Thug Muggers in the Caves 7-14-24
Table Talk:
The last fight was an Easy challenge rating at 1437 XP, a very small fraction of the party’s 16000/day budget.
Speaking of XP… uh… what’s your guys’ current XP count? 101,227? Okay… so i’ll double check the math, but please don’t be mad… level 7 is at 92,000…
Below is a carousel of Snapchats i sent the players throughout the week while writing and working on the last summary, just to kind of document the process for them. There are several steps here; between just recording notes and changes, updating and exporting current maps, and the website stuff as well as the actual writing. So, if you’re interested in a peek behind the curtain, check out this mini episode storyboard of “How It’s Made: A Thug Mugger Summary.”
Lastly, a real quick note here that i’m breaking the rules. The format is: the quote, then the intro, then the session. But this week i have a quote that is so perfect for Ari leaving… and i have an intro scene that i’m proud of and don't want to skip… So, i’m breaking the rules and doing, intro, then quote, then session. And you can’t stop me! I’m mad with power, Mwah ha Mwahaha Bwahahahahahaha… erm… anyways…
Under the shade of the older growing oaks and elms of the Nibiru Forest, a young woman is whittling as she rests.
In the glowing sunsets of the early summer, the huers take long turns in each section of the grove. Today it is just Tyko and her brother, each standing barefoot on the trussed up log and swinging the great flat axe to split the sides off; then helping their sibling up to do the next two new sides, and sitting down to rest. And once her brother finishes moving the log to the square stack, Kyler helps her up and she gets a log off the round pile to start it all over again.
But during her rests, Tyko has been working on a little carving. They're working on the white pearl wood (copal, or tree of heaven) today, but she took some of the bright rustwood (candleberry, chicken or gray popcorn tree) blocks from last week, and she’s been carving away in her spare time. The little idle of the Greenman’s face has slowly been taking shape in her hands the last few days, and she can feel her excitement at knotting some vine grass twine and giving it to Kyler as a necklace for good luck.
First she carved the leaves around the edges, then the branches, and the shape of his hidden cheeks. Yesterday, she made the mouth and laughed when the wood cracked and gave him a little mustache. She decided to keep it because it made her smile. Now as the sunlight is fading, she’s finishing the eyes – or trying to. The original wood block must have been from a branch cutting, because there is a large knot core in the center obscuring all her work.
She has the tip of the small sax blade knife in it, trying to turn it like an auger bit. ‘This knot is so red, thick with that fatty wood, I should've made a cutter’s candle’ (a torch made from fatwood) she thinks right before the knife tip slips, pricking her finger.
The blood from her thumb spills out and covers the hole of the eye, dripping down over the rest of the carving.
In the dimming light she can see the contrast between the red wood and her maroon blood as it flows into the lines and crack of her carving.
When Kyler comes for his turn to help her up, she’s just sitting there staring at the little spoiled idol. As the blood seeps in, the holy tree man's face contorts into a hideous mockery. The funny mustache becomes a fanged mouth, the branches become webs, the leafs become thorns and crooked spear heads. And there in the middle where the knife slipped is a single red hole.
Something clicks in her brain and she smiles.
She loves it.
This thing, this… broken god charm it's exactly what she wants. She looks up as her brother calls to her, asking if she's okay. Soon he too is staring at the red idol in her cupped and bloodied hands.
He loves it more. It’s obvious to him that he shoul- she closes her hand over it. He lunges. There in the piles of wood chips and bark dusk they wrestle and fight. Tyko’s slick red hands leaving red circles in the fresh sawdust… before it reaches out and finds the axe.
Into the mouth of death he strode.
Into the gringey gloom.
Into the pit of fear unknown…
perhaps to court his doom.
That was good!
What did I say!? What did I say!?
- Brother Gilbert —Patrick Read Johnson & Charles Edward Pogue “Dragonheart (1996)”
🛡️🎲📿✨🌿Chapter 21: Separated 🗡️
🛡️🎲📿✨🌿Chapter 21: Separated 🗡️
After the Darkness lifts, Cypress is on the ground (sitting up now) over there by the next stalagmite, rubbing his back. Sorin is off to one side with tZulèe and Akris, biting his nails. And Rae is standing in the same spot, one arm outstretched against the wall, her knuckles red and skimmed with bits of rocky dirt in them.
