Horus is a slimy bastard.

Horus relives his death, and after an indeterminate period of blackness, awakens in a realm of slimes and oozes. As he gathers his wits, he becomes aware of the largest slime of them all - Jubilex - looking down on him.

“I’ve been contemplating your encounter with Nolzur”, he mumbles in his incomprehensible voice. He goes on to mumble something incoherent about how the paints actually alter reality. They don’t create illusions, they don’t create portals of perform teleportation. They are pure creation.

Horus is confused. “Am I dead?”

“Yes”. Jubilex doesn’t even have eyes, but they rolled pretty hard.

“Will I be able to come back from this? I won’t be able to paint you anything as I am.”

OK, Jubilex hadn’t thought of that. “Hmmm. That is an issue. You stay in the back seat - I’ll drive for a while”.

Back in the real world.

Horus’ body walks up to the miners, and his slimy, leaking body says something along the lines of “How do you do, fellow mortals?”

The miners leader, Leopold, insist on coming back to Neufurchtenburg with us to meet with the Doctor. As he talks to us, another figure comes running up - that f*cking sniper! “Did we get the payment?”

Cletus immediately disarms him, and accidentally shoots Rusty in the process. What Cletus now has is a +2 Silenced Rifle (600/2400) which does 3d12 damage and has three properties: Silent (it makes no noise), Sentry (advantage to hide) and advantage to hit if you fire while prone. It has the disadvantage that it does not work underwater.

Seriously, how does Dr Yitthalx even know we’re here?

It’s almost been 48 hours since we entered the realm, and as we walk through a snowstorm, a figure emerges from the haze. It looks exactly like a Mind Flayer in a cloak. So we shot him. Not much effect, and Rusty was suspicious that the DM insisted - before the to hit roll was revealed - that the shot hits the figure in the shoulder. Ok, we’ll take the obvious trap bait. The merchant, miners and Slorus did not, though.

The figure turns, and it is actually a Lamordian (human) with a living octopus grafted to its face. It monologues “I don’t know how you found me…” - Honestly, we zoned out at that point. Rusty grabbed the back of Louie’s armour and prepared Misty Step.

The figure dramatically throws open its cloak to reveal (“I misty step 30’ backwards”) 8 grenades which are hissing, hissing … and explode! Before your misty step, hahaha.

Fair enough. Louie, Raymond, Rusty and Cletus all take 8 x 3d12 damage (I think it was 3d12 - if it was, Ethan was rolling statistically high). We all DEX save 8 times for full or half. Ethan was under the impression that lots of the party had evasion, but forgot that Dennis and The Captain aren’t here. Anyway, Louie failed once and saved 7 times. Raymond (who does have evasion) failed 3 times and saved the rest. Rusty saved 4 and failed 4, but has resistance to non-magical damage which is turning out to be worth its weight in gold in Lamordia. Cletus saved 8 from 8, with 2 critical saves which meant he took no damage for those hits. Final damage was Rusty 78, Cletus 79, Louie 114 and Raymond 41.

That fucking mind flayer(from here on referred to as TFMF)’s minion is nothing more than a small crater. The party are lightly smoking, and wondering if a brief nap is warranted. In the end, we decided not, though Rusty did use 4 charges of his healing kit on himself. Cletus, the tank, wasn’t even down to 100hp.

Meanwhile, Slorus took the opportunity to isolate one of the miners to paint a window on his chest, so now you can see through him.

Ahead to Neufurchtenburg

We move on - we see a bunch of freaky deer. The miners don’t seem alarmed, and they don’t bother us, so we continue. Further ahead we see a body, half embedded in radioactive ice and crystals, lightly twitching. Beside it is a sign “Tourette Elaine Abel. Died 789, a victim of progress.” Cletus rolls magnificently on his medicine check, and can tell that the person died as a result of the crystal growths. He also notes that Tourette’s brain has been removed, post-mortem, by a Mind Flayer. Leopold informs us that because of the toxic nature of the cause of death, it is not required of a citizen to return the body for flesh rights.

