is mostly buried in mud and muck, with only the central lane still protected by a canopy.

Across the market is the front of a large casino called The Coin Fall. Standing guard out front is a horrid abomination of rotting flesh. The head of a lion has been sewn to the body of an ogre, and flocks of crows have apparently tried to feed from it, been poisoned by its flesh, and their stiff forms are now adhered to the body by their own and bile and excrement. The stench alone is a powerful weapon, but it also wields a huge silver sword.

Miles opens fire upon it, and then takes shelter behind a heap of mud when it comes to pursue, and his companions engage it in melee, gagging and struggling to hold down their gorge as they avoid its blade and biting maw.
Their blows do little, but the act of fighting causes the beast's rotted flesh to slough off in clumps. Flossie fires bolt after bolt of entropy at it to little effect, until she eventually hits it with a pulsating orb of holy energy that leaves her hair white as snow and the creature lying still on the ground. Feurlina quickly grabs the silver sword and moves into the casino to clear her lungs.

The Coin Fall is large, and though dusty, it is fairly dry. Slot machines line the walls, and card tables can be seen about the lower floor, along with a locked vault behind the cashier’s desk. In the center stands a fountain, coins glittering in its murky waters. There is a raised section in the back, likely the high roller’s tables, and a large shadowy figure sits at one and looks down at the visitors.

As the humans are investigating the casino, a group of hobgoblins emerges from the shadows and stab at them with curved knives. These creatures resemble common goblins, but are of the fey, with black skin, glowing yellow eyes, and broad hairless heads with dozens of needle teeth. Flossie reacts to the sudden pain by casting a spell of confusion, leaving the assassins disoriented and wandering about aimlessly. Some attack each other, and one seems intent on engaging in mortal combat with a rusted slot machine.

One hobgoblin climbs atop a card table to get a height advantage, but when Kumiko kicks it out from under him, and the creature screams “Smoke bomb!” and then runs for the door.

When his mates are dealt with, thunderous applause falls down on them, and they climb the stairs to the high roller’s table. There sits a great beast of a man, over twelve feet tall, with blue skin, long purple horns, and glowing golden eyes.

He invites them to play cards, and Flossie accepts before even asking what game or what stakes and, with the blessing of Dionysus, is able to best the oni and take his money.

Afterward, they get to talking, and the ogre mage tells them he is on vacation, having come to this dreary ruin in search of entertainment after coming through the tabernacle. When pressed for information about the Tabernacle, he asks if anyone is familiar with the story of Prince Prospero and the Red Death, and when they nod, he says it is like that, monks who sealed themselves away in order to party on and ignore the apocalypse, and then a disease found them and took their health and their minds. The tabernacle is of average size for a church and home to several dozen of them; he didn’t explore, for they are not friendly, but he had a trio of olag guards with him and they caused no trouble.

Flossie invites the oni to come with her back to town, and he agrees.

The only other store that is still accessible from Albrecht’s Charge is called The Under Flume. It was once a small alchemist's shop, and when the door is opened the mass of spilled potions, mud, and algae on the floor rises into the vaguely humanoid hulk that is a Dweomerling. It goes for Flossie, ignoring her companions, and chokes her into unconsciousness and then begins to rummage through her pack before the other three manage to kill the single-minded beast.

Once Miles revives Flossie, she is able to find some valuable reagents sealed away in the shop. In the back, above the alchemy bench, is a ventilation shaft, and ice-cold water drips down. They ponder the mystery, Feurlina suggesting that maybe it is a cellar, but none of them are small enough to investigate further.

On their way out, the group enters The Unknowable Dynamo, and finds an old machine shop full of rusted gizmos. The machines hum to life, and bolts of electricity shoot out and coalesce into an elemental spirit. Flossie blesses Kumiko’s sword, and the samurai climbs into the catwalks while her companions are stunned by the electric current. There she duels with the elemental.

Eventually, Flossie manages to drink a healing tonic, and steady her hands enough to assist Kumiko by firing bolts of trans-dimensional energy, distracting the spirit long enough for Kumiko to finish it off.
Nobody in their group understands technology, so they take some spark lights and leave the rest.

Upon reaching Market Street, Flossie tells the oni that he is welcome in town, but isn’t to kill anyone, and warns him that some may not take kindly to his visage. He smiles and tosses sparking dust over himself, transforming into the likeness of a charming human noble, and introduces himself as Chardonac, Baron of Coronet.

They then go to the kobolds and request that their small allies undertake an expedition to find out what lies above the Under Flume.


Spoiler: Market Street: Expedition Nine
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Two days later, the group is summoned by the mayor. His sister Georgette was accosted by a group of small green monsters in her pantry. They go to investigate, and find a great block of river ice in the woman’s cold cellar, and beneath it a drain with a busted open grate. They commend Feurlina on deducing the correct answer, and hire a local smith to reinforce the grate.

The quartet then pays the kobolds a visit. The tiny goblinoids excitedly tell them about the magical cave full of food that they discovered above the alchemist’s shop, and then say that the way is now blocked off by the interlopers, and ask if their human allies will drive them away. Kumiko tells them no, the feast is over and their partnership is near an end, and the kobolds will need to help themselves from now on. The tiny tribe nods solemnly, and begins hatching plans amongst themselves.

Having mapped out the entire complex, the explorers decide to ransack the last few rooms.

