4 arms and short - you know, Nana-shaped!
Jul. 19th, 2024 01:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xancrediblePrevious sessions can be found here.
We picked up where we left off last time, with our gang of hellions who've just been given a quest to save the universe from imploding. They're all a little suspicious and/or worried about this task for their own reasons but they're all willing to do it until they encounter a reason why they definitely shouldnt. Both Cadmus and Paul feel responsible for the safety of the mortal plane, which is their motivator. Aether just wants their powers back and to get out of this circle of Hell, and they might also be worried about Lucifer a little bit. Ronnie is dreading that this quest will confirm all her worst fears about herself, so we'll see how that will work out for her longterm. The only one who, despite being a little suspicious, is actually excited and gung-ho, is our kitty cat The Tigress, former pirate captain, because she finally gets to go somewhere else and do a new thing.
We start with the group heading to the office manager who might be able to give them an idea on where to start to get Permit A83. Aether, on a good history roll, remembers that this guy is hard to deal with because it's diffiult to get accurate information out of him.
True enough, when they get there and ask him abut Permit A83, he tries to redirect them to the DMV to register a car, which is decidedly not what the wanted to do. They persist though and keep asking, and finally he sends them to Window 1. Unfortunately, the directions he gave them were wrong, and so they open another door only to find a person on a massage table getting a massage. The person gets very angry at them for interrupting this important meeting, and tells them to fuck off and check the floor plan on the 10th floor.
Now, as we've established - and as Sammie has specifically asked for - none of the elevators work, so they have to climb stairs to get up to the 10th floor, and make Con saves. 2 characters failed their saves, but didn't experience any consequences (yet). [1]
They find the floorplan.
So, you know, slightly confusing. With successfull Intelligence checks, however, they manage to figure out where Window 1 is [2], and head back down to the ground floor. They encounter an elderly lady who's knitting and/or crocheting. She greets them warmly and gets right on the task of looking for Permit A83 but alas, she doesn't have it but now that she thinks abut it, they should be able to get it from Window 2.
Window 2 is of course not right next to Window 1, but unfortunately, the Nana-shaped clerk doesn't know where the Window is either, so back to the floor plan the group goes. They all make their Con save this time.
In fact, upon reaching the floor plan, Aether (with a little help on my part, albeit unintended) remembers they have a clipboard and pen, and copies down the floorplan. The performance roll was so good that it was an exact replica and now they won't have to go back here again to check it if they need more directions.
Window 2 is only 2 floors down from the 10th floor, so down the stairs they go again. Behind Window 2 is a middle-aged woman talking to the simmilarly middle-aged woman behind Window 48 (which is right next to 2) about someone's husband's affair. They entirely ignore the group until Aether casts Thaumaturgy on Ronnie's throat-clearing.
They're told (rudely and impatiently) that in order to get Permit A83 they need to hand in the blue form.
At this point, the group of players is starting to entertain fantasies of committing violence - definitely against these NPCs, possibly against me.
They learn that they can get the blue form from Window 1 - at least they already know where that is!
Instead of going there, Cadmus has the brilliant idea, that, maybe, there's a manual or handbook somewhere that lists all the requirements for all of these permits and forms. The Tigress is the one to remember that she once delivered one to the Office Manager on the ground floor. Much groaning abounds but they decide to head there anyway.
The door is closed and there's a sign on it telling them he's at lunch and will be back. They decide, of course, to break into the office. We agree that it's most likely that The Tigress' thief's tools are her claws and with Cadmus' help to steady the door, on a Nat 20, she unlocks the door in 2 seconds flat.
Once the door is open, they see that the Office Manager is at lunch - at his own desk.
Aether and Ronnie both react quickly. Ronnie sends a Mind Sliver missile to give the Office Manager a migraine, and Aether rips off the post-it from the door and says it was locked. They roll well and manage to convince the Office Manager of this. They then proceed to ask about the manual and succeed on another roll so the Manager starts looking through his library card catalogue. The relevant volume of the handbook is not in this office but the Manager can go and get it from the Archives. He asks them to come back the next day.
