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)
Quintin Nenno - Dragonborn Swordmage (250 points)
Vaelcor Treehippie - Human Druid (280 points)
Jahn the Bear - Bear (209 points)
NPCs:
Jenny - Human Cook (62 points)
Melos 2nd 2546, Dawn: Hot Springs City Ruins, The Ruined Bathhouse
After the surviving green and black lizardmen did not return, Archer suggested that the party should use lizardman entrails to leave a message for Argua, Masha, and Puddin' and then leave the city, but they decided to stay until the others made it out of the "shadow realm". Frustrated at having to stay in the bathhouse, Archer went and stabbed the lizardmen in the eyes to "make sure", and then looted their bodies; each had a pouch made of human ski holding several each of silver coins and clear crystal beads.
Vaelcor rested for long enough to heal Jahn, then used First Aid to heal the single point of injury he'd taken. With their lamp oil running low, Archer decided that they should get firewood from the garden, and she and Quintin headed out with one of the lizardmen's axes. At the gendered entrances, they had to split up, and in the women's, Archer found that a pair of the large vines they'd encountered in the main chamber had emerged from drains. She fired an arrow at one, and it retreated, but as she tried to sneak past, the second tried to grab her.
Archer dodged and retreated, and the vine likewise retracted down into the drain. Archer snuck past, and on the other side, Quintin asked what had taken her so long. The two got to work cutting down a small tree, though they couldn't carry much back, as they both had one hand already holding a torch. Once they were back with the rest of the party, Archer started a campfire, and another uneventful trip with Mahk left them with enough firewood for another day.
The Resplendent Bathhouse
Argua, Masha, and Puddin' continued the frantic search for the art depicting Argua and Puddin', which they needed to touch in order to return to the real world (they'd already found a marble statue of Masha earlier). With each reset of the time loop, they found themselves growing ever more faded. Argua and Masha finished searching the bottom floor, while Puddin' finished the second, but nobody found what they were looking for.
In a chamber that seemed to be built of natural stone dividing semi-private shallow pools, Argua and Masha saw an elf, which Masha remembered as one of the "shady elves" who would touch the blue woman later in the time loop, leave a trio of his comrades choking and clutching their throats, as though they'd been poisoned. Upstairs, Puddin' found the other end of the upside-down waterslide, and decided to check out the fourth floor. It was a single chamber, illuminated by an elaborate crystal apparatus that dispersed light focused onto it by the crystal dome above.
In the center of the room was an obsidian and gold runed pentagram; at each point of the pentagram, a dial of runes lay, each aligned so a rune covered a point of the star. The whole thing looked to be controlled by the jewelled and gilded arcane controls outside of the circle. Puddin' continued her search, and found a painting of Argua, partly covered by a leopard-print flag (her heraldry), just as Argua and Masha showed up.
Argua decided that she would stay until Masha left, and as Masha wasn't leaving until everybody had made their way out, Argua was staying here. After finishing off the fourth floor, they tried to figure out how much time they had left with default Thaumatology: Puddin' put it at somewhere between 1 hour, and 12 hours. They split up to cover the third floor: Argua and Masha checked out the smoke-obscured "sex dungeon" quarter, while Puddin' checked the quarter of sitting rooms.
Puddin' finished first, and continued on to the quarter of softly glowing crystal, where she found elves asleep inside crystal beds. They regrouped to check out the last quarter, a combination race track, dance floor, and volleyball court, but still failed to turn up Puddin's piece of art. As they had now searched everywhere, they decided to go re-check the ground floor with a new set of eyes; as they were searching the steam room Puddin' announced that she felt excruciating pain (having crit an HT roll to avoid just screaming), and then dissolved into dust.
Realizing that they had entered the staircase no more than a minute or two after Puddin', Argua and Masha sprinted off to their artworks. Masha had no problem, as she was already on the first floor, and made it to her marble sculpture with time to spare. Argua decided to try to take the reverse waterslide as a shortcut, but found out that it didn't work on her ghostly form. She failed an Extra Effort roll (unsurprising, given she was at 1FP), and only made it to the third floor before she, too, turned to dust.
Melos 2nd 2546, Sunset: Hot Springs City Ruins, The Ruined Bathhouse
The magical lights in the ceiling flared on, and they heard Puddin' say that she was in excruciating pain before they went out again. Moments later, Masha showed back up at the bottom of the stairs, the lights flashed again, and this time they heard a pained Argua cry out ("Masha, I don't feel so good") and then pronounce Masha her heir. Masha took the Shadowmantle signet ring that Argua had given her, and secured it in her pouch.
Quintin gave Masha some of their snake rations ("They taste and smell like wood chips!"), and after she rested for 10 minutes (Breath Control and Fit give her 1FP per 2 minutes), they argued about what to do. There was discussion to Shapeshift people into birds to grab the silver and diamond tiaras on the twin statues in the main pool that had been the blue woman in the time loop, but, against Masha's advice, they decided to check out more rooms on the ground floor.
Archer had the highest Per and Traps, so she was on point as they headed toward what Masha remembered to be the entrance to the reverse waterslide. As they entered, Archer heard a voice that she recognized as her own in her head ask "Where are you going?", and, being the level-headed person that she is, pointed her bow at her own head and shouted "I ASK THE QUESTIONS HERE, THOUGHT!". Her voice continued on, asking if she meant to go up the tube, and of course Archer ranted back that the "demon" would probably like that.
