A night of hard labour

The party departs the crime scene and heads to the tavern, where we are offered (somewhat begrudgingly) free food a lodging for the evening. While eating, Louie suddenly discovers that his portable hole is now a large backpack, bursting at the seams and straining his muscles to lift. And it has been for the last 8 hours. Louie has very poor situational awareness.

Louie empties the pack out to redistribute his equipment, and finds at the bottom the clockwork beholder eyestalks from way back on the Cyre 1313 in session 2 on the 9th of July, 2023. Another patron at the bar spies them and makes a beeline for our table. Dr Amelia trades a familiar raising device for the eyestalks, after straight up murdering Gary. She also says she would be happy to trade with us for any other contraptions we find, especially Cadaver Collectors. That isn’t foreshadowing at all.

We are also informed that a Professor Conrad Eisenhut would like to hire us to deliver a poison to Whales End. In return, we would receive permission to attend the University.

The party retires to sleep, except for Rusty who claims he can sleep while walking tomorrow, and starts to fiddle about making a St Elmo’s Fire generator. The barkeep tells him to take it into the workroom, and then shows him where the workroom is. Rusty successfully finishes his device which will allow him to cast Green-Flame Blade, except that it will do electrical damage. Cletus hung about to watch this, and then asks Rusty to make a mini-flamethrower, to allow Horus to cast Firebolt. This opens the flood gates and what was going to be a quick crafting session before bed turned into an all-nighter. Rusty created 5 more gizmos that night, to allow the casting of:

• Shocking Grasp
• Chill Touch
• Eldritch blast
• Spare the dying
• An attachment to allow the activation of the defensive enchantments in Cletus’ Defender longsword.

Into the Wilds

As the sun rises over Ludendorf, the rest of the party wakes to find a semi-catatonic Rusty handing out goodies like it is Christmas morning. Rusty then hands the armour controls to Minion, and takes a nap.

The party heads out to meet Hans. Hans spots all Horus’ new gadgets and congratulates him on adapting to the local customs. Like fucking Horus did anything. Whatever.

We set out to the west, intending to follow the coast until we reach the river that goes to Lorelei falls, and following it to the mountains. Somehow this translated in Ethan’s mind to “do a straight line run directly through the Forest of Rust toward Lorelei Falls”.

Whatever, the rusty forest is full of stuff that fascinates Rusty now that he has woken up again. He gathers enough stuff to put together a 3rd level reagent pack for someone. There is a bit of discussion about who this should go to. As our primary caster, Horus is the obvious choice, but the nature of the local magic actually means he would be able to cast fewer spells than either Rusty or Louie. The is a quick retcon of the rules by Ethan to rectify the imbalance, and Horus gets the pack. He can now cast, once, every 3rd level spell that it is possible for a wizard to learn. Nice.

All Ethan’s Gods are insane.

This may reflect a deeper real-world problem.

The party enters a clearing in the forest where it finds a wild eyed man, painting on a sheet of metal. He mutters a bunch of crazy bullshit, ending with “Stay back! I saw you come out of the bark!”

Cletus says “We are of the Barkwalkers.” The crazy man says some more crazy stuff. Cletus, going with the flow, says “Roots are brown.” He then borrows some of the crazy mans paints and does a picture of Momma Cletus’ gumbo. The smell of freshly made gumbo fills the clearing, and the madman eats it.

Around about this time, Ethan informs the party that they are thoroughly lost, and have been for a while. Rusty considers sending Minion up to look around, but the mist is so thick, he wouldn’t be able to see anything that would provide us with bearings anyway. Cletus, who doesn’t think things that far through, climbs a tree. He’s well out of sight of the party when he discovers that the sky here has a roof. Written on the sky, backwards, are the words “Nolzur’s Marvellous Pigments”. Cletus reaches out to touch the sky, and falls through. He finds himself in a Good Game shop.

Louie, unable to see anything of what has happened - and not even having Rusty’s perception of Cletus’ mind suddenly being out of range - says “Uh oh, spaghettio” for no reason. Vast strands of spaghetti stream across the sky. Cletus can see them, and grabs one, swinging down it like an Italian Tarzan and rejoining the party.

