DCC Campaign Update: Your Face is Flammable

In our last adventure, the PCs had made it into the Heart of the Sun. There, they learned that the Spirit of the Sun had lost a 'transit orb' which is essential to getting them to the Crown of Creation.  The orb was apparently taken by a former-boyfriend of hers named Fabritzio.  The party, along with the Spirit of the Sun in human form, teleported down to the surface, to the last place she had seen her former lover.  It turned out to be the Zombie Empire.

Now:

-"I'll be eternally grateful to you Sami, for restoring my vision."
"Yeah, we'll see how long that lasts."

-You know you're in the Zombie Empire because the zombies can talk.
"What are they saying?"
"Good question. They're saying 'run! Run for your lives!'"
"At us?"
"Well, to each other but they're running toward you, not away from you..."

-It turns out the normal zombies are running from a big herd of Sezrekhan Zombies, most of whom are also zombies, but some are not.
"How many of them are there?"
"Tons."
"How far away are they?"
"About 200 feet and closing."

-"Run, Livings! Run for your lives! The zombies are coming!"

-"Ironically, the Zombie Empire seems to be suffering the early stages of a Zombie Apocalypse."

-"Hey, Sun!"
"My name's Anema."
"Ok, whatever. Can you destroy all of them?"
"I could destroy ALL of this, as in everything for hundreds of miles around."

-While the PCs are trying to figure out what to do, a big rift in space appears and a fancy-looking skyship comes crashing down out of the sky, flattening a good portion of the Sezrekhan Zombies in the process.

-"I'm hitting on the Spirit of the Sun."
"What's your Personality, catboy?"
"17."
"...oh, shit."

-"That catboy is like a living meme of a cat just about to knock a glass off the table..."

-Heidi picks up a non-sezrekhan zombie with his jetpack, rescuing him.
"Thank you for saving me!"
"We're looking for Fabritzio, where is he?"
"I don't know sir, I'm but a humble zombie beggar"
"Eww!" (Heidi immediately drops him back into the sezrekhan-zombie herd)

-"do you guys have anything flammable we can use against the sezrekhan zombies?"
"Well, your face is flammable, Sami.."

-Everyone is now flying in the air, out of reach of the sezrekhan zombies, except for the Vegan.
"Help me, guys!"
"Sorry, I'm busy."
"I'm Vizi!"
"I just don't want to!"

-"Where's Fabritzio?"
"The rebel leader? He's going to be executed!"
"Oh damn."

-Some of the PCs head to the crashed skyship, which is now surrounded by Sezrekhan-zombies. A guy in a sleek 70s-esque space-suit climbs out.

-"Hello chaps, I'm from the future. I'm here to help!"
"Wait, are other people trying to make us fail?"
"Yes, but I have to be careful what I say, I can't alter the past."
"But you're here!"
"I'm here to preserve time!"
"Fucking time travel."

-"What about the Time Dinosaurs, did they send you?"
"No. They're mine sworn enemies!"
"That's it. We should kill this guy."
"No, wait, there are rebel time dinosaurs, remember?"
"The rebels might be the real time dinosaurs!"

-"Man, I hate time travel!"
"Yeah, I envy Mongo right now."

-The space-man from the future is named Captain Harry.
"Can you prove you're from the future AND on our side?"
Captain hairy whispers something into Roman's ear, which makes him seem surprised.
"He's definitely from the future, and on our side!"

-"We don't even know if Roman is on our side!"
"What do you think Harry told him?"
"Maybe he knows what Roman really is?"
"What do you guys even mean? I'm your dear old Uncle Roman!"

-"I still say we kill him."
"No, we should trust him."
"I think he looks kind of cute!"
"Anema, you and I need to have a serious talk. You have a problem."

-"The catboy keeps hitting on Anema... how furry is the catboy anyways?"
"He's you-sick-fuck level of furry."

