Archer Arrowsmith - Human Scout (272 points)
Argua - Half-Orc Barbarian (271 points)
Masha Deathfoot - Human Martial Artist (265 points)
Puddin' Noddington - Gnome Thief (299 points)
Mahk Strawngmussle - Human Labourer (76 points)
NPCs:
Jenny - Human Cook (62 points)
Player Absent (In the Nega-Zone (Mostly)):
Quintin Nenno - Dragonborn Swordmage (250 points)
Vaelcor Treehippie - Human Druid (280 points)
Jahn the Bear - Bear (209 points)
Melos 1st 2546, Dawn: The Rusted Hydra, Hot Springs Island
The party woke in the shadow of the rusted iron hydra statue, having been undisturbed overnight. They decided to explore new ground on the way to the ruins, and began their trek towards the mountain to their west. Argua used Weather Sense and realized there wasn't a cloud in the sky; it was going to get very hot, very fast.
Morning: The Old Volcano
As they neared the "mountain", the party realized that it was actually a dormant volcano, going by the jagged rim of the caldera that looked like a broken tooth. Archer decided that she wanted to try to look for more strange tracks which might lead them to the rod segment, and so the party traipsed around the volcano for the next several hours.
Afternoon
After 4 hours, Archer had found several sets of humanoid tracks, a pair of larger humanoid tracks (ogres, probably), and many, many animal tracks. All of the non-animal tracks seemed to lead towards the ruined city to the southwest, so the party continued towards it as some animals made qwop qwop qwop sounds in the distance (Argua: "This island goes by Pokemon rules, so they must be Qwopbirds").
Sunset: Hot Springs City Ruins
The party emerged from the jungle at a vine-covered, 20' sparkling white stone wall made with no seams, which gradually sloped down towards the coast before vanishing into the ocean entirely; it looked as though part of the city had collapsed into the sea. The heat from the day was getting to the party, with Jenny suffering the worst of it (8 MoF on the daily Heat roll had left her at 2FP). The party discussed how to go about finding the rod in an entire city, and ultimately decided to use the age-old strategy of blindly exploring and hopefully finding it.
Puddin' climbed the walls and was treated to their first view of the ruined city. It was built on a hill and terraced, with a bizarre mixture of buildings jammed into almost all available space. The walls were only just above ground level, so her sightlines were poor, but Puddin' saw that thoroughfares ran along the edges of the terraces towards a grand staircase at the center, which ran all the way from the top of the city to the ocean at the bottom. Downhill, part of the city seemed cleared away, and only a shimmering white stone covered in thin layers of water remained.
At the very top of the city, built into the side of the volcano they had circled around, was a colossal sparkling white square structure with four spires at the corners and a radiant shining dome. Puddin' let down a rope, then Argua climbed up to lift the rest of the party. Archer refused to be lifted and climbed on her own, but crit-failed, slipped on a bit of vine at the top of the wall, and fell all the way down, breaking her left arm.
Vaelcor came out of the nega-zone for a moment to cast Major Healing, then stepped right back in. Archer's arm was still broken, though, so they pulled out the Phial of the Mad Alchemist; she asked for a potion of "fixing my arm" and drank it. Her arm cracked back into position without exploding or turning it into a foot or something, so it seemed to have worked, and everybody made it up to the top of the wall without further issues. Now that some taller folk were up top, they noticed that the sunset sparkled off of bits of shining metal (gold?) throughout the city.
The party looked around the city for anything that "stuck out" and noticed that there were tons of statues of naked elves of both genders scattered in plazas throughout the ruins, and even some buildings were in the shape of naked elves. A few buildings spread all over the city looked untouched by the apocalypse, and the closest two were a short circular tower down one terrace and a 4-story nude pregnant elf (Argua: "Huh, I always thought they just came from trees") down two levels and east a way, past the "cleared" area.
They headed to the tower, sticking to a wider street, until they came across a patch of wet, slimy rainbow-coloured mould. Argua failed Naturalist, and figured that maybe it was coloured because paintings melted into it, so Archer fired an arrow at it. The arrow plopped into the mould and the shaft burst into the flame, leaving only a blackened arrowhead after a few seconds. Puddin' decided to climb a nearby building and look for another way around, and made it to the top floor, which looked to have been sheared off, without issue.