North of the kobolds' lair, in the sealed door to the royal furnace, they find a kiln designed for the disposal of books, surrounded by hundreds of texts that were left awaiting judgment. From the ashes rises an undead apparition, made of smoke and crossed with red veins, it begins to leech the moisture from the invaders. Kumiko tosses a grenade, and temporarily discorporate it, but it pulls itself back together, and they find that even spells and blessed weapons pass right through it, but Flossie’s holy water is able to banish it for good.

Amongst the books, they find many valuable tomes, although few are in good condition and most will need to be copied, and a few genuine books of black magic which they will sell to Mordred for a high price.

They then prepare for round three with the ghasts. Coming up with a brief plan that nobody quite agrees on the specifics of, they burst into the Merciful Bleed. Flossie casts a spell which conjures tentacles blocking the door to the mud pit and their reinforcements, and then raises her holy symbol and drives the undead octet into the back of the room while Kumiko and Feurlina advance and hold the ghasts off.

Unfortunately, when Miles opens fire, the ghasts rush the group as a mob, most of them focusing on Flossie, the source of the holy energy. In the end, all eight ghasts are killed, and all four humans are bitten and bleeding. Flossie is still naturally immune, Feurlina has built up immunity after her recent near-death experience, and Miles is immune thanks to overcoming a case of ghastly fever years ago on one of his many adventures, thus Kumiko is given the last of the antidote they had prepared the previous month.

Feurlina then gathers stacks of heavy lumber from the Cordwood Junction and builds what she hopes will be a lasting barricade to block off the Vertex Stash and any more undead that may lie buried within.

The group goes north to the Rancid Dash, and upon opening the door, they find the room overgrown with algae and vines. Flossie sends in her firefly tulpa, and the ooze on the floor reaches up to devour them. When Feurlina moves to assist, the vines constrict about her. Flossie conjures a second tulpa, this one electric, and also a rotating wave of wooden blades to chop apart anything in the room and cut Feurlina free. They fall back, and the mass of crystal clear ooze slithers after them, across the walls and ceilings of the Merciful Bleed, before Kumiko finally destroys it with a grenade.

Once they have bound their wounds and the spells have faded, they find the muck-encrusted room has two exit doors, one labeled Nick’s Healing and the other The Dry Well.

Nick’s healing is a bog. Tanks of and tubs of leeches and eels can be found, once apparently bred for medicinal uses. Most are now dead, but some have escaped and live fallow. An enormous slug-like creature drinks from these tubs like a fetid soup, but once its antenna smells Flossie and her magic, it moves relentlessly toward her, its rubbery bulk pushing her allies aside. Fortunately for Flossie, as it passes they each strike true, and the beast is killed before it can devour her.

They are able to recover a few supplies from the room to make it worth their trouble, but find nothing else.

The dry well is a room with tiled floors, adobe walls, and a dusty fountain. True to its name, it is remarkably dry. An armored skeleton lies reaching for the fountain, and Kumiko kicks off its broad metal hat to reveal glowing red eyes beneath, the tell-tale sign of the undead.

She thinks about destroying it, but instead pours water upon it, and in a dry, choking, voice the skull tells her it will take something a lot stronger than that.

Kumiko asks Flossie for some wine, but Flossie protests, saying she has nothing that isn’t blessed. Eventually, she relents and provides a small cordial, and when poured down the skeleton’s jaw, the mail-clad figure rises to its feet with one fluid motion.

“Thank you, friends!” It exclaims.

They talk, and the revenant explains that it was once a guard for the necromancer Salafi, but one night he got drunk on duty, and allowed a Templar spy to slip past. The dark wizard cursed him to be always thirsty but never able to drink for his failure, and once he died of dehydration, the necromancer raised him as a death knight to continue his torment until the day when he could find a use for him.

They ask if Salafi was the manticore, and the skeleton shakes his head, saying that the necromancer was a tall, thin man, with curly black hair and rosacea cheeks. The old blacksmith did sometimes make weapons for them though.

Upon being shown Kumiko’s map, they ask how to find the necromancer, and the skeleton points to the collapsed tunnel outside of the kobold’s den and says this would be the most direct way. He then says he owes them a boon, and if they like, he can escort them to the necromancer’s lair, but they decline, and ask for treasure instead.

The skeleton shrugs, tells them it’s such a small thing, and takes them to a hidden shed where he shows them packets of well-preserved seeds for valuable medicinal herbs that are not native to this region and will sell for a small fortune.

He then bows and marches off in search of his final rest.

The group returns to town, accepts a reward from the mayor for what they did for his sister, and then go about planning on how they are going to take down the creature which the kobolds call the planet-eater and which they have taken to calling the “Tri-ranosaurus Rex”.


Took me a while to get this one up. Already discussed a few of the issues in my other threads.

Although Miles is less obviously ridiculous than Jesse, the character's build is really weird, almost anti-optimized, having taken traits that directly counteract each of his skills. I can't tell if this is a troll character, or just a player who doesn't have enough system mastery but is too proud to accept help.

Flossie is mad that magic missiles aren't the optimal spell in tight dungeon corridors, especially when you have a huge frontline tank like Feurlina, and Feurlina's player is likewise mad that monsters surround the party rather than waiting in line to engage from the front one at a time.

Still lots of issues with communication and tactics, both between me and the players and between the players. The ghast fight was (finally!) resolved by blocking the door, but it took so many miscommunications and conflicts to get there.