-The party still needs to find Fabritzio. All they know is that he was apparently some kind of anarchist rebel-leader and the forces of the Zombie Empress have captured him and plan to execute him. Roman thinks the party ought to kidnap people and get more information.
"You just want to torture someone!"
"No, I just think that since we've got the Last Ancient AND the Spirit of the Sun with us, we may need to have a more sophisticated plan than just 'throw grenades on the roof'"
"Shit, remember when 'let's throw grenades on the roof' was the new low in our party?"
"Man, a lot of water has passed under that bridge."
"Throwing grenades on the roof seems downright intricate by our current standards"

-Captain Harry was a fighter pilot for the Sky Wizard Air Force.
"Wait, are you a wizard, Harry?"
"No, I'm not."
"The Hippomagus was hugging the Sunstaff more tightly when he thought you were."

-The PCs head to the capital, and finally (against Roman's advice) decide to just present themselves to the city guard.
"Who are you Livings?"
"I'm a member of the High Council of Wizards."
"...are you a hippo?"

-"I notice you are all Living."
"Barely."

-"So you can all fly?"
"Except the Vegan."

-"Are there Vegans in the future, Harry?"
"They've gone extinct."
"Wow. He really does come from a utopia!"

-Fabritzio was the leader of a rebel motorcycle gang called the Wight Knights.
"Wait.. the White Knights?"
"No, the Wight Knights."
"Man, that sounded bad until you figure out how it's spelled."

-"So Fabritzio is a wight?"
"Yes."
"And you didn't notice this, Anema?"
"You all look alike to me."

-After much discussion, Heidi bribes the captain of the city walls with a diamond (courtesy of Harry). As soon as they get to the palace, he squeals on the captain for taking a bribe, and as a result gets himself and Harry arrested for bribing a city guard.
"Goddamnit, I told you this was a stupid plan!"
"No, wait, they'll be taken to where Fabritzio is held."

-Sami takes to using the decanter of endless water as a spray bottle to keep the catboy from hitting on Anema.

-The Vegan, eager to get a replacement spell to Ekim's Mystical Mask, asks the Hippomagus if he'll take him as his apprentice. The Hippomagus is overjoyed.
"No one ever wanted to be my apprentice!"

-Heidi and Harry find Fabritzio in the palace dungeon, but Fabritzio has no memory of the Spirit of the Sun.
"You don't remember? You stole something from her."
"Hey! I steal nothing from the women, except for their hearts.. and their souls, of course. The heart metaphorically, their souls literally."

-"Can you prove you're the Fabritzio we're looking for? If you can, we'll help get you out of here."
"How can I prove it?"
"Tell us who Anema's father was."
"Probably some asshole!"
"He's not technically wrong."

-"Hey guards, I think we've got the wrong Fabritzio here, you can let us go now!"

-Meanwhile, the rest of the party has been put in more comfortable guest quarters while the Zombie Empire decides what to do with them.
"Do Vegans drink wine?"
"As long as it's free-range cruelty-free wine."

-The Hippomagus takes some time to teach the Vegan.
"The most important thing is to loudly announce the spell you're about to cast!"
"Are you teaching him wrong on purpose?"
"I'm teaching him as I was taught!"
"Who was your teacher?"
"The Rhinomagus!"

-"Wait.. am I turning into the Hippomagus?"
"Don't worry, you already were anyways."

-Heidi tries a classic escape attempt, feigning a fight with Harry, but it doesn't work.

-After Heidi's escape attempt, the palace guards come to arrest the rest of the party for rebellion. The zombie guard make their first mistake when they try to disarm everyone.
"Nobody takes my staff!!"
"Oh shit!!"

-All hell breaks loose when the Hippomagus attacks. The catboy hides under a couch, badly.

-The Hippomagus goes apeshit, the guards run for their lives, and the Hippomagus clings to his sunstaff.
"My precious!"

-"Great, just what we need, another place where we're the enemies of the state."

