8th Sypheros, 999 YK (6/12/993 FTC)
- Session 69, nice
- Ell does the recap
- funny that they're in The Eighth on the eighth of Sypheros
- They're all crammed into a house, where the Hounds of Tindalos have appeared to attack them.
- One of the hounds, the tentacled one, attacks Bhaltair and where it touches them, they experience rapid growth.
- Ell names each of the hounds: Tentacle Face, Fish Boi, Spikey Jones, and Lil Nipper.
- Runmae attacks Spikey Jones, performing a Combat Assessment as she does so.
- The hit is way less effective than expected, and the Recall Knowledge is a critical failure. She learns that they are immune to physical damage, mental damage, and also magical damage
- Damn
- "Woah these things are tough, we're in trouble guys"
- She uses her shifting rune to change her hammer into a bigger hammer (Maul), hoping that this will overcome it's immunity.
- Fish Boi pounces on Runmae and begins to maul her, and she ages 20 years as it does so. She is now 170 years old.
- Spikey Jones goes to leap on Warren, but Runmae pushes it back with her maul. It retaliates by attacking Runmae again, and she ages another 12 years (182)
- It then steps into the extraneous angles between reality and appears elsewhere.
- Warren sneaks up to Tentacle Face and stabs it in its tentacley face, but it's really unaffective.
- He tries to stab it again, and it just doesn't seem to be where he's attacking
- "Ah Benjamins"
- At the end of Warren's turn, all of his old injuries re-manifest and hurt him
- Bhaltair casts Hypercognition, instantly performing 6 Recall Knowledge checks
- They learn that the Hounds are resistant to mental, poison, and physical damage, but they are vulnerable to Curved Space and lose their physical resistances when not adjacent to a 90 degree angle. They are also immune to control and emotion effects.
- They're weakest save is Fortitude
- They learn that the creatures most notable offensive ability is that they are consuming the future, they age targets when they hit them.
- They learn that these creatures are so fundamentally alien that any attempt to interact with them mentally will result in mental damage and confusion
- Their highest save is Fortitude (crit fail)
- They are also spellcasters
- Bhaltair uses an action to try and rapidly communicate all of that
- "WE NEED TO GO OUTSIDE AND TARGET THEIR CONSTITION WHICH IS LOW AND ALSO HIGH"
- Bhaltair then legs it out into the street
- A bunch of Bhaltair's old injuries then re-manifest
- Lil Nipper casts Haste on Spikey Jones, and then steps through the Angles to get next to Bhaltair
- Valaari uses Exploit Vulnerability on Fish Boi, and can only trigger a personal antithesis as they lack a weakness (in the damage sense).
- This also gives them a free Recall Knowledge. They learn the details of their Ripping Gaze, the effect that is causing the party's old wounds to reopen. They yell that the Hounds can hurt them without touching them, just by being around them
- They then throw their spear at Fish Boi, but it just sails right past
- They then skedaddle out of the house
- Valaari's old wounds then reopen
- Zaphkiel moves out of the building (and the doorway), and Naze follows them out
- Naze then casts Protect Companion on Zaphkiel
- Some of Naze's old injuries re-open
- Tentacle Face steps through the angles and appears next to Naze, and then attempts to cats Slow on him, but he critically succeeds.
- Tentacle Face is bleeding because of Warren, but its physical resistance from being next to an angle nullifies the damage
- "DELETE THE ANGLES"
- Runmae contemplates knocking down the walls to remove the angles
- She shifts the Maul back into a Longhammer. Then she Sudden Charges out of the house and attacks Tentacle Face, remaining at Reach so that it will have to leave the wall to attack her
- She critically hits it, and deals significantly less damage because it's next to an angle
- She does knock it prone though!
- Fish Boi and Spikey Jones both try to maul Warren, and neither of them can hit him at all
- Warren feints at Spikey Jones but the dog doesn't fall for it. He tries to stab it, misses. He cuts his losses and runs out of the house.
- His old wounds continue to ow
- Bhaltair moves further out into the street, getting away from any 90 degree angles
- They then begin to play a Fortissimo Composition, playing a stronger than usual Courageous Anthem
- They then cast a Garden of Healing, healing themselves, Valaari, and Zaphkiel
- Bhaltair critically succeeds against Ripping Gaze, so is now immune
- Lil Nipper steps away from the wall to attack Valaari, and seems to visibly slow down and get more sluggish. Runmae reactively strikes it, and it's fully effective! Huzzah!
- It then tries to teleport to a 90 degree angle, and Valaari interrupts it with a critical hit, making it clumsy and preventing the teleportation.
- Zaphkiel also reacts to that move, and bonks it. It is also a critical hit! Damn Lil Nipper is having a bad day, bro steps away from a wall for 6 seconds and gets blasted
- Valaari moves around Lil Nipper to flank it, and then stabs it with their spear. It is, another, critical hit. This poor doggo. It dies :(
- "Eat shit you non-euclidean bullshit"
- Valaari then raises their shield.
- Valaari critically succeeds against the Ripping Gaze, so it now immune
- We discover we've been doing reactions wrong for 2 years, they replenish at top of the round, not start of the turn. Whoops.
- Naze uses Act Together and casts Divine Lance on Tentacle Face. It is yet another critical hit. The Hounds have no resistance to spirit damage, so it really messes it up.
- Zaphkiel then moves as part of that action, and uses another action to Strike
- Tentacle Face's resistance eats most of the damage though
- Tentacle Face then pounces on Naze and mauls him, and he ages 2 years (23)
- It then continues to maul him, and he ages another 7 years (30)
- Some of his old wounds re-ow
- Runmae performs a Vicious Swing, crits, and just obliterates Tentacle Face (even with the resistance). Poor Tentacle Face, they no longer have a face or tentacles :(
- Runmae then focuses her senses on the stonework to get blindsight for 6 seconds, confirming the two Hounds that are still in the house
- Fish Boi teleports away, stepping through the angles
- Spikey Jones does too, two of them just died within 6 seconds of each other. They're smart enough to realise they're losing.
- Combat over, several of them have gained decades. They do not gain their time back.
- Bhaltair continues to sustain the garden of healing to heal them all back up.
- Warren really wants to try and eat one of the Hound corpses. Valaari stops him, they can do much more useful things with the corpses of time beings.
- They spend 10 minutes harvesting the two corpses. The parts feel wrong, it's uncomfortable to carry them.
- Bhaltair and Naze spend that time to Refocus
- While they're harvesting the corpses, a Minotaur rounds the corner and stops. They're dressed in miner's clothing, with a pickaxe and an enormous slab of stone slung across their back with a maze carved into it. They've used string to mark a route through the maze, and hung their other supplies from the slab. Bhaltair recognises her, the minotaur that their future selves were with.
- She gives a little wave, and we end the session