Dungeon 8 Turn 19
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Ricki leads Kamau and Lara back into wagon 4, safely navigating over the pressure plate on the way to the guards. However, it seems the guards must have been the ones placing all these traps, since not only do they know where it is, one of the crossbowmen takes the initiative and fires at the thing. It explodes as the party crosses.
Ricki, Kamau, and Lara are all heavily armoured enough to avoid damage, but Daisy loses 2 HP, and poor Molly and Mushroom 4 are even less fortunate. The mushroom explodes in a cloud of poisonous spores, while the mule explodes in a cloud of very heavy gear (all of which lands safely nearby, even the mug full of alcohol).
The cloud of poison is spread by the explosion, affecting everyone else nearby, party and guards alike. Ricki, Kamau, Lara, and Daisy all lose 1 more HP. Lara goes ahead and cracks the offending crossbowmen on the head hard enough to knock him out, avenging Molly. It’s unclear whether Lara is mad that a beloved pet died, or that she’s probably going to end up carrying more heavy stuff as a result. A replacement mushroom sprouts out of the unconscious guard’s body.
Kamau takes no further damage from the guards he interposes, but the damage his friends have taken gives him two points of Remorse, which sobers him up at the end of the turn. Ricki unlocks the gate, then throws her lockpicks away in honour of Molly’s sacrifice (?). She then returns to wagon five.
Cordy destroys the remaining stump, taking no damage from all the squirrels inside. They pick up the centipede venom gland that drops afterward.
Ricki makes her way back up through this room, returning to wagon 4 through the upper exit.
“I have sensed an extraordinary amount of PET DEATH occurring in this place. Do you know anything about that?”
Ricki continues not to make eye contact with Pet Master.
I wish we could nuke Pet Master right now.
Gift a mushroom or three, leave it with him for when the wolves come
Nah. 🙁 HE has 1000% chance to ignore any and all damage. He should be out there overthrowing the emperor.
Welp.
Holy Cluster F*
RIP Molly.
If we get a chance to buy another pack mule, let’s name her Nolly, then Oolly, Polly, …
…I thought of it once, and now I have a hard time getting rid of an image of Lohk staring at Molly’s corpse wondering how to make a Mule soup…
It’s so nice to learn about a new mechanic, isn’t it? 🙁
Ricki: flip off the Pet Master
I really want to. Sadly, we got other things to do now. But later we’ll do it.
LSN, can we do this as a free action? Pretty please?
https://discord.com/channels/343970307926786051/1011701056704614510/1092904036371538091
Ricki, move to wagon 1, giving the token on the floor in Wagon 2 to the group of bandits there and then evading the pressure plate in Wagon 2 on your way.
Kamau — Interpose while repressing your emotions. Repression has worked so well for you so far.
Cordy — Assign the mushroom to Lara, then Spore Touch the rightmost sword-wielding guard (10-11 damage).
4 Mushies — Assist Cordy… somehow? (14-15 this round, +1 unblockable AOE from earlier, KO at 15). Assign the new mushie to Kamau, he needs an emotional support mushroom until your spores finish eating his emotions
Lara — Tenderize the crossbow-wielding guard with the flat of your axe. (6-8 damage, +1 AOE, no KO but should be very close)
Reasoning:
Ouch, this turn sucked. But we still have enough inventory space to accomplish the dungeon objectives and even pull out some loot, so, nothing to do but get back to it.
Wolves are best-guess arriving at the entrance in wagon 1 (they could spawn anywhere but until we know that, eyes on wagon 1 seems like the best option), so lets get Ricki there to keep eyes on them.
We do need to deal with this combat we’ve started, though, now that the Molly inventory is on the floor if we leave, there’s gonna be a really tanky guard in plate with a heavy shield, so wiping up as fast as possible seems like the way to go. Once we’ve finished this round I think we can probably afford to start sending people to support Ricki.
And of course, if we do end up needing to abandon because the wolves are too dangerous, then Ricki can most easily abandon from wagon 1 (and everybody else will just escape at that point from wherever)