Because there's a chance that the Office Manager might forget that he promised to bring up the volume, the group decides to keep going for now.
So we revisit the Nana-shaped clerk at Window 1.
Aaron, who plays Aether, was a little worried that she would be at lunch too, and I started grinning. The thing is that my original plan was for her to be on break to make their life harder, but because they took a detour to the office manager first, I put that hurdle in their way instead and so now she's already back from lunch.
She's crochet-knitting something with 3 hands, and sipping tea with a fourth. All Nanas have four arms, obviously.
She's so happy to see them again, it's always nice to have company. They ask about the blue form and she asks if they've brought her the purple form. They haven't. Does she know if there are any more forms? She say she knows there are other forms but not how many. She does know where to get the purple form though.
As this has now gone on for quite a while, and because they have a floor plan, I let them roll to skip the RP of the ensuing goose chase. They manage to get all the forms they need but they all take a level of exhaustion from it.
They rolled a 2nd time to see if they filled out the forms correctly. I didn't tell them at the time but unfortunately, they didn't. They made a mistake on the last one, so they have to do all of it again, but this time I don't make them roll for Con Saves again because the affectionate threats of violence were back and the goal isn't to exhaust the *players* xD
On their 2nd attempt, they still had a mistake on the form but I rolled to see if the rude clerk from Window 2 noticed and would you know, she didn't!
So now that everyone is exhausted but has received A83, they take a long rest, and then decide to see if the Office Manager did, in fact, remember to bring up the manual. They go through it and it was Aether who found out that they didn't need to do anything else to get the signature of the Head of Office on Permit A83 as long as they fill it out correctly (fill in their names, do not draw or writ anything else on it). Then they will also get the requisition slip to receive the 3rd charm for their bracelelt. However, Aether sees mention of a 4th charm to get out of this circle of hell. Unfortunately they can't figure out any more information about that because their roll wasn't good enough.
Form in hand, they walk all the way up to the 20th floor of this office building - but they take a rest on the 9th and 18th floor to avoid the exhaustion. Clever.
Up there, they find an enormous double door with a name plate that only says "Head of Office" on it. Aether tries to push it open but it doesn't budge. I'm about to make them do Perception checks when Cadmus jumps in to pull on the door. Would you know? It opens!
Inside is a big foyer with marble floors, a huge desk, potted plants, the temperature is a nice 21°C and it smells like good coffee and *actual* chocolate chip cookies - without any liquorice whatsoever.
Behind the desk sits a twink who smiles at them brightly and welcomes them to the top floor. He introduces himself as Melvin and tells them he's the secretary of the Head of Office. Aether says they need an appointment with the HoO right away and Melvin starts looking through the date book. Aether has a feeling this isn't going to go well for them, so they roll to discern this person's sexuality and they rolled nearly a nat 20, I think? Either way, they got a pretty high roll and found out that Melvin is ace so no chance at seducing him. They do, however, successful Charm Person him, and then Melvin is more than ready to get them into the office. He pushes a button on the intercom and tells Mr. I that there's a group of people here with a correctly filled-in Permit A83.
Mr. I says to let them in, and so another double door behind Melvin, even bigger than the first one, opens inwards by itself.
Cadmus: This is the one that is pushed open.
Aether: Thanks, I've noticed.
Despite the enormous doors and luxurious front office, Mr. I's actually office is small, and sparsely furnished. Normal-size desk, no decorations, nothing worth noticing.
Behind the desk sits an androgynous person with long, dark hair and a beard. He doesn't seem too friendly but he does take Permit A83 from them, checks if it's in order (staring at everyone in turn to make sure the person in front of him is the person whose name is on the permit) and then stamps it with "APPROVED", signs it, hands it to Melvin who makes a copy and returns. Mr. I stamps the copy with "APPROVED COPY" and signs that too, then hands that to Aether. After that, he takes out a slip of paper from his desk, fills in an archive number, another stamp and signature and that's handed to Aether, too. This is for the 3rd bracelet charm.