As we approach the walls of Neufurchtenburg, we see a town guard described in such intricate detail that by the Law of Conservation of Detail, he should have been a primary character. In blatant violation of this rule, he demands payment to enter the town and vanishes from the plot.

Most of the miners pay - one exception argues the point, and was still there when we left. Rusty convinces Hans that since the party is under his employ, he should pay our entry fee. While this was going on, Slorus saunters blithely into town without paying and the guard thinks better of forcing the issue.

Neufurchtenburg turns out to be a shithole too. Nice steampunk vibe, but with cyberpunk dystopian overtones. Pity they couldn’t apply some of that genius to city planning and public sanitation.

On our way to the hospital - where the currently ambulant Sloris will apparently be resurrected - we see a group of workers (miners - it’s always miners) stagger past, and one collapses in the street in front of us. Louie, the softie, stops to lay on hands, and helps the miner to the hospital.

As we arrive at the hospital, we find Slorus, looking inordinately pleased with himself, and covered in paint. Though Ethan denied us any chance to locate the portal to Jubilexes prison which obviously exists nearby, he glossed over the fact that coating himself with Marvelous Pigment as he has should have transformed Slorus into a puddle of goo. Seriously, those paints are highly toxic on a reality level - get it smeared on yourself, you should at a minimum lose the affected limb. We gloss over this plot development railway junction and head into the hospital. (Of course, the real portal is actually going to be Horus’ body. We already know you can paint a window on a body without adversely affecting the persons health. The apparent hideous smearing of paint on Horus is, in fact, a faithful representation of Jubilexes prison of different slimes.)

We enter the hospital where an Autognome attendant is mopping blood, while a plaintive voice in the background pleads with a Doctor to not amputate his leg. His cries are not met with sympathy, but with a calm, reasoned explanation as to why it needs to be removed, or he will die. This is the kind of bedside manner Rusty can get behind. Another Autognome approaches Louie and whisks his miner away for treatment. In an interesting side-note, it appears that Autognomes are immune to poison.

Treating Slorus

Leopold negotiates with Dr Mordenheim (who is just Charles Dance acting like Charles Dance) to treat Slorus. Dr Mordenheim is initially confused, and requires clarification that Leopold really does wish to transfer his advanced care rights to Slorus, and that Slorus - who is waiting attentively and patiently, wearing a wide grin - really is dead, and really does require treatment. Once his questions are satisfactorily answered, he explains that his process takes 1-2 hours, and there shall be no spectators. I think Ethan expected some argument from the party but we don’t care that much. Slorus waves goodbye and collapses dead to the floor. Dr Mordenheim has his Autognome attendants take the body away.

The party spends 2 hours waiting outside the hospital. During that time Minion searches fruitlessly for the portal we know Slorus made, but cannot find it (it’s inside!). He also checks out the local noticeboard for jobs. Meanwhile, the party listens to the idle gossip of passing citizens. They learn:

1. Kraut (whoever that is) apparently saw a creature near the refinery with no face, but still somehow able to scream.
2. Baron Rudolf hasn’t been seen by anyone for years. The rumour mill suspects he is either dead or horribly disfigured, and never leaves his tower. There is something in the East Tower that issues orders.
3. Some random persons sister disappeared several years ago, and was never found. But they saw her a few days ago. It was her body, her face - but her accent and mannerisms were different, and she didn’t recognise them. They don’t know who it was, but it wasn’t their sister.
4. There is a Monastery on the Isle of Agony, where the Flesh Golems go to meditate. The racist locals think this would be creepy, for some reason.

The return of Horus

Finally, Jim gets to play. Horus awakens in dim lighting to find himself lying on - and strapped to - an operating table. Watching him is Dr M. Horus feels literally like death warmed up. His eyes are dry, his limbs spasm. Initial attempts to speak cause his jaw to click unnaturally.

Dr M. performs a neurological assessment, then tests gross motor control. There is some concern when Horus’ motor control appears to be flipped, by Dr M does something and sets that right. During this process, Horus gets a glimpse of his hands, and their skin tone is mismatched, with stitches across the backs of his hands and wrists.