Ari is gone.
Rae punches the wall… again.
“Where is-”
Rae is already moving, “She had to go south.”
Sorin reaches out a tentative hand, “Did she though?”
“She knocked over Cypress right? So. South.” Rae points.
Bostra makes a comment trying to calm things down, but also expressing that, “I’m starting to think this whole thing is taking too long. I need to get down to Eka.”
“I agree, " Cypress says with barely hidden contempt, “but we need Ari if we want to get you there in one piece. We need her to survive through the Underdark.”
Bostra raised his hands, “True. I apologize, I'm just getting antsy.”
Cypress sighs, “No need. You’re right, we need to be moving on.”
“Rae, I know you and Ari have … a bond,” he says, somehow pronouncing it in italics. “Does that give you any insight to where she is?”
Rae looks up at the DM, then looks back to Bostra and shakes her head no.
“Okay,” Cypress says, looking at her bouncing from foot to foot, “You go find Ari. Sorin and I will work on moving down to the next level of the caves.” Then, as she starts running for the door, “Use our Sending stones to keep in contact!”
Kai rolls his chair off to Ari.
███ ██ ██████████
Kai rolls his chair back to the main table.
With a mild Strength Check, Rae pulls the door open, splitting the party further and moving Sarah to the kitchen because Kai didn’t expect to have to divide things a third time, and doesn’t have another table ready for her.
Sorin and Cypress turn to Bostra. “Okay, so we need to head down.”
“What’s the best way?”
Cypress turns to look up at Ari, “Ari, can we get … the… map… Oh.”
“Oh.”
“Oh.”
“So uh, Bostra… you’ve got a good memory right?”
Kai rolls his chair off to Ari.
████ ██ ███████ █████████ █████ ████
Kai rolls his chair back to the main table.
Bostra can only remember parts of the map, “I’ll be honest. I wasn’t really trying to memorize it, because you guys were in charge of things.” Sorin groans, and he continues. “I remember that the first pipe down was North and I think West of here, but that’s the one that exploded.”
“Oh yeah, we did do that, huh?” Sorin chuckles, then catches the gnome's eye, and forces a serious expression back onto his face.
“The room we were just in with Devin does have another pipe going down…”
“Okay, so we-”
“But I believe the plan was to go south.” Bostra finishes, “I vaguely recall some reasoning after we found this oracle.”
There is a long silence.
Sorin taps his sending stone. “Ari… We really need the map…”
Kai stands up and goes to the kitchen to lean against the counter with a notepad in hand. So. Rae.
Rae carefully closes the door behind her and is about to look around for a Perception Check when she rolls very badly because hears Sorin’s voice in here ear, “We really need the map.”
She sighs and taps her own Sending Stone. “Ari has it.”
Kai comes back into the main room… and pulls his chair over to Brooke.
Kai sits down with Ari.
████ ██ ███████ █████████ █████ ████
Kai rolls his chair back to the main table.
Sorin and Cypress hear Rae telling them that Ari has the map.
Then a long silence.
There is absolutely no response in their ears that sounds like Ari.
Both of them make Intelligence Checks (11 and 15) to try and remember what was on the map.
We’re discussing where each pipe probably was, when Sorin breaks the flow with a revelation. “You know… When I was in school and hearing about adventuring parties and all that… I’ll be honest, I always assumed things were just a lot more organized.”
Bostra lets out a snorting laugh mixed with a huff, “They usually are!”
“That’s true,” Cypress interjects, “but to be fair, this isn’t exactly a usual adventuring party.” They sigh, “We’ve just been thrown together on a whim trying to do… who-even-knows-what any more.” With a despondent look and a poor Religion Check, they hold the cracked Holy Symbol with one hand, pushing it closer to their chest under their shirt. “And I was supposed to keep everyone safe… keep everyone together.” Under his breath he mouths, “No wonder it’s cracked. I’m failing her.”
Bostra the noble leader and humanitarian takes a second to shoulder away control from Bostra the impatient cop. He puts a hand on Cypress’s arm. “You make a good point. We need to stay together.”
“And we figured out we do need to go south anyways,” Sorin adds with a sheepish am-I-helping smile.
“Let's follow Rae, and go find Ari together.”
