Season 8, Episode 2: "All Caught Up" Report
General Summary
The Dream Team awoke on Hades Paradise, deep beneath the ground in one of Hades' personal fight rings, where they expertly dispatched a group of mad undead for all the televised world to see. The spectacle was a resounding success, for which Hades took full credit, and enticed the Dream Team to traverse deeper into Paradise if they dared. The data Ghost of Sara No-Name arrived briefly to point the way, but the group had yet to even begin to trust her, and thus made cautious progress out of the arena and into a local bar, getting their bearings through the Infosphere.
After that they kept moving, always trending down into the earth, walking through a series of interconnected, underground bars before arriving at a massive subterranean mall complex full of illict wares. At the beginning of their shopping spree, they were greeted by a messenger from the Virgin Whore (an Undead named Holga). The letter they received told of a rumor on Paradise, that some of the Dream Team's friends had been "invited" to Hades' quarters, but warned against communicating with the Virgn Whore directly. Instead, she offered up a secret about Hades' rooms, an escape route hidden in a fresco, which they could use to get to her "should things go sour".
Now even more aware that they were being watched — and with their friend's lives potentially on the line — the Dream Team... Went shopping! Mist found a strange merchant dealing in black market wares, purchasing a Devil's finger and a Storm in a bottle for a not-so-consensual prick of his blood. Towards the latter end of the mall, Isra was aghast to find a shop selling Androids, but in particular the lifeless body of a Forge Warden. Isra ruthlessly dispatched the merchants, waking the Forge Warden and adding them to her Flock. The Android, who identified as Delilah-9 upon consciousness, thanked Isra, and then was Skipped to Montressor to seek Cromwell's aid.
From there, the group began to seek out alleyways and hidden stairwells, Sara's ghost always a little bit ahead of them, seemingly guiding them on the way down. Eventually, they arrived at an obscure bar known as Geldenleaf Tower, where the Undead matron Irene sold drinks made of memories and pleasures of long-dead flesh. She barely registered the party's coming and going, allowing them to use the trapdoor behind her bar to continue down into the "underworld" — where Debauchery began to naturally float along the path.
Following the waymarks and Sara's ghost, they soon came to the threshold of legend, the fabled home of Hades himself. The group prepared for trouble, throwing on defensive spells and pulling out weapons, but nothing could prepare them for the eldritch onslaught that lay in wait behind that door. Rather than stepping into Hades' rooms, the Dream Team arrived at a planar conflux between Hades Paradise and the River Styx, designed to enhance Hades' powers over death. But it was his guests that truly frightened the Dream Team, as he revealed a trap fit for the history books.
Jestyr roared from the darkness, the kid gloves now completely removed, at last acknowledging the danger of the Dream Team's exponential growth. At his back, the necromancer Hades, a powerful entity known as the Candle Heart, a rogue aspect of the Devourer, and the mad, undead corpse of Skittles offered support, nearly matching the Dream Team in their number.
Mist pulled the Face of Vic over his skull, the rest of the group summoning up divine essences and new powers, and prepared for the worst...
Chamas fell first, stabbed in the heart by the Eclipse Malkin, followed soon after by Anastasia. Abelina screamed, her mind overtaken by grief and madness, and Hades lashed out with a beam of green fire, turning Tesin's body and all her mundane equipment to ash.
Skittles joined her in the Boneyard, the Candle Heart and the Devourer-kin's material vessels destroyed, but the group had suffered overwhelming losses, and were barely hanging on as a result. In desperation, Flay used the Blessing of the Navigator in an attempt to locate Chamas' fading soul after the conflict, and was surprised to find it moving wildly — implying that his soul had gone either to the Godswood or Paradise.
Combining her power of reality and the latent energy stored inside her, Isra pulled forth a world where the Jester was far away, and pushed him out of Hades Paradise to a random location on the Material Plane. But Hades still raged on despite all, forcing Mist to use Vic's powers of summoning, manifesting the spirit of Gingin Lestrange onto the battlefield. Necromancer dueled with necromancer, eldritch castings passing between them in a flash, but it was Gingin who won the day, taking Hades soul as his own before disappearing as Vic's power waned.
Then all was quiet... The battlefield covered in ash and broken things. Abelina wept at the edge of the River Styx, and as Vic's Face fell from Mist, he too succumbed to madness, this time well and truly Insane.
With Hades' influence now gone, the planar fissure began to close, and the door back to the Material Plane opened. In the threshold, the Virgin Whore waited, backed by an enormous flesh gimp that stood behind her...
Rewards Granted
Created Content
New and updated articles for:
- Nothing. You lose. Good day, sir.
Notes
Writing the session report for this game in August, which took place in early May, I've likely forgotten some details. But this marked a major shift in the Centurion's Riddle, as the gods started to wake up and pay attention to the Dream Team, and well... The results are apparent!
Flame in the Night
Tesin Movahesh
Thunder in the Mist
Lockette Endrinmaster 12 2.0
Isra
Report Date
11 Aug 2022
Primary Location
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