URDR - Multiverse Defense

[eveglass]

This week's session answered the universal question, "How DOES the treasure get into the dungeons in the first place?" The answer, as it always seems to be, is "Our Heroes (tm)."


[In the aftermath of last session...]
Stuart: "I want to take the witch out to dinner. The vaguely crazy one."
Eric the GM: "That doesn't narrow it down."

[On an errand for Yalia, we return to Gun'Mora's library in Universe 42. We are met by one of the librarians.]
Julie: "Is this a lizardfolk?"
Eric the GM: "Doesn't matter. It's just someone to keep you from wandering around until I bring in someone important."

[Indeed, the important person is Jason, one of Gun'Mora's avatars. He informs us that to repay our favor to Gun'Mora, he has a series of small tasks for us to do.]
Stuart: "I'm sure they're going to give us the information we need to succeed."
Julie: "One hopes."

[The first task, and also the most dangerous, is to go to Universe 112 and rid the Nightstalker from its home.]
Jason: "To get it out of its home, Gun'Mora is prepared to provide you with a very convincing argument. *reveals large suitcase bomb* I call it 'the convincing argument.'"

[Eric the GM had a quite impressive image of The Convincing Argument to show us.]
Eric the GM: "I spent a lot of time looking up 'suitcase bomb.'"
Julie: "And now you're on the NSA watch list."

[We arrive in Universe 112. The first thing on our list, as always, is for Anton Dregari to summon a demon to assist us.]
Stuart: "What should I make my demon look like?"
Julie: "That depends. Do you want it to be conspicuous or not conspicuous?"

[The area around the Nightstalker's hut is strewn with corpses, true, but at least they're not rotting corpses. And other than that, the whole place is rather pleasant.]
Anton: "It's always nice when the vicious cannibalistic monster takes pride in the appearance of his home."

[We arrive at the Nightstalker's hut. Time for Plan A.]
Julie: "The demon goes in and does what it does best."
Stuart: "Dies horribly."

[The demon does not in fact die horribly, heartening the rest of us to follow it in.]
Eric the GM: "There's a table with a half-eaten goblin on it."
Anton: "Doesn't he know? If he doesn't keep it in the fridge, it won't stay crunchy."

[We set the suitcase bomb and leave just before the Nightstalker's return. The explosion is huge and... not quite what we expected.]
Anton: "Why would they do a clown explosion?!"
Yalia: *shrugs*

[Our next task is to return to the remains of the hut and recover a sword that had previously been in the Nightstalker's keeping.]
Stuart: "We're all gonna go in together, because when the bones reanimate, as they always do..."

[We find a trap door to a storage root cellar. Among other things within, we find a humanoid creature trapped inside a crystalline cocoon. Anton Dregari tries to hack it down and winds up taking about 40 points of electricity damage.]
Anton: "Ow."
Yalia: "You wanna try again?"
Anton: "I'm sure it used up all the electricity by now."

[Yalia detects evil on the root cellar.]
Eric the GM: "You're detecting a lot of evil above you, in a vague sort of exploded way."

[The person in the cocoon was already dead. How sad. Back to searching for the sword, which we suspect is inside an armoire... which destroys the demon we send to open it.]
Eric the GM: "This is why some groups have people who can search for and disable traps."

[We ultimately get the armoire open and find the sword within. Except none of us want to touch it. Anton summons an intelligence-3 human to do it for us.]
Yalia: "Okay, your name is Bob. Now, Bob..."
Anton: "Please don't name it."
Eric the GM: (as Anton) "It makes it too personal and I feel bad."

[On further instructions from the magic scroll Gun'Mora gave us, we sunder the sword into three pieces, each of which must be given to a separate person.]
Eric the GM: "There are three faintly glowing dots on the map Gun'Mora gave you."
Anton: "May I just say, it's a pleasure working with professionals."

[The first piece, the hilt, must be given to Ohino Tans. Specifically, it must be given to him in the vision of a burning bush. Time for Plan A!]
Anton: "Okay, so we turn Fox into a bush, give you the potion of fire resistance, and light you on fire."

[Plan B is only a slightly modification of Plan A.]
Yalia: "So Fox is the bush, Anton does the illusions, and I stand back and watch?"
Anton: "Nothing could possibly go wrong."

[In preparation for our 'bush and light' show, we need to clarify a few small points.]
Fox: "What do we want him to do with it?"
Anton: "...I have no idea."

[Things I don't usually hear in games.]
Anton: "Wave your left-most branch when you're ready to turn invisible."

[With all the plans in place, we give our magnificent illusion show for Ohino, the desert hermit.]
Fox: "Behold this sword!"
Anton: (softly) "Hilt."
Fox: "Hilt!"

[Next step: getting Ohino to actually take the hilt.]
Fox: "The fire shall not burn you, Ohino, for you are the chosen one!"
Ohino Tans: (in Bill Cosby impersonation) "Riiight..."

[The hilt having been giving to Ohino, it's time to give the crosspieces to a man called Salnon the Ravener.]
Sabina: "It seems inauspicious for him to be called 'the Ravener.'"
Eric the GM: "It certainly seems like he's not a nice guy."

[The marker on the map for Salnon the Ravener is in a small village.]
Eric the GM: "Are you going right to the village?"
Sabina: "Sure. What's the worst that can happen?"
Julie: "Why would you say that?!"