Back to the kitchen Kai.
The room Rae is in, is basically just another branching sewer hallway. Directly ahead it has a large grate going to the second level of a crypt we’ve been in before. Then to her right is another sealed cave door that she knows moves closer to what we’re guessing is the Oracle’s room. And then there is an offshoot to the left going somewhere she can’t see or remember from the map.
With a Perception Roll of twenty this time, Rae looks around and swallows. There is a small hoard of shadowy undead clustered around the gate at the far end, but they don’t seem to have spotted her.
‘Need to run, need to go fast, need to find Ari, need to run. Need to run, need to go fast, need to find Ari, need to run.’ Her thoughts are only repeating in her head as she breathes slowly and tries to sneak towards the next door without alerting any of the undead at the other end of the hall.
Back to the main room, Kai.
Back to the side table, Kai.
████ ██ ███████ █████████ █████ ████
Back to the main table, Kai.
“Stand back noodle arms,” Cypress nudges Sorin away and tugs the door open. Again, there is a hiss of air as the pressure is forced to equalize.
Cypress’s head pokes out around the corner of the cracked door, near the floor.
tZulèe’s head pokes out around the corner of the cracked door.
Bostra’s head pokes out around the cornerof the cracked door, near the handle in the middle.
Sorin’s head pokes out around the corner of the cracked door.
Akriss’s head pokes out around the corner of the cracked door, near the ceiling.
“Psst, Rae!” Sorin whispers.
Sarah, you can join the grow-ups table again.
Rae turns and sees the five heads poking around the door. She waves her hands furiously in the silence. With one finger over her lips, she gestures to the other end of the hall. Then she mimes tiptoeing while pushing her hands flat down, a pulling motion by the door, and a hand finger walking on her arm.
Cypress looks down the hall and grins. He rubs his hands together preparing to cast.
Kai rolls his chair off to the kiddie table.
So, Ari, ███ ██ ██████████
Kai rolls his chair back to the grown up table.
At the end of the hall there are three Crawling Claws, two Shadows, a Swarm of Rot Grubs, and a Will-o’-Wisp hovering in the air (and a zombie partridge in a dead tree). As they turn to face us, Cypress raises his Holy Symbol, “Cyclamīnos! In the names of the sisters, I adjure thee! Stay back and weep in her divine light!” His sigil glows with a pink and green-brown light, bright enough to leave an after image burning in our eyes. All three Crawling hands, and one of the Shadows fail against the will of Cypress’s Turning, instantly moving to flee from him. The hands push against the bars of the closed grate, but the Shadow passes through and sluffs off into the darkness of its crypt! (Hey, i’m pretty happy with that bit actually, some more classic fantasy junk right there)
The Will-o’-Wisp flies to Rae, one of the orbs touches her and we sign a line of lightning emerge, connecting the soul spheres together and shooting into Rae for 14 damage. Then, as she pants to catch her breath from the shock – tee hee – it vanishes. A moment later it appears over one of the Crawling Claws, consuming it completely and growing a new orb about the size of 14 additional Hp.
At the end of the hall, the Shadow begins to stretch and fade, attempting to Hide. Only Cypress can see it, carefully watching… until it moves around the corner to the west and is lost behind the wall.
Sorin casts a mighty and powerful – really? A nat’ 1? Wow… In the bright flash of Sorin’s magic gone awry, the Will-o’-Wisp disappears again.
Two remaining Crawling Claws are still pushing through the bars, away from Cypress’s divinity.
The Swarm of Rot Grubs is very very slow and spends its turn moving closer. Slowly moving close. Very slowly. Moving. Slowly.
Rae gets tired of watching the little Grubs inch closer. She goes over and smashes her club – er, i mean staff – down on them, killing off most. Then she spends a second picking the best spot… and stomps out 8 more with a single foot.
With small Swarms like this, i treat the HP number as the number of critters. There were 21 to start with… minus 12… minus 8… There is 1 singular Rot Grub left.
Cypress sighs and Thorn whips the last corpse Grub. “Anyone see where the-”
The Will-o’-Wisp reappears directly in front of Cypress and shocks them for 9 before floating back and consuming another Crawling Claw, gaining yet another orb.
