The PCs started this week's DCC session mourning the death of the Cyber Redneck (and by "mourning" I mean looting the corpse). Shortly thereafter, they witnessed the return of Bytharion the Gender-indeterminate Wizard. And immediately after that, the arrival of three new 0-level Hero-Newbs. It was noted a strange curiosity that in this world, cannon-fodder always came in groups of three; an explanation was offered that it may have something to do with the Three Fates.
After that, the PCs:
-got acquainted with Nigel, the Religious Fantastic. Apparently, "Religious Fantastics" are a movement from a distant part of the world that are a kind of combination between devout followers of G.O.D. and Soccer Hooligans, sharing the 'good news' of the religious life and viciously clubbing anyone who doesn't listen.
-got a bit lost in the deepest recesses of the Tangled Wood (while still on a meandering route to Highbay). Apparently, as one of their new arrivals to the party proved, professional Dung-gatherers are not particularly qualified by their career to serve as wilderness guides.
-nevertheless reached the River of Gems, which proved rather disappointing as it had long since been mined dry of any gems.
-recalled that the reason they were going to Highbay (also known as the "City of Stoners") was that Night had to obtain a Violet Lotus Shrubbery for the King of Elfland, without which she could never recover the ridiculous amount of Spellburn she'd spent on Agility. She was effectively derped up, bumping into trees almost constantly as they traveled.
-found that even Night's hearing had apparently been gimped, as she'd completely failed to hear the arrival of an extremely elderly dwarf knight, who had apparently been on a geas-induced for these last 200 years of his life.
-watched as the elderly dwarf, with what seemed to be his dying breath, bequeathed his bag of magic beans to Night, to be planted at the shores of the Furry Bay, and with strict instructions that they be used for good and not for self-serving purposes in spite of the 'great power' these beans were said to grant.
-Also watched as the elderly dwarf seemed to not quite be dead yet, for quite some time. His lingering ruining what would otherwise have been an intensely dramatic final moment.
-Likewise, watched as the dwarf cursed himself for giving away the Extremely Powerful Beans Not to Be Misused to the first party-member he met, rather than to the Azure Wizard who would be far more likely not to misuse them.
-finally nodded off after concluding that the elderly dwarf wasn't likely to actually die quite yet; only to wake the next morning to find nothing left of him but dust and his armor.
-discovered, and proceeded to mostly ignore, the fact that the detect magic spell registered the beans as not being from this plane.
-realized that the Second Sight spell, cast by Clerics through the somatic component of shaking their tablet while asking a question, was really just a "Magic 8-ball" App.
-managed to get themselves ambushed by a gang of Centaur slavers with Australian accents, all of whom were named Bruce.
-were to be taken to be sold as slaves to Lord Dread, of Castle Dread, who everyone, even the Centaurs, agree is a total asshole.
-bided their time for the right moment to try to get free, which came along the next day when the Centaurs got into a fight with a passing patrol of mutants from the town of Focks (which is routinely mispronounced, much to its inhabitants chagrin).
-ran into some trouble with their escape attempt when the Centaurs scared off the mutant militiamen a lot faster than anticipated, and most of the PCs hadn't even managed to get free of their bonds yet.
-saw Night the elf make the ultimately extremely unfortunate decision of eating all the magic beans, in the hope that they would grant her immense cosmic power.
-watched Sandy and Bytharion get the living crap kicked out of them by the Centaurs, while Schul surrendered to them to avoid a similar beating. However, Ack'Basha the Cleric saved the day by a very creative use of his Holy Sanctuary spell.
-Saw Night fly after the fleeing centaurs while the rest of the party was still freeing itself. They did not see how when Night started to cast spells against the centaurs, she immediately started to mutate into a horrific derpy-fungus thing and fly off, no longer in control of her own body.
-decided to track the Centaurs first, and try finding Night later, not being aware of her horrific bean-related metamorphosis.
-plotted a careful night-time assault on the Centaurs, which immediately turned into a string of fumble and spell-misfire related disasters. Suddenly Sandy couldn't manage to hit the broad-side of a barn, and Schul the rogue fell flat on his face in some centaur-droppings rather than skillfully backstab the person he was supposed to backstab. Bytharion finally managed to save the day with his trademark gender-changing magic-missiles.
-decided to rest and recover from their fairly serious wounds that night, and put off searching for Night until the morning. After all, how much difference could one more day make, right?
-woke up the next morning to find a 200-story tall Horrific Derpy-fungus thing emerging from the Furry Bay.
-Decided it was time to use G.O.D. to call up the Azure Wizards, since this was frankly beyond them.
-went with the entire High Council of the Azure Wizards to Highbay, where they found a mix of panic and business-as-usual, as about half of the population were apparently convinced that the colossal void-infected monstrosity that was slowly shambling toward their city was probably just a drug-induced hallucination.
-headed to the city offices, except for Schul who stopped off at the market to purchase a Violet Lotus Shrubbery.
-met once again with Chief City Officer Swanlee, who was pretty blase about the latest existential threat to his city, in spite of (or perhaps because of) his reputation for being the only stone-cold sober man in the whole town.
(he may just be the DCC version of this guy:)
-learned to their dismay that their friend Bolt-O the conversation robot, who had last been seen accepting a bureaucratic position in the city government, was not in town, but had in fact been kidnapped by the Orc mercenary Chief Omnblarg on the last occasion that Lord Dread had tried to besiege Highbay. Omnblarg had since parted company with Lord Dread and overran and conquered the town of Badbreath.
-decided that the best plan was the one proposed by Leandra of the Azure Order, which would be for the Azure Wizards (including Bytharion) to make a massive group ritual-casting to try to petrify the monstrosity, while the others protected the wizards around their circle.
-began the ritual and quickly found themselves accosted by a trio of incomprehensible terrors from the void, who could eat magical energy and looked a little bit like transparent ducks covered in tentacles.
-were about to start fighting these creatures, when the Derpy-fungus Kaiju only made things worse, by spitting out a toxic mist of hallucinogenic gas, instantly incapacitating half the party, including Sandy (their best fighter).
-watched in terror as the evil Tentacle-Ducks Man Was Not Meant to Know dug their tentacles into Leandra and sucked out her soul.
-were further horrified to find that ordinary weapons could not hurt the ducks.
-reached the limit of lovecraftian terror when the Derpy-fungus Kaiju shat out radioactive acid all over the bay area, likely ruining property values port-side.
-saw Ack'basha the cleric once more step up to almost save the day, blowing away most of the Cthulhu-Ducks with a particularly effective Turn Unholy.
-snatched victory from the jaws of failure when Schul the rogue, in an uncharacteristic display of valor, stepped up and managed to kill the last of the Cthulhu-ducks after borrowing the Hornet Mace from a drugged-out Sandy.
-breathed a sigh of relief as the Azure Wizards were then able to launch their spell, turning the Derpy-Fungus Kaiju into a gigantic statue, and about a kilometer of the now-poisoned bay into solid stone too, prompting City Officer Swanlee to note that this will require considerable and expensive infrastructure investment.
Sadly, if you haven't guessed by now, the monstrosity was none other than Night, transformed by the Dark One's evil beans into a horror, and now quite dead (although her possession of an Amulet of Protection from Death, though it did not do what she thought it would do, did turn out to allow her to live a relatively comfortable afterlife instead of having her memories washed away and being subject to an eternity of being poked with pitchforks). The team also lost an erstwhile ally in the form of Leandra, the leader of the Azure Order. Next time, they'll probably be going to rescue Bolt-0, which should be fun.
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