I've Come to Avenge my Family (2)
Why "I poke it with a stick" is not always the right answer.
habnabitmkiii : And [the Crazed space gnome] melted the rocks?Bryce : When he got crazy enough... Yes. He was shooting great streams of psionic fire from his hands, turning the rocks to magma while screaming wildly terrible things about burning gerbils, rocks, people, etc.
That was fun. There aren't that many circumstances where you can pretend to be a maniac who likes to burn things - RPGs are fun :)
Anyhow, the rocks were melted, although obviously that didn't help the immediate situation much since they kinda had a lava-tunnel now. Zhashamemnum suddenly stopped burning things and turned around. Then... he saw the rat riding on Fizzy's head.
"THAT GERBIL WAS POSSESSING YOUR BRAIN!!!!"
"FIRE WILL PURIFY!"
habnabitmkiii : This can't bode well.
Bryce : It was all over in an instant. Or initiative check, rather. Fizzy tried to reach out and grab the crazed pyromaniac gnome. Zhashanemmem tried to ready his awesome inferno powers to bathe the world with fire...
Fizzy won. She grabbed him and used her Trengar Shock power to kill him. He barely got a few indistinct curses directed at the gerbils off before perishing. That was close...
habnabitmkiii : It must've been rather tense.
Bryce : Indeed. Came down to one die roll. "Roll >= 16 or die"
Anyway, Fizzy relaxed a bit by looting his corpse. As she removed some gerbil-warding-off paper scraps and an oddly prescient note claiming that "TODAY, I WILL BE KILLED", she noted a searing pain in her left foot.
Yeah, forgot about that molten rock slowly advancing down the tunnel... So she ran down the tunnel. Zhashamemnem's body was consumed in flames.
Fizzy briefly considered attempting to jump to the flaming gnome corpse, and thence to the non-molten portion of the cave, but an explaination of the factors involved, such as considerable distances, restricted space for jumping in a tunnel (especially one with molten sides), and the fact that gnome corpses burning in a river of magma are not optimal for the feat of acrobatics, caused him to decide against it.
Rather fizzy went down the tunnel and hoped that it would cool off before there was no more tunnel.
Anyway - in the other thread. Triscuit and Biptetk, who were standing outside the rock fall, nearly got flamed as the rocks melted and gave way. Olivia and Space Gnome went down the other way, looking for Josh.
By the way, a few times during this thing he kept asking me to switch back to his thread. I don't know why, since there was basically nothing he could do but get hit with blunt objects. So, every time he asked, his character got a few more blunt object wounds from the bounty hunter, who was "making it slow" in revenge for "My brother, mother, sister, and Vulpinian neighbor."
So, He stopped asking to go back to his thread. Smart. Anyway, two PCs burst into the chamber where Josh is being beaten to death, as the bounty hunter is about to administer the deathblow.
Will they get there in time...?
No. WHACK. Mace hits skull of Josh, skull looses. But wait! Space Gnome's lightsaber has arrived inbetween the bounter hunter and his mace arm...
The severed arm (and mace) fall to the ground. Olivia energy-bolts the bounty hunter before he can respond. (Yes, if made to do stuff for you, NPCs will also steal kills.) Corpse hits the ground.
The bounty hunter is defeated. But Josh is dead.
But wait! (again) Space Gnome has awesome powers over life and death!
...
_Why did I let him find that Restore Life book? that was stupid..._
habnabitmkiii : So, if I'm ever in your RPG, pick a Space Gnome?
Bryce : Yeah :) They're awesome... although not quite as awesome as one might infer from this story. Space Gnome's player has a good knowledge of the rules, which he uses. Lots.
I wrote the rules, and occasionally he knows them in finer detail than I do. (Especially in all matters Gnome related.)
habnabitmkiii : What kind of things does he do exploiting the rules?
Bryce : I wouldn't say exploiting so much as "using to the fullest". He does fairly careful optimization in character creation, and then uses the random advantage and disadvantage table a LOT. The table (originally) let you roll as many times as you wanted, because good and bad random things were mixed, but for various reasons (some of them mathematical, but mainly because you sometimes get "advantage of your choice" and "disadvantage of your choice") the player usually comes out ahead.
So he rolled like 50 times on that thing to build his present character. Stuff like that, plus holding onto items things that I forget he has... which is obviously actually my fault, but I blame him because I am telling this story and he isn't here to argue the point.