From her new vantage point, Puddin' saw that all the "main" roads going in the direction they wanted had the rainbow mould covering at least part of them. She returned to the party and, after nixing a plan of crossing from building to building with improvised bridges, decided to try their luck in the alleys. Thanks to her Urban Survival, Puddin' was able to find a path through the maze without getting them turned around or stuck at a dead end, and they made it down the 2m drop to the next terrace.
Without further issue, they made it to the cylindrical building, and while the outside looked new, the ground-floor windows were blown out, and the front door was just a frame. Within, the partially-ruined remnants of a restaurant seemed still intact, and three ornately-carved golems stood within. A closer look revealed that the intact bits of furniture and cloth (as well as the floor) were covered by a translucent crystal of some sort.
The outside of the building was made of sandstone, but the floors and walls within were all wooden; some had rotted and collapsed, but most of it was intact, preserved under the crystal. While they debated what to do, Puddin' overheard somebody whispering from a building nearby, and went to sneak up on them. She followed the sound to the second floor of a stone building across the street, where she found three child-sized creatures made of smoke peeking out the windows and watching the rest of the party.
Puddin' listened in, and heard that they were making rapid-fire bets with each other about whether or not the party would go into the restaurant, whether the golems would kill them, whether they'd come into this building, and all other sorts of things. Their wagers were just given as fractions, and Puddin' decided to head back to the rest of the party. Following her lead, they went down an alley, looped around to the back entrance of the smoke imps' building, and waited at the bottom of the stairs while Puddin' went back up to talk, still in stealth mode.
The imps were all holding metal spheres, and two sadly shaved off bits of theirs to give to the other, who seemed to have won a wager, before all three returned the spheres inside of themselves. Puddin' said hello, and two of them moaned as another yet out a victorious laugh, and the spheres were again brought forth, and shards changed hands. The imps asked what they were up to, and Puddin' said they were in town looking for magical artifacts and would like their assistance.
She tried to strike a deal, but the imps wanted elemental cores, and they didn't have any. More shards changed hands at that ("I knew they wouldn't have any!"). Puddin' asked where they could get elemental cores, more shards changed hands, and the imps replied that they were usually in elementals. If they ever got any, the party could find them at the Temple of Tranquility, to the southeast of the city.
At that, Argua got bored and came upstairs, more shards changed hands, and Puddin' asked what the imps were up to. They said that they were just bettin' on stuff, and Puddin' replied that she was "something of a gambler myself". One imp proposed a wager with Puddin': if she could go into the restaurant and grab all of the money in the back room, she would get two gold coins! If she could not, they would get her right hand.
The imps said they'd fly in after her to make sure she got it all, which she called cheating ("A groundwalker would say that"). After some more back and forth, she declined, citing her hand as being too valuable, more shards changed hands, and Argua asked what the floating smoke children were. One replied that they'd tell her if she got seated and ate an entire meal at the restaurant but if she could not, they would get her left leg.
Archer said that the restaurant was definitely cursed, fired an arrow at a section of crystal-covered floor in the restaurant, one of the imps shouted "I knew she'd do that!", rather large shards changed hands, and a bit of the crystal shattered from the impact. One of the golems came out from the back, dusted away some of the shards, and picked up the arrow before retreating further inside.
Argua wanted to know what food the restaurant served, but the imps would only gamble for it; if she jumped to the adjacent building backwards, they'd tell her, and if she failed, they got her right pinky. She asked why they wanted their body parts so badly, shards changed hands, and one imp replied "you guys seem to like them, so they must be cool". Another imp became insistent that there was gambling to be done, and if the party weren't interested, they would take their business elsewhere.
