Orcs, a chase and grossness!

Our group

Brus Reckoner

Male half-orc Inquisitor of Yog-Sothoth and slayer of old ladies.

John “Angel Eyes” Wilmarth

Male Aasimar Cleric of the mad idiot god Azathoth.

Fág an Bealach (Faugh)

Male svirfneblin (smurf) Brawler of archetype Mutagenic Mauler.

Bill the Bard

A lost male human bard with his donkey Bottom.

Picklick

Male hobgoblin rogue.

Oi! Muscles!

We left last week on a cliffhanger. The crew had escaped an upset lighthouse keeper by walking from the lighthouse into a castle pantry. They had come across a massacre and a gaggle of goblins playing in boxes of ornaments. They had slain almost all of them when their leader alchemist goblin yelled “Oi! Muscles! Get in here!”

Brus kicked in the door, welcoming the next fight.

From the ornament storage room they looked onto the gory remains of a grand celebration. A massive orc barbarian (Judruk) was standing over a human with a spindly looking orc with him (Sorceror). Two warriors stood by with cover from an archer. The Sorceror slit the throat of the human aristocrat with a hand scythe.

The new combat opened with Inquisitor hurling abuse at “Muscles”. He responded by pointing at him and shouting, “Let’s fight, rape-born!”

The fight started a little funny. The bard shot a door (and got caught on flavour text). The cleric fell into the same box of ornaments that the bard had fallen into 12 seconds ago. The bard was ready for archery but found himself in close melee with orcs wielding falchions. They got a few good hits in before being chopped up by the Inquisitor and uppercut by the brawler.

The cleric hit the barbarian leader with a Murderous Command that nicely got him to close with his own Sorceror and take a swing.

Once everyone got out of the storage room and into the hall, it was all over. The archer providing ranged support forgot to take a few shots (and messed up the ones he took). The bard hit him with a single felling shot.

The Sorceror took a few pot shots with his Elemental Ray ability (which the PCs had little to defend against). The rogue took the barbarian’s greatsword backswing, but returned the favour by opening up his internal organs.

The brawler and inquisitor pounced on the sorceror, trying to subdue him with grappling and cheese.

The Sorceror thought about committing suicide by magic ray (which he can still do whilst grappled) or shoot his way out. He chose the latter, rolled a fumble and fell into the former. The PCs looted the castle, keeping an eye on the army of orcs parading over the landscape outside. They were visited by a weird orc.

As you’re searching the place, a red ray extends out from a faraway tent. There’s a red ghostly image of an orc much like the Sorceror you killed. He screams (in Orcish), “Who the hell are you? Where is Judruk?”

The Inquisitor is the only one who speaks Orcish and makes some idle threat about how they killed him.

The gangly Orc ignores the last half of your sentence and shouts orders at those off-frame. You hear a weird stereo effect of a horn being blown through the image and coming in from off the battlefield.

The PCs realized the jig might be up, so quickly tried to shake the place down and find a way out. At this point they had three keys. They were getting used to the keys now: put one on the keyring, use it like a compass to scan the area and follow any hints. Key one… nothing. Key two… nothing. Key three…

Nothing.

The Chase

The PCs start scouring the castle for a key. The svirfneblin hears (in Gnomish) someone squeak, “Oh shit!” Everyone tries to see where it was coming from. There’s a door open that once lead to the master bedroom but now goes into a cobblestone corridor of old.

The PCs chased after him.

They bound into a corridor and trigger a trap. Spikes from the walls! But the dungeon was super-old and disused, so the spikes just shatter on them. No damage, but worried them for a second.

The gnome was at the door at the other end of the corridor and tried to slam the door shut on them, but a piece of debris kept the door open. Being effectively keyless, they need to chase this guy down. The bard notices the gnome is the same one he met yesterday and traded a key with. Curious!

They chased him through a dungeon, a cave and then into a plush underground room. The gnome was always a good number of steps ahead of them, but didn’t have time to close the doors behind him.

Sander the Snitch

This room was oak-panelled and rectangular. They emerged from the west. To the north-east and south-east were green panes of glass, and in front of those, benches, for observation. On the east wall was a slightly ajar door.

