Today we continue the weekly tradition of barbecue. This time, we eat the bratwurst Chris (Michael Sangaree) brought last week. Bruce (Arthur Michael Vincent Pulfrey-Downs) decides that this is going to happen at the last possible moment, which has the effect of confusing Chuck, Tim (Serpentine) and Paul (Kumar Singh) to no end. Mike (Jack Smith) is not confused, primarily because he's off at Over-Load-A-Con today.
As it turns out, confusion is contagious, so actual gaming doesn't happen until rather late.
Last time, Michael Sangaree took everyone over a mile-high waterfall in a captured hydrofoil. The characters look around for any sign of an ancient temple. Kumar Singh looks disoriented. He pulls out his fractal-serrated kukri and says, "Pulfrey-Downs! Find the temple or I'll kill you!" Serpentine very casually suggests, "He works better under pressure!" Arthur Michael Vincent Pulfrey-Downs mulls the geography for a bit and offers the revolutionary idea that the characters should head downriver, as any ancient civilization is most likely to build along a river. Which should lead the characters right to their goal. "Unless the river has changed course in the last 1000 years," grumbles Michael Sangaree.
Thunk! A stone-tipped arrow hits Serpentine's armored chest and bounces harmlessly aside. Serpentine calls out, "Incoming! I think..." Kumar Singh knows how this sort of thing goes. He draws his blade and runs towards the source of the arrow. Serpentine follows him. They spot three rather brutish-looking natives armed with simple bows. Serpentine yells out, "Take them alive!" Michael Sangaree yells from the distance, "I don't think Kumar Singh knows how to do that!" Kumar Singh, for his part, simply announces, "I'm going to kill them a lot."
The characters quickly learn that there are actually five natives. This doesn't help the natives much at all. Kumar Singh and Serpentine mow them down at a fairly regular rate. Pulfrey-Downs calls out, "Kumar! Are these the interesting sort of natives with old stories and curious rituals, or are they the brutal sort that just needs to be put down like dogs?" Kumar Singh yells back, "They look to be the second type" as he cuts one of them down.
As the conflict moves on, Pulfrey-Downs has a chance to examine the natives. Or what's left of them. They're wearing animal-skin loincloths. They carry crude clubs and primitive bows. They are scraggly and scrawny with unkempt beards. Even with his extensive knowledge of the savage peoples of the world, Pulfrey-Downs is unable to tell what tribe they belong to. He suspects that they might be degenerate Tcho-tchos.
Kumar Singh returns to the group covered in gore. He shudders and tells the others, "Eww... I have an eyeball stuck on my knife!" Pulfrey-Downs and Michael Sangaree both notice the one surviving native (who thinks he's still hidden). Sangaree takes a shot at him. He is feeling pretty good about his chances of capturing the guy until Kumar Singh sees him too and cuts him in half. He brings the body back to the others.
The other characters finally manage to restrain Kumar Singh long enough to capture two prisoners, one of them wounded and one of them unconscious. In spite of his rampaging homicidal tendencies, Kumar Singh gets the job of talking to them. He discovers that natives actually speak a degenerate form of aristocratic Castilian Spanish. Examination of the bodies suggests that they are actually decadent Europeans.
Pulfrey-Downs is appalled by this discovery. He tells the others, "I doubt you'll get much information out of them. I've just done a phrenological study of the dead one here. He has less than 30% of the brain capacity of a normal European. He must be French."
Kumar Singh continues with the interrogation. He has long ago learned to ignore the results of his employer's so-called "phrenological studies." The so-called native indicates that he tried to kill the characters because they are in his territory, and that they might try to take his food. The characters quickly decide that he's a long way from being the sharpest arrow in the quiver. Kumar Singh notices that the native has a strange mark on his temple. He touches it and asks the native what it is. The native reacts by curling into a fetal position and howling, "Do not say! They will come! They will come from the demon temple!"
Kumar seems pleased by this outburst. He tells the native, "So there's something around here that you're afraid of, and you know where it is. That's good. We're making progress." The native gives him a blank, uncomprehending look. A look that indicates that the native's ideas of compassion and empathy are even lower than the characters'. Kumar Singh finds that actually extracting the location of the "demon temple" from the native is unusually difficult. He explains the problem to the other characters.
Michael Sangaree suggests, "Tell him that we want to die, and then he'll tell us where it is." Kumar relays this message. The native howls out, "Worse than death! Eternal living death torture!" Kumar persists, "We love eternal living death torture! Can you tell us where the f***ing building is?" This does not help the situation.
Serpentine find that he is becoming rather exasperated. He turns on Cloak of Dread in an effort to scare the native into talking. The native changes to a death-pale color. The native is clearly terrified. The native also believes that Serpentine is one of the terrible gods of the temple, sent to punish him if he tells the outsiders where the temple is. He pleads to the heavens, "Please! Not again!" Kumar Singh asks, "You've been there before?" The native howls out, "All the tribe has!"