The party decided they were going to go get the money, but weren't taking the wager. As a last ditch effort, one of the imps bet Argua she wouldn't tackle one of her teammates from the second floor, but she turned them down. The imps groaned, shouted "Later nerds!" and floated backwards out the windows while flipping the party off. Puddin' went across the street and walked up to golem closest to the front of the restaurant, standing at a well-preserved wooden stand covered in a thin layer of the crystal.
Up close, she noticed that the golems had "uniforms" painted onto their bodies. She said hello, and the golem opened its mouth and produced a series of musical chimes, then gestured for her to follow it to be seated; as it did, the golem retrieved a menu from the side of the stand, and cleared off a layer of crystal. Puddin' Gestured to be able to look at the menu, and the golem produced it for her to peruse. It contained a list of what were probably menu items, written in what looked like the Elven script, as well as artwork of clams, prawns, and other seafood.
Puddin' declared the food to not be fit for her tastes, walked away and around a corner, entered stealth mode, and came right back. She tried to sneak through a window, but when she stepped on the crystal covering the floor it cracked loudly, and a second golem came over to investigate, though she was able to hide behind a corner before it could spot her. She then decided to play "the floor is lava" with Acrobatics, but in midair, she spotted a pile of gold coins in the back room and, like a cartoon character smelling a pie, got distracted, missed the table she was jumping for, and landed with a crunch in the back hallway.
The three golems spun on the spot and rushed her, their painted eyes now glowing red and their open mouths screeching out a hellish note. Puddin' threw a smoke nageteppo on the ground, regained her footing while the golems flailed in the smoke, and Disappeared, then ran out of the restaurant without being harmed. Puddin' tried scratching the wall with her orichalcum knife to mark it, but the wall did not scar. On closer inspection, it seemed as though the building was under some sort of illusion.
The party argued whether they should try to blow out the back wall of the restaurant, or use their speed potion to run in and out really fast, but decided to look for money that could be more easily stolen instead. Several terraces down, there was another well-preserved black building that sorta looked like a whale if you squinted, so they headed towards it, but found a long line of rainbow mould covering the edge of their terrace. The "cleared" area was to the left, about a city block wide, though it spread out further down, and now that they were closer, they could see that the water was running from somewhere higher up, and bubbling softly where it pooled.
Archer "investigated" the water by shooting an arrow at it, and it... hit the water. Argua figured that the mould couldn't grow where the water went, possibly due to minerals in the water, and also found that the water was boiling hot. Puddin' snuck up a four-story building to check if there was more mould on the next terrace they couldn't see, and was surprised to see two adventurers standing guard on the third floor.
They didn't notice her, so she took a closer look: a woman in mail with an axe and a leather armoured man with a halberd were guarding the stairs, while a dwarf with a bow was looking out into the streets below, camouflaged. Behind the others, an elf with an injured leg was lying down while another man tried to treat the wound. The man with the halberd had a dragon in profile on his chest, but none of the others sported any iconography.
Puddin' readied a smoke nageteppo, and walked up and announced herself. The guards were badly startled by the suddenly appearing gnome (a 4 on the reaction roll), and rushed her, but she threw the nageteppo before they could do anything and ran back downstairs. While running, Puddin' yelled out that they had heard the other party had been wounded, and came to help, but they didn't seem to buy it (sadly, she got a 4 on her Fast-Talk, but the adventurers got a 3 on Will).
Puddin' went up a different building instead, snuck past some apartments, climbed over a ruined staircase, and made it to the third (top) floor without further issue. With her vantage point, she saw that the mould did not extend to the lower terrace, and returned to the party with this intel. At this point, however, the party realized that the dwarf with the bow was still watching them, and decided to leave. Argua wanted to leave a healing potion for them, but the party realized that the other group would have no way of knowing it was actually a healing potion.
They thought about ways to cross the boiling water, but ultimately decided against it (Masha might be able to cross it with Light Walk at -8 and tie a rope line, but that'd still be Acrobatics-5 to cross). Ultimately, they decided to double back, head out to the central stairs they had seen, and go up to that building with the shiny dome. On the way, they spotted another dwarf standing guard, this one with a javelin. Puddin' tried negotiating for assistance, but was told to just move along.