Aether narrows their eyes at Mr. I and asks "What about the fourth?"
Mr. I didn't roll well enough to hide his surprise but he's smug about it anyway and doesn't tell them how to get the fourth charm.
All of them try to intimidate him and Cadmus does roll pretty well and is looking literally and figuratively hot with the lava glowing in his skin and the anger radiating from him. He knows fiends and devils well enough to know that Mr. I is vulnerable to silver, and is trying to communicate this through an angry glare, but since none of them made the DC with their initimidation checks, Mr. I remains smug and unimpressed. Instead he pushes a button on his desk and a trap door opens beneath the group, sliding them all the way back down to the ground floor.
On the upside, they don't have to walk down the stairs themselves again!
[1] If they had failed 3 con saves, they would've taken a level of exhaustion.
[2] No one rolled a Nat 20 on this one but if they had done it 3 times in a row, they would've memorised the floor plan
This is, where, after 3 hours of frustration (on the characters' parts), desperation and violent fantasies (on the players' parts), and fun and glee (on my part) the session finally ended. Next time we'll be heading to the Archive to get that charm and try to find out how to get the fourth charm so they can finally get out of the 9th circle of hell.
Aaron, who play Aether, will be missing due to short-notice RL commitments, but Ria will pilot Aether in his absence, along with her own character, Ronnie.
As before: If any of my players notice that I missed anything important (or funny or interesting), please add it in the comments.
PS: If you'd like to know what inspired this task:
We picked up where we left off last time, with our gang of hellions who've just been given a quest to save the universe from imploding. They're all a little suspicious and/or worried about this task for their own reasons but they're all willing to do it until they encounter a reason why they definitely shouldnt. Both Cadmus and Paul feel responsible for the safety of the mortal plane, which is their motivator. Aether just wants their powers back and to get out of this circle of Hell, and they might also be worried about Lucifer a little bit. Ronnie is dreading that this quest will confirm all her worst fears about herself, so we'll see how that will work out for her longterm. The only one who, despite being a little suspicious, is actually excited and gung-ho, is our kitty cat The Tigress, former pirate captain, because she finally gets to go somewhere else and do a new thing.
We start with the group heading to the office manager who might be able to give them an idea on where to start to get Permit A83. Aether, on a good history roll, remembers that this guy is hard to deal with because it's diffiult to get accurate information out of him.
True enough, when they get there and ask him abut Permit A83, he tries to redirect them to the DMV to register a car, which is decidedly not what the wanted to do. They persist though and keep asking, and finally he sends them to Window 1. Unfortunately, the directions he gave them were wrong, and so they open another door only to find a person on a massage table getting a massage. The person gets very angry at them for interrupting this important meeting, and tells them to fuck off and check the floor plan on the 10th floor.
Now, as we've established - and as Sammie has specifically asked for - none of the elevators work, so they have to climb stairs to get up to the 10th floor, and make Con saves. 2 characters failed their saves, but didn't experience any consequences (yet). [1]
They find the floorplan.
So, you know, slightly confusing. With successfull Intelligence checks, however, they manage to figure out where Window 1 is [2], and head back down to the ground floor. They encounter an elderly lady who's knitting and/or crocheting. She greets them warmly and gets right on the task of looking for Permit A83 but alas, she doesn't have it but now that she thinks abut it, they should be able to get it from Window 2.
Window 2 is of course not right next to Window 1, but unfortunately, the Nana-shaped clerk doesn't know where the Window is either, so back to the floor plan the group goes. They all make their Con save this time.