So, I really can't blame him or say that it is sheer munchkinism. He plays well, and it's not exactly like I can tell him "you should spend your XP less skillfully. Why not take 15 levels of 'socialization' and 'law' rather than 'dodging' and 'resist insanity'?"
But it is getting to the point where it is hard to challenge his character without making the situation lethal to the others. So. Space Gnome raises Josh from the dead. The party is happy.
Apart from some nasty wounds and lingering insanity points from various sources, they're several looted bad guys, a looted surplus store, and a strange machine with "DEATH STAR" written on it with a Sharpie richer.
Oh, and yes, the magma ran out before the tunnel, so Fizzy survived.
habnabitmkiii : So, do you have a campaign set up, or are they just managing to get sidetracked again?
Bryce : Sidetracked. They're here on this station because the captain, in a fit of rage over not being able to find expert psychiatric help on the 'net, shot the computer console on the bridge.
They're supposed to be going to see the Sage of La Hu, whom Olivia has indicated can help them on their quest to prevent the universe from being conquered. (Meanwhile, the Imperium is invading Dramidia over the psitronics conspiracy they've been uncovering, and a Civil War is brewing.)
habnabitmkiii : And how often is it that the players aren't sidetracked?
Bryce : They were last Not Sidetracked three sessions ago, on Borkngor, where they were advancing the campaign plot.
I am going to start railroading them to La Hu if they keep up this stuff. There is talk about going back to the other shops (do I need to ask why?).
I made some vauge suggestions that some dangerous space pirates might show up and pillage this station if, you know, they didn't hurry up.
habnabitmkiii : Something that even the gnome would have trouble with? :P
Bryce : Yeah. Gnome Pirates ;)
Of course the captain promised the rats "unlimited beer" for their help in the mission (which was limited to guiding people around in the tunnels and the occasional noticing of something), I doubt they'll be able to leave without visiting the pub.
Anyway, it was an interesting session.
habnabitmkiii : And that was the end?
Bryce : Yeah, for now. The mechanic got back, so the players are getting the ship fixed, of course. Oh, some other things happened before all this though, after they got to the station. Did I tell you about _Josh Gives Away Our Shineys_?
habnabitmkiii : I don't think so.
Bryce : Josh was searching through Olivia's personal effects in her room. (Creepy, I know. This was before he unleashed the Hummingbird of Doom but after he'd had his strange "drug trip".)
He found a box with her money, some 300,000 credits, which he stole.
He then went back to the station, to buy the most awesome sword in existance... The shopkeeper in the weapons shop saw that he was loaded, and sold him a 150,000 credit dagger. Or, rather, she sold him a dagger for 150,000 credits.
habnabitmkiii : How much was it worth?
Bryce : Less than a tenth of that. Now, lest you judge Josh much dumber than he is, there are a few points in his favor. One - the dagger was of exceptional quality, and was inlaid with semiprecious stones.
Two, the dagger was said to be an autosword (automatic / guided melee weapon), of wondrous/legendary quality. This was demonstrated by the shopkeeper, who threw it backwards over her shoulder and hit dead on on the target.
It's worth about 5,000-10,000 credits. In reality, this weapon is a psionic-imprint-seeking device - it uses its guidance to stab the nearest psionic imprint in front of it.
Most of the party has psionic imprints of one kind or another, so he's going to have an interesting experiance the first battle he uses it in. Hehe.
habnabitmkiii : Hahah.
Bryce : I'm thinking there will be a very angry stabbed gnome :) The other incident is the return to the petshop, after Zhashanemmem was driven off. They went back - specifically to "poke at that orange thing floating in the tank that we saw earlier, with a stick."
Seriously.
habnabitmkiii : What was it?
Bryce : Some kind of evil gelatinous slime. It, er, didn't like being poked with a stick. There was a brief episode where it was out of the tank, but Triscuit retained presence of mind enough to get it back in.
However in the confusion, they let the zergling go. (Hey, it's an eclectic petshop...)
They also attempted to catch a fish and feed it to the gelatinous slime. The fish turned out to be poisonous, and stung the captain. Then they tried getting some bugs from another cadge. They got one, but the others took off and escaped. They were actually brain-eating ones... some will probably stow away on the ship.
Anyway, that's it. The whole petshop episode was pretty brief but I am still suprised that they both managed to remember the orange slime from three weeks ago and, secondly, that they thought it was a good idea to go poke it with a stick... well, goodnight, I have to go.
habnabitmkiii : Okay, goodnight.
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