-The whole palace is in high alert. Down in the dungeon, the guards are barricading the stairs.
"If they get down here, we kill the terrorist."
"Just to check, that's Fabritzio, right? Not us?"

-"I hope this means your friends are trying to get us out."
"Friends is a very strong word.."

-The party upstairs starts trying to fight their way down to the dungeon. They run into a troop of 20 guards.
"I'll empty my clip at them."
"Vizi, you know that never works."
"Hey look, Vizi hit 19 out of 20 of them!"
"Holy shit.. that's shockingly effective."

-Mongo joins the battle, throwing an ancient bust at one of the guards. Then an ornate antique vase. He misses both.
"I think Mongo isn't really trying to fight, he's just happy destroying priceless artifacts."

-The Zombies are backed up by elite Wraith guards! Mongo throws a priceless faberge egg at one.

-"Mongo is injured, I'll try to heal him. He's neutral, right?"
"What makes a man turn neutral?"
"In Mongo's case? Retardation."

-Mongo finds Dracula's Spear, snaps it in two, and then throws both pieces at zombies.

-"It's the vegan's turn."
"I have literally nothing left to attack with. I'm morally broken."
"You were always morally broken."

-"Catboy, you're a waste of oxygen. You're worse than the Vegan, at least he fails!"
"I don't even try!"

-"The catboy at best might attract attacks."
"It doesn't look like it."
"He looks so harmless no one even bothers."

-The party keeps being attacked by successive waves of Zombies and Wraiths. The Hippomagus goes down, but he's still alive.

-Anema can't help much without destroying the entire kingdom and everyone in it (including the PCs), but she does shift into fire form in the hopes of scaring the undead.
"It didn't work, but I look better like this!"

-The Hippomagus drops for the second time (still alive though) as 15 more zombies arrive to attack! Things are not going well.

-The Vegan, the catboy, and the Hippomagus (for the third time) all fall. The Vegan and the Catboy both survive (astounding everyone, since neither have decent luck), but the Hippomagus is dead!

-The PCs try to use the Yogurt of Revival to save the Hippomagus, but sadly it fails.
"It was probably past its expiry date a few thousand years."

-The party finally rescuses Heidi and Harry, and frees Fabritzio, and Anema teleports everyone back to the Sun.
"Can you Jesuses heal us?"
"It's Jesi, plural."

-"Can you resurrect the Hippomagus?"
"What, you think we can raise the dead?!"

-"the Hippomagus is dead? Oh shit.. shit, this is bad. He wasn't supposed to die.. yet."

-Fabritzio remembers Anema, but he still has no clue about the "transit orb".  It takes everyone quite some time to finally figure it out: the "transit orb" is Anema's soul. Fabritzio was surprised Anema was still alive and not undead, because he'd drained her soul.

-This development means that Anema and Fabritzio need to act in harmony to open the path to the Crown of Creation.  Killing Fabritzio would just mean that they could never get there from here. And both parties must be willing to open the gate of their own free will, in harmony.
"Does in harmony mean they need to have sex?"
"Probably."

-Anema is interested in hooking up with Fabritzio, but he's very reluctant, weirded out by the whole situation. It doesn't help that Anema is coming on way too strong and getting all clingy. Sami takes Anema aside and tries to get her "woke".

-Captain Harry takes Heidi aside. He's deeply concerned that without the Hippomagus, the PCs will all die in the Crown of Creation and fail to stop Sezrekhan.
"I think there's something we might be able to do. I know the location, at this point in time, of a very powerful chaos-sword that's capable of slaying a Daemon. It might be able to give us a chance."
"So, why are you tell me this, specifically?"
"Well, Heidi, because... you're my grandfather."
"NOOOOOOO!!"

And on that bombshell, our session ends. Stay tuned for next session, when the PCs will undoubtedly be off to another side-quest while Anema and Fabritzio undergo couples counselling.


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