Making friends can be hard. Maybe you're shy. Maybe you don't share the interests of the people around you. Or maybe you just haven't murdered enough yet . . .
Yep, you heard me. I shall explain.
The Cupcakes left the furnishing of mimics and continued up the stairs where they led out onto the roof of the tower. They were just shy of the threshold when a small voice explained quite animatedly that 'It's alive, ALIVE!"
{Player's Note: You see what I did there? Animated, with the Frankenstein reference? Get it?
You know what? Just shut up.}
The Cupcakes all heard this, and each came to the same conclusion -that this was not a good thing- simultaneously, and charged out onto the roof. And right into a scene from one of many movies dealing with mad scientists: Frankenstein, The Island of Dr. Moreau, Ghostbusters . . .
Oh, come on; of course the Ghostbusters were mad scientists. Well, maybe not Venkman. He was just a bad scientist . . .
Anyways . . . where was I?
Oh, right, painting the scene.
The roof was open to a cloudy sky. To their right, midway down, was a large obelisk with what appeared to be a ball lightning spell permanencied into it. At the other end was Little Shit. He was flanked by a pair of huge glass containers, one at each end of that side of the roof. The containers were covered by massive drop cloths.
Once the Cupcakes had taken in this scene, Frank told the group to wait for his signal, and promptly fell off of Hazel's broom. (Nat 1 on his stealth).
Whether from the fall, or the others snickering, Little Shit suddenly became aware of the fact that he had guests. He turned to their side of the roof, recognized them, and told them he'd be right with them. He then excitedly ran over to the left container and pulled the sheet down, revealing a huge sized, four armed, golem.
Which was quite enough of that as far as the Cupcakes were concerned. Thor and Steve charged immediately. But there was quite the distance between them and their prey. Hazel, took up an overwatch position.
Steve set himself up to defend while Frank picked himself up off of the floor and activated his Fighter's Warrior Spirit. A rather lackluster turn for the Siege Gunner. But then again, he wasn't off to a great start for the day at all really.
Meanwhile, the Golem smashed its way out of the case.
On the second turn Thor was close enough to perform a hurling charge against Little Shit; his brand new meat tenderizer mimic hit its target right in the nose. The mimic took it from there, continuing to gnaw on the honker.
Frank took a move action and shot one bullet at Little Shit, scoring a natural 20. The little guy, already severely damaged from Thor's taste testing tenderizer (he had 4 hp left to his name) exploded in a mist of green goo.
With that threat removed (such as it was) Steve took up position in front of the others, and prepared for the coming of the golem. Thor posted up behind him. Hazel continued hovering out of reach.
But the golem had it's own priorities. It walked over to the other case, smashed it open, and extracted four swords, each of a different type. The group continued to wait as it stalked over to them . . .
. . . and did nothing. It was as if it were awaiting further instructions. On a lark, Steve told it to sit, at which point it sat down. Up close they could see it was made of a combination of adamantine and sinew. Still experimenting, Steve then told it to lie down. As it complied, its chest plate slid upwards, revealing its inner workings.
And a book. A grimoire, to be exact. Steve had no more than extracted it when Hazel immediately rushed over yelling 'DIBS!'. A sentiment that was immediately vetoed by every other member of the group.
But she was not taking no for an answer with this one. The sibling quarrel continued to increase in intensity as Steve and Thor did there best to keep the thing out of her reaching grasp until Frank finally said 'Look, it's Maiphere'.
Hazel immediately forgot the book, and turned around looking for the Dragonkin librarian. Strangely enough, a moment later a tolling sound came from the staircase, as the stuffed Maiphere walked into sight. He was a bit surly, really, demanding to know how he'd been summoned there.
But, like Hazel, that passed quickly once his little coal eyes fell on the grimoire. He even offered to 'take care of it' for them. This second attempt was again refused by 3 members of the group. Maiphere, librarian that he was, would not have destroyed the book, and they very much wanted it destroyed.
Maiphere then turned around, warned them not to summon him again, and disappeared. No doubt the entire argument would have started up yet again, but for the meat cleaver bouncing between them, a large green gem held in its mouth.
Thor, reminded of his deal for information, hurried after it. Frank and Steve distracted Hazel by pointing out that they needed to get the Golem off of the roof. They suggested that it could probably take a superhero landing, but that they should clear the area first. So she and Frank flew down to warn the army below to make room while Steve spent some more time with his pet. Whilst that was going on, Thor was learning a great deal.
Okay, not a great deal really. In fact, the mimic seemed to know how to draw the information out in tidbits. At first it would only tell him that there were 2 other towers, and the location of one of them. But Thor, after rifling through his pack, presented it with a fist sized ruby, at which point it spilled its guts. It told them that this occurrence happened every now and again. Apparently the giant evil god whose heart this tower had grown around had other body parts spread about. In this case its spirit (which wasn't actually a body part in Thor's book) and the other from its mind. And, while stopping Little Shit had removed the immediate threat, they would have to control at least one more before they could breathe easy.
Oh, and are you sure you don't want to take a rest on the couch? That fight looked like it took it out of you . . .
Thor ignored this obvious trap as he had all the others and marched back upstairs, hearing the now familiar finger snap signifying 'nuts'.
By that point Frank and Hazel had cleared the landing zone and returned to the roof. They led Adam (as Steve had started calling the Adamantine Golem; the bastard) off of the cliff. But, instead of plummeting to the ground, it walked on the air. Hazel adjusted the plan to lead the Golem down a spiral path, as if walking on an invisible winding staircase. Thor carried Steve, who was finally getting used to being treated as a sack of potatoes.
But eventually they made it down. Of course, by that point, the short trek had drawn the attention of every Gnome in the army. Steve had to threaten them with the Golem to get them to back off. They marched through the camp until coming to the master blacksmith, a Dwarf.
(Yes, it's racist; but in our defense, have you ever dealt with Gnomes?)
They told him they needed to find out everything about it. They also told him about the grimoire they'd found lodged in its duodenum. The Blacksmith sized 'Adam' up and suggested they start with figuring out what it ate.
They set out a large spread of various items. Everything from rack of lamb to nuts and bolts was present. Then they told Adam to eat. It eshewed all of this, immediately grabbing one of the servers instead. Fortunately, Steve was able to stop it before any next of kin had to be notified. Then it chose a live cow, which it was given permission to eat.
The Gnomes however, were the ones to decipher the mystery of the book. As it turned out, whatever was in that slot was all Adam would know. So they commissioned a book on fighting, intimidation, flight, and anything else they could think of that might have been useful to replace the grimoire. It was a good thing it was a big book.
Amidst this controlled chaos of inquiry Thor reported what he'd learned higher up. After that it was bedtime. Dealing with Gnomes can really take it out of you . . .
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