Pulfrey-Downs uses Manipulation+Academics to try and convince Kumar Singh that the man is actually a missionary and has been here for about 200 years. Kumar Singh is immune to Pulfrey-Downs' bullshit and tries a Manipulation+Perform roll to act like he believes Pulfrey-Downs' story. The other characters notice that in this exchange the problem of locating the demon temple seems to have been relegated to the distant background.
Pulfrey-Downs pauses from arguing with Kumar Singh long enough to notice that the native seems to be on the verge of nervous collapse. He tells the poor fellow, "Here my boy, you seem awfully stressed. Suck on this." He gives the native a length of surgical tubing connected to a glass bulb full of vapors. He hopes that a bit of medicinal opium will help the native achieve a better sense of calm and equilibrium. It actually makes the prisoner gag and choke. And then sag into a blissful calm.
Suitably calmed, the "tribesman" tells Kumar Singh the story of how hiss ancestors came to the jungle long ago in search of treasure. They got lost in the jungle, and that was when the demons caught them and forced them to stay. They are descendents of the original tribesmen. They live in their village at the mouth of the river, near the good fishing grounds. The demon gods drag off the children and when they come back they are changed. If they attempt to flee, the demon gods will kill them. If they stay in the village, the demon gods simply torture them. Sometimes, a jungle monster called a muckluck carries off the occasional villager. The characters mock the creature's name endlessly. They suspect the name translates to "Big Appetite Lizard." The demon gods live in a temple on a plateau in the middle of the lake. Sometimes the demon gods visit the village, riding their terrible fire-breathing lizards.
Kumar Singh ties up the native so the characters can take him along. It takes Pulfrey-Downs a half-day to navigate to the lake, by which time it's close to nightfall. The characters spend the evening admiring the village. The place is a cluster of mud huts the locals didn't build themselves. The characters notice that there are no children or elders visible among the villagers, only degenerate adults. Several of them can be seen attempting to fish with their clubs and spears. Fishing net or line are nowhere in evidence, and their success rate is nothing short of miserable. Kumar Singh comments, "I think I know how they're 'changed' when they go to the temple. They get stupid."
The demon gods' domain is a sinkhole some eighteen kilometers across. The demon gods live in their great temple in the center, surrounded by a circular lake. The temple sits upon a basalt plateau 50 meters high. Small lighted windows are visible in the sides of the plateau.
The characters paddle out to the demon temple that night. Halfway through the journey, it becomes clear that something bad has happened back at the village. The characters hear first gunshots, and then some very non-human growling and howling. Michael Sangaree muses, "those natives are pretty tough, they'll kill some of Mycroft's guys." Kumar Singh suggests, "Maybe when they are changed, they change into werewolves. Those villagers we fought were a lot tougher than most of Mycroft's goons." Things become even more interesting at the three-quarter mark. A series of whooshing sounds come from the plateau. The characters become concerned until they realize that the sounds are going towards the village. The characters smirk as they think of the terrible, terrible things that are going to happen to Mycroft's goons.
The plan is to climb 75 feet up the face of the plateau to the nearest opening, then sneak inside. Kumar Singh's pet monkey Dumaki gets a chance to shine by going up first with a rope. It takes three Athletics rolls to get to the top, but everyone makes it. Though it sounds like things are not going well for someone out at the village: the sound of explosions roll out across the water.
The interior of the plateau is brightly lighted by glowing glass balls in sconces along the walls. Pulfrey-Downs deduces that there is a "light-inversion field" over the entrance to keep the light inside. Some (including the rest of the characters) might call it a "drape." The whole décor has a strong Flash Gordon vibe. Kumar Singh takes a couple of the glowing glass balls as souvenirs.
Serpentine heads ahead, ninja style. He notices five guards in strange silvery, shiny robes. They don't notice him. He sneaks back to warn the others. He and Kumar Singh sneak back to the guards. This time, the guards spot the two of them and sound the alarm. Serpentine sighs, "Oh well. Aiaiaiaiaiaiaiaiaiai!" He rushes in amongst the guards, laying about left and right with the Claws of Apepi.
Pulfrey-Downs and Sangaree realize that something is happening when they hear the screams. They advance just far enough to engage the guards with firearms. Sangaree strafes three of them from the right while Pulfrey-Downs strafes two from the left. The guards demonstrate that they know how the game goes as they do a remarkable job of dodging the bullets. The one thing the characters do learn from this effort is that the guards enjoy a lethal soak of 7.