Nolzur has started drawing something that looks like it will be a dinosaur, but Rusty muses that what the party really needs is a Yak. The oxen we have don’t do well in the cold. Nolzur changes the picture, and lo and behold, we have a Yak. Nolzur also says that if we can get him a flower untouched by the Rust of the forest, he will give us some of his paint. Horus, spotting the cheat code here, tells Nolzur to paint a flower untouched by Rust. He does, and Horus gives him the resulting flower. Sneaky. We get a set of Nolzur’s marvellous pigments.

Suddenly we all have to make a CON save. A nearby bush has been growing roots into our feet, apparently. Everyone saves except Horus, of course. He takes damage.

Horus is fucked.

Cletus uses some of Nolzur’s paints to paint a path out of the forest, which appears, and we stroll down it like fucking bosses. We emerge at the Lorelei falls. There we find a dead Rock Gnome. A quick search of the body shows us that he is from Neufurchtenburg, and that his flesh rights are owned by Stephan Heinrich. We pack the body up.

While we are doing that, Rusty notices that there is black goo running out of Horus’ nose. Rusty attempts to get a sample, but Horus blocks him without even being aware of what Rusty is doing. Then a blob of grey ooze drops out of Horus’ nose. Cletus and Rusty attempt to catch it, but Horus picks it up first. It spreads across his forearm, and is quickly absorbed.

Horus adamantly asserts that he is fine. Cletus accepts that he would know, and drops it. Rusty is suspicious as hell, but is told that he is hesitant to investigate further. Rusty is self-aware enough to know that being hesitant to investigate further is totally against his normal personality, and is indisputable evidence that something is fucking with his mind. He pushes back against this unnatural emotion, and feels anger being directed his way. Yeah, so what fucker. I’ve had God-Brains angry at me, you’re small potatoes. The entity responds by making Rusty vulnerable to poison. Just like that - no roll to hit, no save. This is some bullshit, and not the best way to get Rusty to back off. He presses Horus about this, but Horus is evasive, and the entity just does 66 damage to Rusty. Again, no save, no roll to hit, no indication where it came from, and no apparent way to defend from it. If this was Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Rusty would be disbelieving illusion around now, but he’s aware that the Illusion school of magic doesn’t work that way any more.

There’s also no obvious way to hit back, particularly as Horus doesn’t want help. Rusty never liked Horus anyway. He can lie in his own bed.

Hans brews up a healing potion for Rusty, and Rusty asks for the recipe. It needs Peacebloom and Silverleaf. Silverleaf grows near frozen water - sounds like it should be a noxious weed in Lamordia.

Louie then digs a hole at the trunk of a nearby Oak tree. When asked why, he said he was digging for swords. We all looked at him like he was insane, even Rusty who understands where the brainless frog got such a notion. Against all logic and reason, it works. Louie digs up a +1 Sword of the Paruns. As we leave, we see a sign that says “Chi Chi (TM)”.

Ambush at the falls

As we enter the pass next to Lorelei falls, we immediately notice we are surrounded by miners in the cliffs and rocks that surround us. They’re not that good at hiding. They demand a specific healing tonic from us. Cletus tells them we don’t have any of that, which is true. They then demand all our money so they can buy some. Cletus tells them we don’t have any money either, and keeps walking. One of the miners shoots a round in front of the cart. They nearly hit our Yak!

Initiative is rolled. Order went Horus/Gary, Cletus, Rusty, some of the miners, Louie/Raymond, then the rest of the miners.

Combat is underwhelming. Half-way through Rusty’s first turn, 5 of 10 of the miners are dead, and Rusty goes for some more intimidation, which works. The miners drop their weapons, and Rusty starts to interrogate them as to what their problem is, and how we can help.

During this discussion, Horus is apparently shot - twice - without making any sound at all, or any of the party noticing. For some reason, his plight is brought to our attention the instant he actually dies. Rusty is a bit pissed. He’s had it up to here with effects happening outside of anyones control, and he’s seriously considering taking his frustration out on the miners. He directs the party to drag Horus’ body - and the rest of the party - to an overhang that will protect us from the line of fire of the remaining miner. Apparently a rogue element with a sniper rifle who isn’t even on the combat map.

Rusty gets the miners to tell their compatriot to stop shooting, and whips up a potion of Gentle Repose which should allow us to preserve Horus’ body long enough to resurrect it. The slime inhabiting Horus’ corpse allows the potion to be administered, then starts walking Horus around like Bernie with Jim Henson’s arm shoved up his ass.

We head to Neufurchtenburg.

Rusty wants that fucking rifle. There is no way one of these half trained idiot miners should have been able to make that shot once, let alone twice.