[We arrive at the single inn in the village. The bartender seems to suggest that we might not want to stay in the inn at all but rather continue down to the next down for the night.]
Julie: "Sense motive."
Eric the GM: "He's... hiding something?"
Julie: (dryly) "You don't say."

[We decide to stay at the inn anyway.]
Fox: "I'm curious. I want to know what's going on."
Yalia: "Well, curiosity never killed anyone."
Anton: "Unless you're a cat."

[We also take a meal at the inn's common room.]
Eric the GM: "Those of you brave enough to eat the food determine it does indeed appear to be lamb and not former guest."

[You know you have a bit of a skewed sense of perspective when you hear lines like this.]
Anton: "Well, I feel safer now! They're just vampires!"

[Sadly, asking anyone about the prevalence of vampires in the city seems to have unintended consequences.]
Guard: "If you're still here in 30 seconds, we will kill you."
Anton: "Well, that does complicate things."

[Salnon the Ravener, it seems, is currently in the village's jail for having killed seven of the vampires.]
Anton: "We have to set him free."
Yalia: "The scroll doesn't say anything about that."

[We go down to the jail cell.]
Salnon the Ravener: "Who are you?"
Anton: "We're glorified messengers with a sense of self-importance."

[In the end, we do set Salnon free and take him away from the village. Time to bed down for the night.]
Anton: (to Fox) "Can you become a luxury 4-star hotel?"

[We bed down for the night.]
Eric the GM: "You have a restful night. You are not disturbed by vengeful, rampaging vampires."

[We discuss the hand-off of the crosspieces to Salnon.]
Fox: "It's just fallen into a slightly anti-climactic mundanity after the burning bush."

[The last piece of the sword, the blade, must go to Shuasi Shambahon, on the outskirts of a large town. Where, we discover, there has just been a minor zombie outbreak.]
Yalia: "What do you want to bet this guy is the guy who raised the zombies?"

[Shuasi is in fact a girl, not a guy, and runs as soon as we start questioning her.]
Stuart: "Are we in eyesight of anyone else?"
Eric: "...I'll say no."

[We hand off the blade to the would-be necromancer Shuasi, but our work is not yet over. Next step is to convince the Severed Moon orcs to move into the Nightstalker's territory, about 10 miles away from their village.]
Anton: "Ooh! You want something flashy? You wanna be a god?"

[Fox is going to pretend to be a god and reveal herself to the orcs.]
Anton: "So what are you gonna call yourself?"
Fox: "...Grargh?"

[We work out the specifics.]
Fox: "We don't want to..."
Anton: "Sure. You don't wanna oversell a 40-foot orc with antlers and horns."

[We prepare to put our plan in motion.]
Anton: "Iada, you're way smarter than I am. Am I missing anything obvious?"
Eric the GM: "Nothing she would know."

[We prepare our masterful plan for the orcs. It doesn't go quite the way we anticipated.]
Orc Queen: "Are you a god?"
Fox: "I am Grargh! Do you lead?"
Orc Queen: "...Kill it!"

[The orcs begin attacking Fox.]
Anton: "Remember, you're a god. Be assertive!"

[The orcs attack. Anton Dregari raises a jagged wall around Fox.]
Eric the GM: "The orcs begin clambering up the wall, waving their weapons."
Anton: *shrugs* "Hey, they're your people."

[Yalia teleports Fox and the Orc Queen to the remnants of the Nightstalker's hut. The Orc Queen, in turn, agrees to follow Grargh, but wants to know what the catch is.]
Julie: "Come up with something good."
Stuart: "Have them protect orphans from now on."

[Keep in mind that the Nightstalker's land is nothing but ash for three kilometers in every direction. Still, a deal is a deal.]
Orc Queen: "In exchange for this fine, somewhat damaged land you have given us..."

[Anton says what we're all thinking.]
Anton: "These are the most well-spoken orcs I've ever seen."

[Just as we're leaving the orcs, congratulating ourselves on a job well done...]
Eric the GM: "The scroll unrolls: 'And give them the larger of the two bags of gold.'"

[Yalia disguises herself as an orcish messenger of Grargh, puts herself in the path of the oncoming tribe, and hands them the bag of gold.]
Eric the GM: "They're impressed. They weren't expecting a gift for at least a few days. Not every god has this level of service."

[We take a brief moment to examine the tasks we have been assigned so far.]
Anton: "What is this building towards?"
Yalia: "Do you really want to start questioning the gods?"
Fox: "Maybe this is just how stories are made."
Eric the GM: "How do you think the healing potions get into the dungeons?"
Anton: "The gods work in irritating ways."

[Next step: lead some goblins into a nearby cave system. While exploring, we find some cave paintings indicating the sword we destroyed and whose parts we distributed earlier in the session.]
Fox: "I feel like I set up those poor creatures somehow."
Anton: "They're gonna be unhappy when the adventurers show up."

[Our last task is to go to the nearby town, enter the Prayer and Barrel tavern, buy a few drinks, and start talking about the goblins in the nearby caves.]
Eric the GM: "To no one's surprise, the Prayer and Barrel is a mid-quality, mid-sized inn."

[Anton Dregari really gets into the role of the wise old man sitting in the corner giving out quests.]
Anton: "You!"
Would-Be Adventurer: "Who, us?"
Anton: "Are you interested in making the world a better place?"
Would-Be Adventurer: "Well, now that you mention it..."

[Having set all the pieces in place, we return to Universe 42 to find out what the heck is going on.]
Anton: "So you're creating heroes?"
Jason: "We're... preparing for eventualities."