The guards respond to the characters' attack by leveling their staves and firing beams of light. Pulfrey-Downs takes one in the gut. He feels like he stuck part of his anatomy into an electric socket. Michael Sangaree is next to enjoy the effects of the guards' shock staves. He takes two levels of bashing damage for the team. Serpentine and Kumar Singh mock their companions as they effortlessly dodge the guards' attacks. Kumar Singh goes on to become a whirlwind of death and destruction that leaves one crumpled guard in it's wake.
A moment later Kumar Singh's confidence is wounded by the discovery that the guards staves can also function very effectively as cattle prods. Even more embarrassing is his failure to do anything more than rumple the robes of the guard he attacks. Sangaree refrains from comment, preferring to reload.
By the time Kumar Singh and Serpentine finish off the surviving guards, it is clear that more are on the way. Michael Sangaree finds that he is out of ammo for this Thompson, so he grabs one of the cattle prods and figures it out on the run.
The group is a bit distressed to see that the new contingent of guards isn't just a bunch of guys in robes. It is accompanied by a pair of ferocious-looking tailless lizard, each with it's own lizard wrangler. It is quickly obvious that the lizards are extremely tough, strong enough that bullets and blades simply glance off their hides. They also attack with no sense of self-preservation at all.
Serpentine and Kumar Singh work together to take the lizards apart one at a time. This is a task made only marginally easier by the fact that the lizards never bother to dodge or defend. In the process, they discover that when a lizard is killed, the lizard wrangler generally goes berserk. This is quite upsetting to Pulfrey-Downs, as his general experience has been that the lizard wranglers wear armor heavy enough that he really can't hurt them. Michael Sangaree is equally unimpressed with the way the battle goes: even though he is able to make the demonic acolytes sleepy with his borrowed shock stock, he isn't able to shut any of them down. Fortunately, Serpentine is there to do it for him.
Pulfrey-Downs checks the downed guards for signs of life. He finds one of them alive and hands the man over to Serpentine for interrogation. Meanwhile, Kumar Singh takes a look at one of the lizard wranglers' sticks. During the fight, he saw the wrangler use it to heal a wounded lizard. He is able to determine that it is an extraordinary gadget empowered with the Healing Touch knack. It is only usable once per scene, and has a pool of three dice. He takes the two sticks from the fallen lizard wranglers and uses them on everyone in sight. A moment later the characters all feel quite a bit healthier.
Serpentine grabs the surviving acolyte and threatens him in Spanish. The acolyte doesn't speak Spanish. Fortunately, Serpentine has all kinds of freaky mind powers to let him speak forgotten languages. He determines that the acolyte is speaking a bastardized version of Nauhatl. Sadly, this is all he's able to learn from the fellow, even after he locks him into a staredown and breaks his will.
The characters decide that the best plan now is stealth. They've killed four acolytes, two captains of the guard, and two lizard-wranglers, leaving quite a variety of available uniforms. Kumar Singh suspects that there is only one lizard per lizard-wrangler, so there's little chance that anyone will be fooled by a "spare" wrangler. Serpentine dresses as a captain-of-the-guard. Everyone else dresses as an ordinary goon.
The characters find their way to a balcony overlooking a massive chamber. The chamber floor is almost completely consumed by a huge mural. Even from high above the floor the characters are able to see the empty sockets in the mural where the Gems of Urighu are meant to rest. And the two filled sockets that actually contain Gems. The center of the mural is a strange sarcophagus-like chamber. An array of seated priests in silver and gold robes watch the proceedings from the far side of the chamber. And to the right side of the chamber the characters can see that Mycroft Horatio Pulfrey-Downs, Subekhatan, the MFK soldiers and an array of goons have all been stuffed into small cages.
The characters watch as two guards drag one of the MFK soldiers over to the sarcophagus. The high priest manipulates an array of crystals. Lighting and fireworks play across the sarcophagus and the mural. The characters deduce that the light show is recharging several shock sticks placed into receptacles along the sides of the sarcophagus.
After several minutes of lights and excitement, the guards open up the sarcophagus and drag out what's left of the MFK goon. He has been transformed into one of the savage natives.
Kumar Singh gazes down at the crystal mural. He can see that it is not a single-function device. He guesses that the willpower-brainsucker effect acts as the power supply. He guesses that there might be over a dozen other functions, possibly including climate control (to keep the cloud cover low over the whole sunken world), de-evolution (to produce savage lizards), genetic mixing and matching (to produce bulletproof savage lizards), and the staff recharge effect. Kumar suspects that making all of the functions work would require all of the Gems of Urighu. He also suspects that there must be a control key for the entire array. Something like Subekhatan's staff. Which the other characters notice is now in the hands of the high priest...
The session ends with the characters staring down over the sarcophagal chamber of the demon gods of Urighu. Each character gains three experience points and knows that the next session will be the last Adventure game.