Eventually he is allowed to look at himself. He is a hideous monstrosity! Dr M has transferred Horus’ consciousness to a Flesh Golem. Horus gets a bunch of the abilities, and one drawback, of a flesh golem. Horus takes this remarkably calmly. This is remarkable for two reasons: firstly, because it is an objectively horrifying thing to happen, but more importantly, he’s Horus. He gets worked up if the lengths of his shoelace tails don’t match. He has an extended discussion with Dr M, and makes a friend in the process. Dr M extends to him advanced care rights in his own right for the future, and offers to make any modifications Horus wants while he is here - like his anxiety issue that Dr M noticed in his blood work. Horus asks to get his anxiety problem fixed, and Dr M does in in a jiffy. Horus is now also immune to fear, I think.

Outside, the party awaits Horus’ return. Rusty has been keeping track as Horus’ mind incrementally resurfaced. It was a bit staticky, a bit hit and miss - Rusty rationalized this as interference from the hospital walls. (Rusty wouldn’t have done that - he would have tested it. Did he have trouble keeping track of Dr M? Of other people in the hospital? No. Rusty thought there was something weird about the resurrection process all along). Rusty is busy inspecting the mechanism being used to monitor and moderate the flow of saline in an intravenous drip when he senses Dr M and Horus enter the room. He speaks as he turns around. “Horus! How are WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO YOU?”

The rest of the party, who had not yet realized the Flesh Golem was Horus, figure it out from Rusty’s reaction. Horus starts to explain, and Rusty interjects again with “Why does your voice sound the same? That makes no sense!” Horus starts, again, to calmly explain, which triggers a second realization in Rusty. He peers closely at Horus, and says “You’re Horus, but you’re not all Horus. There’s something missing.” He turns to Dr M and asks “Did you take something out?”

Dr M insists that he cannot comment on another patient’s care, which Rusty firmly agrees with. Horus reveals, though, that Dr M - with his express permission - removed a part of his brain, curing him of his anxiety disorder. Rusty is fascinated, and guesses that it would be a part of the amygdala. With Horus’ approval Dr M says that he did work on the amygdala in the resurrection process, but that wasn’t the area he worked on to cure Horus of his anxiety - it was “the top part”. We all realized that we had pushed Ethan’s ability to ad lib medical procedures as far as it was going to go and moved on to different topics.

Dr M lauds Horus’ impressive adaptation to his changed situation, and advises the rest of the party to get advanced medical care rights as soon as they can. He also says that he will write writs for the party, if they do something for him. There was, apparently, another traveller that came to Lamordia who referred to himself only as “The Alchemist”. Rusty takes a wild swing and described Papa Ricky to Dr M, but it wasn’t him. The Alchemist came from Mordentshire, and while here, produced research on the different effects on science and magic that applies in different realms. Dr M would dearly love to peruse this research, but unfortunately has been banned from Lamordia University for reasons best not gone into. If we can acquire The Alchemists research for Dr M, he would be very grateful.

TFMF

It also transpired that TFMF has been through here before us, and while Dr M respected his insights, he doesn’t like the guy. TFMF was apparently disparaging of Dr M’s methods, which Rusty was appalled at, and he should know. As the Architect of most of the stuff TFMF used for his research, Rusty is keenly aware of the different constraints Lamordians work under and is deeply impressed with Dr M’s work. He tells Dr M this. When Dr M reveals that TFMF also had two “flying jellyfish” with him, Rusty reveals his own species and explains some of the things TFMF was able to do. It was nothing special about TFMF - he had just enslaved two Flumphs, and was forcing them to use their perfectly natural psychic abilities.

Cletus should not be left unsupervised

We depart the hospital, and swing by the noticeboard on our way to Heinrich’s house (he’s the father we have to return the corpse to). Heinrich is understandably distraught, but he pays us 30 Lamode and gives us a writ before passing on to us a letter that was left for Heinrich Junior. It is encoded, which instantly nerd-snipes Louie and Rusty. Horus convinces Heinrich not to do anything rash, and we decide we need to find Greta.

