Pinky goes postal

The party is on their way from the boat terminal when they hear a loud crash. Pinky the vapid clown is looking pissed, and is wielding a large axle with a huge gear on the end, and is about to take a swing at Hecna. “Laugh this off, you /redacted/!” Hecna reacted before the blow could land, and waved his hand, causing a vortex to appear whisking Pinky, himself - and the party - away.

We found ourselves paralyzed in a large laboratory. In addition to Hecna and Pinky, we also see a mad alchemist in a blood and wax stained white coat, wearing a face mask with a grinning, sharp toothed mouth scrawled on it. Ethan didn’t mean to, but he let slip that this was Sophie - the sister of Dr Stella.

Sophie was about to “fix” Pinky when Hecna notices the presence of the party. He instantly switches from angry to manically happy, and summons the Toymaker to escort us out. Louie tries to drop his special marble on the way out, but Hecna catches him and hands it back - but Hecnafied.

As a result of this journey, we are now considered VIP guests, and have access to the entire Revalia except for the Fun House.

To the Flop House

The Toymaker escorts us out, depositing us in the top floor of the Flop House, and casino run by Dirk Yukster, a dwarf who tells bad riddles that he thinks are jokes. We played a number of games of chance, and generally lost.

Where is the stick?

Upon leaving the Flop House, we met Dufus McSmallHouse, the Gnome we rescued from the tiny house. He told us about the race to find “the stick”, which is the shapeshifting axle that Pinky was wielding. It went missing when she was whisked away to the Fun House, and Hecna is posting a huge reward for its recovery. It seems obvious to everyone with a brain (so just the party and one or two NPCs) that the stick is a weapon that can really harm Hecna. Anyway, we left him to go to the Tunnel of Love, while we went to find Dr Stella to tell her about Sophie.

At Dr Stella’s tent, we found her furniture smashed up and blood stains. We followed the blood stains and found a ruffian bashing Dr Stella. She stabbed him with a syringe and pumped him full of bleach, which killed him, before we could help. Dennis cadged some bleach off her. We told her about her sister.

Then we (the party and Dr Stella) went looking for the stick, and thought looking where we saw it last saw it was a good idea. We went to where Pinkie attacked Hecna, and found a key and some gold flakes that had come off the stick. We took both. The key looked like our key to our room in the Hostile Hostel, so we went there.

Opening our room with the different key led to a different room - a room constructed entirely from cheese. Not sure why. Dr Stella took the opportunity to educate us in personal marks, and drafted hers on the wall of the cheese room.

We reverted our room to a normal room, and had a long rest.

Time for exposition

Then we went to visit Locke. He was anxious, and that prompted him to tell us all about a lot of stuff.

  • Cicero, the previous Master of Ceremonies, rebelled against Hecna and failed. In punishment, Hecna tore out his heart and built the Tunnel of Love from it. Cicero is imprisoned there, in permanent punishment.
  • Some people in the Revalia have keys allowing access to the Fun House. The only one we know about is the currently most favoured food proprietor, who can use it to deliver food.
  • There are tunnels that run throughout the Fun House that we may be able to use to get around undetected. They are thought to be infested with abberrations.
  • Revenge seekers in the Revalia don’t do well, historically. So maybe we should encourage more positive motivations.
  • The Carpe Collosum ride is either built out of, or operated by, a giant named Gary. He is a bit slow, but apparently well meaning, and can be bribed. He likes toys.
  • Arachne is the head of the Acrobat Coven, and communicates with the members of the coven using a magic, telepathic mirror. He has a loud voice, and members of the coven can often be seen wincing from Arachne shouting in their minds.
  • There are only 2 creatures in the Revalia that Hecna respects - the Androsphinx and the Gynosphinx. They have a show in the Big Top, and there is a prize for successfully participating in their show. Nobody has won it yet. Hecna is trying to be friendly with them to learn some secret, it is thought.

To the Tunnel of Love

We decided to go to the Tunnel of Love, and on the way were met by Hecna. He escorted us there, where we met with Cicero. Hecna said we should ask him questions, and one of the questions was “How his failed rebellion went”. So Dennis asked that. Cicero went off, and ranted about a heap of stuff before causing the rancid blood in the river to rise up and attack the party. Hecna teleported away, Dennis and The Captain evasioned ourselves away, but Louie and Raymond took some damage. Cicero stormed off, too, and the Tunnel of Love was closed for repairs, so with nothing else to do, we went back to Lost & Found.

What is your Oath?

At Lost & Found, the Toymaker asked us for our oath that we would work to bring down the Revalia and destroy Hecna, which we immediately gave, because f*ck that guy. Then, the Toymaker told us of the rebellion (like we didn’t already know about it), and said that there were several powerful items around that could help us combat Hecna. One is in Gertrude’s grove, a large half circle of moonstone. As we had already dealt with Gertrude (when we rescued Shorty McSmallHouse), we simply went back to her room and pulled it out of the tree it was embedded in.

Then, Locke & the Toymaker told us about a dimension-hopping rollercoaster that once brought people to the Revalia, but which Hecna destroyed when he realized it was also a way out of the Revalia. The moonstone disc is half of a key component of the rollercoaster. Also, several members of the revolution reside at the Shattered Station, the rollercoasters resting place. So we went there.

Just as the station comes into view, the session ended.

Fin.