"Follow That Old One" - CHA'ALT 3.10

 

"Every voyage has its own flavor," as Sinbad said in the 1973 film (which I recently re-watched for the nth time).

This session fulfills that prophecy.  Let's dive in and maybe you'll see what I mean...

We had only three players as our traveling playboy was hungover and Bandersnatch's player was celebrating his anniversary.  That means H'ork leveling up to 4th along with Tinker, and Thurberus, maintaining at 5th level, were there to carry forward the Purple Bastards' adventure in the land of purple-Cha'alt.

Just as last session all took place on Cha'alt-prime, this one only focused on purple-Cha'alt.  As we recapped events, Kurva'ak and his minions were slaughtered and the massive dimensional door to the Old One known as Igg-Yig-Yatha'ak (the dark effulgence) was still magically sealed. 

Kurva'ak's former wizard, Zerlin, who now worked for the PCs gave the adventurers two options - blow the magic seal open with something like the plasma reactor core or photon torpedo... or he could magically unseal it via sorcery.  However, that would take the ritual sacrifice of several humanoids - perhaps as many as 11.  After some serious math on the back of a napkin and then sexkerchief, Zerlin felt certain that no more than 9 would be needed when push came to shove or tentacles came to bloodletting, as the saying goes in Cha'alt.

The PCs let it be known that if Zerlin failed, so too would his limbs fail to remain attached to his body.  You know, just to keep him honest and attentive to detail.

Before anything else happened, a purple portal opened, a massive purple claw reached out through the portal, grabbed Bandersnatch, and withdrew back into the portal's purple-lit interior.  Before disappearing, the party's sorcerer threw the amulet out so they'd at least have a chance of controlling or influencing the Great Old One, should they succeed in awakening or freeing him from his prison / slumber.

As the portal stayed open, Thurberus threw a rock into it, hitting Aldous Sand.  Aldous talked with them and they all decided it would be better for him to become some sort of apprentice, rather than stay in the purple labyrinth any longer, practicing his music.

As the PCs explored the rest of this cave system for random humanoids to be sacrificed, a courier ran towards them shouting "Thurberus!"  Holding off on blasting him, they allowed the gray-elf to approach.  He had a scroll tube which the gray-elf opened to reveal issue #14 of Dark Priest Monthly.  

Taking possession of the magazine, Thurberus filled-out the subscription card to receive another 5 years of Dark Priest Monthly, not sure if the bill or subsequent issues would ever find him.  The courier took the card back to the publisher as the v'smm priest flipped through his new magazine.

It featured various ways of luring victims into vans, RVs, and mobile homes by offering valuables such as gold, ammo, and scratch & sniff stickers.  A sexy peach frutie wearing purple lingerie made the centerfold.  Ads for vintage toys of the 70s and 80s (which had the 3 and 4-inch action figures in Thurberus' pack all excited) peppered the slick glossy pages.  Last of all, there was an interview with a dark priest named Father Alfa'anzo who experimented with dimensional magic and lived in the purple labyrinth for years.  His biggest discovery is that other dimensions had their own maze of varying color.  When the PCs scanned the interview for info such as "Why do these labyrinths exist?" it was extraordinary light on details.  Basically, they just do.

Continuing the exploration, the PCs happened upon slaves mining caves for ulfire and jale.  Several male slaves were doing the actual mining while three females sat around, waiting for their own duties to perform - all of them wearing the familiar high-tech slave collars.  

Soon enough, the PCs hacked through the intestinal curtains, killed the guards, and got into a heated battle with the slavers themselves.  Thurberus' magical golden shield saved his ass from a couple critical-hits, bringing him eventually down to 2 HP, and H'ork almost single digits.  Even Tinker was wounded.  But eventually, the PCs triumphed, taking the still alive slavers, their slaves, a bunch of mined crystals and precious stones, along with several scratch & sniff stickers.  Score!

Keeping the head-slave mining, the PCs relieved some pipe-cleaning stress with the women, and then took all the slaves back to Zerlin who was waiting at the magically sealed gateway - but not before Tinker (to whom I passed a note) was revealed to be the purple Pimpernel (or purple pimple as he kept calling it) and saved a couple of aristocrats from Kra'adumek's purple pope and his lilac acolytes of doom who were hot on their trail.  

At first, it seemed like the two aristocrats from the purple city would be the first of many sacrifices, but Zeeder and Chempt were soon treated well, and put in communication with Jay-vax (sub-captain of the S.S. Motherfucker), that racoon from the starship who rescued the PCs from that prison ship long ago.

Zerlin tried his best to minimize the casualties as he worked his sorcery, harnessing the power of the jale and ulfire crystals, along with the warm and inviting flesh of slave girl #2, Korra (whom he fancied so much he took her as his own).  He got it down to 6 sacrifices.  That means the women and purple aristocrats were saved - huza'ah!