The party heads out and purchases advanced medical care for Cletus. He’s either afraid of mortality, or wants a cool new body like Horus. After leaving the registry, the party is accosted by some rando on the street, asserting without evidence that the sword that is currently inside Raymond’s mouth belongs to his dead son, and that the party are grave robbers. Despite the patent absurdity of this unfounded accusation, Ethan spends a considerable amount of time trying to get Cletus to understand that, without owning legal rights, we have no right to refute the accusations and stand convicted.

To be fair, Cletus had a point here. The exact wording of right #10 is “Legal Consultation Services - Access to city-approved legal advisors for navigating Lamordia’s complex regulations.” This says absolutely nothing about having no right to natural justice, nor does it imply that we are unable to speak in our own defence - it merely says we cannot access city approved legal advisors. Ethan, however, was unmoved by any appeal to his sense of justice, his emotions, or logic.

The punishment was twofold. First, we had to return the sword that Rando McDickface claims is his. That is some righteous bullshit - that sword should enter the custodial system. Just because the law says we have no right to it, it doesn’t say McDickface has any rights to it. Whatever. Second, the party has to do some community service - clear out some weird noises from the local mine. Fucking miners again! It’s like none of them are capable of solving their own problems!

So, Raymond begrudgingly hands over the sword, and the rest of the party is resigned to doing some work for free. Not Cletus. He tries, burning 10 inspiration, to steal the sword back - and fails spectacularly. For some reason, Ethan interprets burning 10 inspiration on one attempt as burning one inspiration each time on 10 attempts - not sure what’s going on with Ethan, his brain is not working right. In any case, the party gets further community service, but it wasn’t recorded exactly what it was, because our note taker was still working on decoding the letter. If Louie or Rusty had been paying attention, we may not have got into this mess.

The letter

We decoded the letter, though:

Heinrich,

I doh's imo esp sices but I had to leave. I found something ... something terrible. The ore they've been extracting 
here isn't what they claimed.  It's plutonium. That's why people are getting sick.  The radiation ... it's not an 
accident.  They knew.  They've been covering it up.

I saw the reports, the hidden logs. The comapny's been lying to everyone. The sickness, the deaths, it's all because 
of this.  I couldn't stay.  If they find out that I know, I'm afraid of what they'll do.

You need to be careful.  Don't trust anyone in charge. If you can, get the truth out.  People deserve to know.  I am 
hidden in the abandoned Pulastein Mine. Come find me when you are ready.

Stay Safe,

Greta.

It was a shift 7 Caesar cipher, but Ethan messed up the first few words. So now we know where to look for Greta.

To the mines!

The party heads to the mines, where our first bout of community is to be served. We enter the mines - we can hear the noises the miners were afraid of, which basically sound like the last of the bathwater running out of the tub. Probably spooked them because, as miners, they’ve never had a bath.

The party wanders blithely in, and the person at the back of the marching order - Cletus - is surprise attacked by 3 Miner Tomb Trappers. Let’s leave aside for now that Rusty cannot be surprised - Ethan just wanted to get back at Cletus for his bullshittery.

Cletus tanks the surprise round with his insane AC and equally insane HP. The party enters combat, and while we do manage to kill one of them before the end of session, they also have a petrification effect that differs from most in D&D 5e. Normally, once you save from a petrification effect, you are immune to it for 24 hours. In this case, however, you still have to save against further applications of the effect, and with disadvantage. In addition, it is not clear how the effect is applied. It seems to be after you attack them, but the second time it was applied to Rusty, he had been very careful to specify that he was using his reach weapon and never got closer than 10 feet away. It doesn’t get applied on the Trappers turn though, so it is a reaction, not an attack they make.

Anyway, we had to finish part way through the third round of combat, and Louie goes next, followed by the Tomb Trappers.

Sinister postscript

Somehow the party knows that a hulking figure is lurking outside Dr M’s hospital. He watches the good Doctor, enraged that he is happy, and for some reason angry at us?

The end.