Argua then asked if he had heard the good word about the union she was starting, but the dwarf was just confused and told them to leave again, more firmly. They continued down the thoroughfare for several minutes and arrived at the grand staircase, which they noted had arches at every terrace, and headed up towards the top of the city. When they finally arrived, the domed building sparkled in the sunlight across a broad plaza with a fountain in the middle.
To either side were carefully manicured parks, with walkways and topiaries trimmed to look like nude elves, sea animals, and nude elves riding sea animals. Puddin' spotted what looked to be silver cobwebs hanging between two trees in the park on their right, and the party moved to investigate. As they walked towards the silver, Puddin's Danger Sense triggered, she spotted a near-invisible web of finer strands, which seemed designed to trap humanoids, and ordered the party to halt.
The party retreated, and broke branches off a duck topiary to throw at the webs to lure out the spiders. When they removed the branches, though, they looked far less neatly trimmed, and the image of them still remained on the trees; similar to the restaurant, it seemed like the park was under some sort of illusion. Archer threw the branches, and hit the webs twice, but no giant silver spider came out to eat them. Argua suggested that they needed "live bait", but when Puddin' refused, Archer went to grab more branches, only to walk directly into another web-trap; the spiders had outsmarted them!
20 foot-long silver spiders with glowing coloured orbs in their backs climbed out of nowhere and began to rapidly spin webs around Archer's legs. She tried to break free, but found the webs to be far stronger than anticipated. Argua grabbed an Alchemist's Fire from Mahk's webbing, while Masha and Puddin' ran over to help free Archer. Archer got her sword ready and started cutting the webs, while Masha grabbed her but failed to pull her out. Puddin' cut the webs a bit with her katar, but it got stuck and she couldn't pull it out!
Argua finished taking aim and threw the alchemist's fire directly at Archer's feet; the web and spiders started to burn, but so did Archer and the rest of the party. Archer missed another swing on the web, but luckily didn't hit herself. Masha kicked a spider through the web, killing it, and then Giant Stepped out of the fire. Puddin' got out of the fire, and the webs burned away enough that Archer was able to get free. Three spiders died in the flames, but the rest crawled away to nowhere.
Notes:
I finally settled on just using the rules from DF16 for Heat; HT (or HT-based Survival (Jungle)) plus encumbrance penalties and an 1d-1 penalty. Failure means you're down MoF FP for that day. Flat Weather Sense gives a +1 to the HT roll for the whole group as you pick the best parts of the day to march (maximizing cloud cover, etc).
Additionally, potions are down from 3 Ready actions (grab it, uncork it, drink it) to 2 (grab it, drink it), or 1 if you make a Fast-Draw (Potions) roll. This is assuming delver's webbing/potion belts; getting something out of a backpack/sack still takes 1d Ready actions, plus however long it takes to remove the pack. Might buff the amount they heal again.
The party only has 1 day's worth of rations left; Argua can definitely get enough food with Survival, but it would cost them at least one four-hour segment. Archer has her own rations, but will refuse to take any from Argua thanks to Paranoia, so she'd have to use her own Survival (which is at -3 for the wrong environment).
The boat is due to pick-up on the next in-game day, but it'll be on the wrong side of the island. It'll be another two days until the next pick-up just southeast of the ruins.
I've ruled that metal DR only counts as 1 for falling damage.
It came up that potions can't be identified by colour or consistency or anything. Some groups can be consistent (the dwarf wizards, for instance, or the mage's guild), but you still can't be 100% sure without testing.
Archer is interested in a power-up that lets her shoot a bunch of arrows at a wall and climb up those, as she no longer trusts normal climbing. I've got an idea for modified Clinging, but we'll see how it goes.
Argua needs Propaganda if she wants to spread the word about her pro-Adventurer's Guild union.
The party has 120 minutes left to explore the ruins before they'll start losing FP for staying up too late. It will take 35 minutes to leave the way they came.
XP was 1:
1 for exploration
Archer got +1 for breaking her arm due to refusing to be lifted up the wall in a rope harness thanks to Paranoia.
MVP went to Puddin' for navigating the city.
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