The north-east glass seemed to be a glowing green aquarium and to the south-east was a gross looking beast muffled behind the windows.

Picklick the rogue ran ahead, checking for traps at the various doors. He gets to the door to the east and checks for traps… a natural one.

Picklick kicked open the door and then noticed something fall from the door frame. It was a thunderstone. He watched it crack on the floor and explode noisily. The glass cracked severely and the door they came through slammed shut.

The group notices a key, much like the ones they’ve been carrying is floating in the aquarium. The cleric notices the cracks form on the glass, and a large pane just fall out… with no water.

What followed was a debacle. The beast to the south was in an enclosure with a little plaque saying, “Sander the Snitch”. He looked like a human, but extruded out into slug form.

As soon as the glass broke, they could hear his pitiful wailing. Some of them were sickened by that. A chunk of glass fell out and Sander squeezed through easily. The Inquisitor and Brawlere attempted to fight it. It vomited on them and slammed its gross body against them.

Meanwhile the cleric of Azathoth took a leaf from the book of madness and plunged his hand deep into the gelatinous cube, grabbing the key… and paralyzing himself. The debacle of the bard casting Grease on his arm, the rogue pulling him back like a statue and then trying to lever the key out of his frozen hand… Heck you can’t write that.

The brawler finished Sander the Snitch with an uppercut and then drawing his head down on the guillotine of glass. Sander burst in a shower of revolting viscera, nauseating many of the PCs. They struggled to get out of the room with both the donkey and frozen cleric before the cube ate them. The stairway out was a circular staircase, so dragging clerics, pushing donkeys (and eventually dragging paralyzed, acid-burning Inquisitors) up the stairs was a task in itself.

The PCs managed to escape up the stairs and hang out away from the cube. The rogue did some risky abseiling to collect acidic cash from the bottom of the “aquarium”. The door the gnome presumably escaped from was some kind of vault door keeping people both in the observatory and out of it. Their new key fit the lock, but they weren’t keen to jump on through.

Through some not-so-subtle hinting from Azathoth, the PCs pushed through into a marble corridor. It was brightly lit. The walls stretched hundreds of metres up, but was otherwise a normal marble corridor. They did some tracking, trying to keep on the heels of the gnome. They found footprints… but they were more bootprints.

The rogue scouted ahead, somehow stealthing like a ninja in the bright white corridor. He found a simple wooden door (no keyhole). He peered under the door and saw an arm.

This spooked them. Was it undead? Someone sleeping? They eventually plucked up the courage to open the door. It dragged slowly (a severed arm was in the way), revealing a horrific scene.

Off to one side is shirtless man, missing an arm… and most of his head. He’s slumped up against a statue. A long-haired guy is eviscerated and pierced through with a spear. Against the north wall is… ashes (drawn in the vague shape of a human). Near him is a man in full plate… missing a helmet and his chest armour peeled open and his innards torn out in chunks. Blood is everywhere.

One last thing, the shirtless guy was missing a leg as well. It’s below the wall next to the long-haired guy. Written on the wall in blood (with presumably his leg) is the phrase “RUN LIL FOXES RUN”.

They canvassed the room, finding a bunch of magical items amongst the gore. After a lot of poking about the rogue found that the statue could move, but couldn’t find the mechanism. The ebony statue was a generic hero struck down and had blood in a “wound”. The cleric (of course) licked the blood. No blood, just an illusion.

They considered using the spear, but it wasn’t quite right. They found a broken sword that fit perfectly, opening up the hidden cache.

Lastly, next to the body burnt against the wall nuclear blast-style, they found the remnants of a book. The Inquisitor began to read it, but it got passed around from player to player.

The final loot ended up being:

• Plain gauntlets
• +1 Planar lucerne hammer
• Incense of Eidos
• Weighted Monk Pauldrons
• Meteor hammer
• Ornate keyring (no key)
• 6 Arrow Magnets
• Daredevil boots
• Key of lock jamming
• Wand of shock shield
• Diary entry
• All the loot from Ruined Castle Wayfray
• plus some extra stuff to be decided before the next game.