Everybody else considered this to be pretty average Archer behaviour, and let her continue, though they did take a few steps back. She announced that she had seen through the "trap's" plan, but the voice claimed that, if it was a trap, then why was it not attacking her? Archer realized that the greatest trap was one that made her think, and retreated back, where she told the others of the "magic trap" that tried to make you do crazy things like go up a waterslide, punctuated by an arrow shot into the room.
Quintin went in to take a look, and saw an open chamber with a cut-open porcelain tube, the hole 9' tall, on the far side, with a thick vine resting within. Archer suggested that they shouldn't shoot the vines, but when the voice asked why she wasn't destroying it, she realized that she was playing into its hands! Another arrow went towards the vine, but this time it managed to dodge. Archer screamed some more, wondering if this was what the voice wanted. It just asked why she wasn't going up the tube, and at that, the party decided to leave.
The next "room" was a collection of smaller chambers that had made up the spa in the past version of the bathhouse, though now the entrance was half-collapsed, and the entrance to the room with the massage tables was covered in plant growth, including some of the thick vines. At the check-in desk, they noticed a porcelain and gilded tea kettle and two cups, which upon closer inspection featured an illustration of a screaming human woman wearing nothing but a wizard's hat.
They discussed what to do with it, in case it was cursed, but eventually Quintin just picked it up and shoved it in his pack. Several other rooms were empty, having already been looted, but the mud bath room (now more of a rock bath) held a wall that was still partially plated in gold! A quick look saw that the drains in the room were scorched, which the party took to mean somebody else had dealt with the vines.
The party figured that a boat would be showing up tomorrow on the southwest coast, so they wouldn't have to go far once they got out of the city. Using Mahk's crowbar and Jenny's large knife, they got to work peeling the gold plating off of the walls; one and a half hours later, they were 3lbs of gold richer, and the wall was completely barren. That done, they decided to head back outside to make camp overnight, though Quintin warned them of the ghosts which had killed his friends on the west side of this terrace of the city.
They circled the murky grand pools, talking, and when they came to the gendered entrance, they came across several hastily-abandoned fishing poles on the edge of the water. Archer took a closer look, and noticed bubbles in the pool, as though somebody was hiding underwater. She fired a "warning shot" into the murk, and five massive, if unarmed, black and green lizardmen jumped out of the water and into close combat, shouting a battle cry.
Archer missed a shot to the eyes while running backwards, but Masha landed a pair of solid kicks to the same lizardman, sending him sprawling back into the pool. Due to Masha's facing, this left the rest of the party partially in darkness (-3 lighting). This didn't seem to bother the lizardmen, one of which charged and grabbed at Quintin, only to be critically parried and sent past him... and into Vaelcor! Another slammed at Masha, but she dodged, and it continued on into close combat with Archer. The other two grabbed at Jenny and Mahk, but both missed.
Vaelcor All-Out Defended from behind his shield and yelled for Jahn the bear to save him. She tried to bite the lizardman on him, but he successfully parried her mouth away. Still, the lizardman was distracted enough for Quintin to land a solid blow. Mahk took a Wait to stab anybody who came close, while Jenny backed up and struck with one of the longswords they'd taken from the jerky fields, but was parried. Archer hit and ran, putting an arrow into what was probably the lungs of the lizard fighting Masha while avoiding the one that was still chasing her.
The lizardman in the pool had recovered, putting its head right at foot level. Masha took advantage of the high ground, football kicking its head clean off and between the two statues ("GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL") before turning around, lighting up the rest of the battle. One of the lizards All-Out grappled Jahn, and then its claws glowed black and siphoned away her life force. The others had much less success; two just missed Quintin and Archer, and Masha easily dodged the third. Likewise, Vaelcor missed a 2d Lightning.
Jahn managed to break free, and a blade to the throat from Quintin sent that lizardman to the ground. Masha landed two Rapid Strike kicks, killing another lizardman, and the two survivors dove back into the pool. Archer tried to hit them as they swam, but failed her Fast-Draw, and they got away.
Notes:
Despite her vastly superior Search skill (16 vs defaulted 7), Puddin' failed the roll to find her own artwork. It was her only failure. Meanwhile, Argua and Masha only made 4 rolls, and one of them just happened to be the one they needed.
I had said that Argua would have made it back to her painting in time if only she hadn't tried to use the reverse waterslide, but I checked my numbers afterwords and found that she was already doomed after failing her Extra Effort roll.
Going forward, I'm going to give a -2 penalty to Fast-Draw and Quick-Shooting rolls for Scouts made while making Move and Attacks (halved for Heroic Archer, of course).
The player of Archer/Puddin' might just play one character going forward; the rest of the group joked that Argua/Masha's player must now play three.
After this, we're going to play some other games (all GURPS):
- A short (1-2 session) Delta Green adventure
- A slightly longer (5-6 session) Warhammer 30k proto-Inquisition adventure
- I have several ideas, and am seeing which garner the most interest. Currently, the front runners are sequels to other games I've run: either 2 Galactic 2 Merchants or Blood Drive: New Earth
XP was 2
1 for combat with the lizardmen
1 for loot
+1 to Masha for making it out alive
MVP went to Masha for risking her life to help the others
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