The door was unsealed.  H'ork used his half-orc strength to open it enough for them to walk in - it was a dark tomb where an impossibly huge creature lay dormant.  Glyphs carved into ornate walls lined the eldritch sepulcher, many unreadable.  Soon enough, it awakened, spoke briefly to the PCs (the 15% chance of the not-properly-activated ultra-telluric glyph didn't materialize), and left its tomb, breaking apart the cave-system's ceiling and crawling out into the fuchsia-skied desert wasteland north, towards Ka'alestine.

Deciding to follow Igg-Yig-Yatha'ak in their RV, the PCs and their entourage piled-in and took off down the sand.  Coming at them from the eastern side was a Ka'alestinian patrol of about 20 robed cutthroats, a couple of them riding a giant scorpion with a couple human slaves in tow.  Several jiha'adist warriors were holding heads on pikes, and behind them was a decent-sized territory ringed with headless humanoids impaled upon the bone stalks of gigantic insects that roam the wasteland at night.  The Ka'alestinians frequently do this, taking bits of land here and there until they can consolidate them into greater Ka'alestine.

Figuring they could outrun the jiha'adists, the PCs kept going in their RV.  After driving a couple hours (the Ka'alestinians far behind), the adventurers noticed a gathering of a dozen or more people off to the west, just outside the mouth of a cave. 

Getting out to see what was going on, they mingled with two distinct groups - one fancy dressed who were here for a wine tasting in the gilded mauve caves - known locally as Skra'ath Cavern - and the others looked like peasant rabble.  They were here to see-off 3 heroes who decided to "retire themselves" with the high honor of being eaten by the devourer worms - an annual festivity that occurs at Skra'ath Cavern.  

Those about to die usually give blessings, words of wisdom, and sometimes bestow a gift.  Curiously, there was one man clad in black who didn't fit the description of the others.  He looked a bit ruthless and when he tore apart a sand lobster and threw it behind him, a piece that hit one of the peasants almost caused a scuffle, but then the man who was hit immediately backed down after the man in black gave him the look.  The PCs decided to keep an eye on him as they also took part in the festivities. 

First was the heroes being eaten - Sanquen, ranger of the desert night; Bestia'al, a female known as the blood oath barbarian; and Zoffestry, a sorcerer and former vizir of Ka'alestine.  Life expectancy on Cha'alt pretty much tops-out at 69, and these three were well into their 70s.  They wanted a "good death," hence being eaten by the devourer worms.  The juices of death-berries (which grew in these caves) marinated in a large skull.  The heroes sipped the death-berry wine, which was said to prepare their souls for the journey.

Tinker decided to instigate a race war between the mauve folk and gold folk who lived together in Skra'ath Cavern.  Both races were rather small.  Apparently, there was a wizard who lived amongst them, and he used the mauve folk as his helpers, eventually convincing or compelling them to assist him in capturing the gold folk to use in his experiments.  The wizard died over a year ago, but the hard feelings survive.

Meanwhile, Thurberus and H'ork followed the man in black who showed them his magical short sword, figuring they were here for the same reason - to capture the soul-energy of the consumed "warriors" in a valuable object.  Kicking out the mauve and gold folk with the crystals they had planned to ensoul, the man in black, Varker, waited along with the two PCs.  

It wasn't long before the ethereal streams of white energy came into the cave, drawn here via magical means, no doubt, and energized Varker's short sword, Thurberus' brass key he'd kept from The Venturan colony ship where they were originally imprisoned, and H'ork chose the severed hand of Zerlin... for some weird reason.  I rolled randomly, and the soul of the sorcerer Zoffestry went into the hand (which seemed fitting).  H'ork and his new sorcerer-hand companion began communicating, hoping to create some kind of odd familiar relationship a la The Addams Family.

Rejoining Tinker, the PCs + Varker walked elsewhere in Skra'ath, hoping to taste that wine supposedly superior to all others in the region.  They ran into 4 bandits mugging a couple of fancy dressed wine connoisseurs.  The PCs took care of the muggers, looted their bodies, and stole the victims' gold and shoes before moving onwards toward that supposedly irresistible wine.

That's where we left things.  When we pick-up in just a week (this schedule is unusual because I'll be gone on a family vacation in a couple weeks), the PCs will finish exploring Skra'ath Cavern, and then we'll see what happens with the PCs on Cha'alt-prime.

There's also a chance that a new player joins us this coming Saturday.  Tentacles crossed!

Enjoy,

VS

p.s. Want the hardcover Cha'alt trilogy?  Here's how (and they're currently on sale!)!!  Want to join the Kort'thalis mailing list to stay up-to-date on what's going on in the skinematic Vengerverse?  This is it!!  Last but not least, I'm organizing a based-as-fuck RPG convention in Madison, WI this July (Sandy Petersen will be joining us as VENGER CON's Guest of Honor).  Grab your weekend badge for VENGER CON IV: Post-Modern Apocalypse!!!