“Well, that answers that,” Cypress grunts, getting back to his feet. “What about the-”
The Shadow drops from the ceiling, onto the halfling, ripping and biting for 11 damage.
Sorin tries again. When he casts Chill Touch through his new skull Arcane focus, it does not create a spectral hand, but rather a ghost image of the same skull. The phantom skull flies through the air biting and chomping, and (because Ashley rolled a second critical failure) when it reaches the Will-o’-Wisp its jaws close around the orbs, and Wisp disappears.
While the last Claw scurries away from us on the other side of the grate, Rae runs to Cypress’s aid. Her staff scoops the Shadow up - off of Cypress - into the air - up over her head - down - and into the ground on the other side. Before it can reform and run away to hide again, Rae steps on its chest and pulls the head off in a faint dark body.
“Thanks.” Cypress says, whipping away some blood. “Is that it, what happened to the Will-o’-Wisp?”
Everyone, just give me a quick ol’ Perception check.
Nymbus: “11.”
Rae: “15.”
Ashley, in dismay: “A THIRD nat’ 1?!?”
“Pretty sure I killed it.” Sorin says with a smile. “Saw my spell eat it right up.”
You sure did, Sorin, you sure did…
Now then, Ari…
Long after sundown, Tyko makes her way out of the trees. She sneaks through the barricade gates.
Kyler’s cries brought the other wood cutters running. But when her brother couldn’t cry anymore they couldn’t find her. She stayed hidden in the trees until the cutter and their torches left with all the parts of him that couldn’t scream anymore.
She makes her way through the shadows of the city and to the lesser square. It’s late at night but she knows there is always a caravan going somewhere. She slides the dry red axe into her belt and touches the wooden idol on its cord around her neck.
An hour later she’s hiding her face from the gate guards as they talk to the leader of the caravan. And just like that, she’s out of the city.
Out, into the wild.
Avalon, oh Avalon, for you I quest each day.
The resting place of Arthur and the old code of his way.
And when I find those holy stones, I'll pray, I'll pray, I'll pray.
Oh Avalon, bright Avalon, think me not a fool.
My quest is not for vanity. My quest is spiritual!
- Brother Gilbert —Patrick Read Johnson & Charles Edward Pogue “Dragonheart (1996)”
Table talk:
I recognize that this summary might not be the best i’ve written, sorry about that. Please bear in mind that while it was a fun thing to do… I was moving back and forth between two and a half rooms, two tables, and a kitchen counter. All while trying to get players to focus on the game and also keep track of all my world notes for what was happening. Then also trying to jot down notes for the summary, and still keep things playable. In short, it was a lot. So i apologize if this was sub par to the standard of my better work on here.
So the quotes this time… Those are from the movie Dragonheart which had a huge and truly profound impact on me as a child, and arguably really started my interest and love of fantasy. In a very real sense, Sean Connery’s somber voice acting is the reason you are reading these words today. Growing up, i never really had imaginary friends, but i did have characters from stories and movies that i played with and the two biggest were Luke Skywalker, and Bowen. I decided to use these quotes now because i recently rewatched Dragonheart with Brooke (it still holds up super well, to the point where i could write a whole page on the armor and writing and pupe– anyways). But more than that, my players recently did me a very big kindness and bought me original signed prints of two James Gurney paintings: “The Excursion” and “Garden of Hope”. Now, reader, if you’re thinking, “but those are dinosaurs and Dragonheart is about kings, knights and dragons’, don't worry, there is a through line here (and no it’s not the ‘dino bones created dragon myths’ hypothesis). At roughly the same time – though a bit before – that Dragonheart was influencing me, the Dinotopia books by James Gurney were how i learned to read. I can still remember sitting on my older half brother’s bed, atop the antique fish pattern quilt from my great grandfather, in my dad’s office, under the giant world map posters, next to the windows 95 computer, with keyboard he kept under a hard plastic cover when not in use, using the bright afternoon sunlight that came past the train themed curtains my grandmother made me, to look at pictures and learn to read. In fact, the poster of the first Dinotopia cover has followed me from room to room, house to house, and dorm to apartment my whole life. So, just like Dennis Quaid being pulled through bushes, James Gurney’s imaginative art, is another very real reason why i’m even writing this. And, well… Thank you, reader, for taking the time to indulge this rambling and thank you to my players for their support.