In fact, upon reaching the floor plan, Aether (with a little help on my part, albeit unintended) remembers they have a clipboard and pen, and copies down the floorplan. The performance roll was so good that it was an exact replica and now they won't have to go back here again to check it if they need more directions.
Window 2 is only 2 floors down from the 10th floor, so down the stairs they go again. Behind Window 2 is a middle-aged woman talking to the simmilarly middle-aged woman behind Window 48 (which is right next to 2) about someone's husband's affair. They entirely ignore the group until Aether casts Thaumaturgy on Ronnie's throat-clearing.
They're told (rudely and impatiently) that in order to get Permit A83 they need to hand in the blue form.
At this point, the group of players is starting to entertain fantasies of committing violence - definitely against these NPCs, possibly against me.
They learn that they can get the blue form from Window 1 - at least they already know where that is!
Instead of going there, Cadmus has the brilliant idea, that, maybe, there's a manual or handbook somewhere that lists all the requirements for all of these permits and forms. The Tigress is the one to remember that she once delivered one to the Office Manager on the ground floor. Much groaning abounds but they decide to head there anyway.
The door is closed and there's a sign on it telling them he's at lunch and will be back. They decide, of course, to break into the office. We agree that it's most likely that The Tigress' thief's tools are her claws and with Cadmus' help to steady the door, on a Nat 20, she unlocks the door in 2 seconds flat.
Once the door is open, they see that the Office Manager is at lunch - at his own desk.
Aether and Ronnie both react quickly. Ronnie sends a Mind Sliver missile to give the Office Manager a migraine, and Aether rips off the post-it from the door and says it was locked. They roll well and manage to convince the Office Manager of this. They then proceed to ask about the manual and succeed on another roll so the Manager starts looking through his library card catalogue. The relevant volume of the handbook is not in this office but the Manager can go and get it from the Archives. He asks them to come back the next day.
Because there's a chance that the Office Manager might forget that he promised to bring up the volume, the group decides to keep going for now.
So we revisit the Nana-shaped clerk at Window 1.
Aaron, who plays Aether, was a little worried that she would be at lunch too, and I started grinning. The thing is that my original plan was for her to be on break to make their life harder, but because they took a detour to the office manager first, I put that hurdle in their way instead and so now she's already back from lunch.
She's crochet-knitting something with 3 hands, and sipping tea with a fourth. All Nanas have four arms, obviously.
She's so happy to see them again, it's always nice to have company. They ask about the blue form and she asks if they've brought her the purple form. They haven't. Does she know if there are any more forms? She say she knows there are other forms but not how many. She does know where to get the purple form though.
As this has now gone on for quite a while, and because they have a floor plan, I let them roll to skip the RP of the ensuing goose chase. They manage to get all the forms they need but they all take a level of exhaustion from it.
They rolled a 2nd time to see if they filled out the forms correctly. I didn't tell them at the time but unfortunately, they didn't. They made a mistake on the last one, so they have to do all of it again, but this time I don't make them roll for Con Saves again because the affectionate threats of violence were back and the goal isn't to exhaust the *players* xD
On their 2nd attempt, they still had a mistake on the form but I rolled to see if the rude clerk from Window 2 noticed and would you know, she didn't!
So now that everyone is exhausted but has received A83, they take a long rest, and then decide to see if the Office Manager did, in fact, remember to bring up the manual. They go through it and it was Aether who found out that they didn't need to do anything else to get the signature of the Head of Office on Permit A83 as long as they fill it out correctly (fill in their names, do not draw or writ anything else on it). Then they will also get the requisition slip to receive the 3rd charm for their bracelelt. However, Aether sees mention of a 4th charm to get out of this circle of hell. Unfortunately they can't figure out any more information about that because their roll wasn't good enough.
Form in hand, they walk all the way up to the 20th floor of this office building - but they take a rest on the 9th and 18th floor to avoid the exhaustion. Clever.
Up there, they find an enormous double door with a name plate that only says "Head of Office" on it. Aether tries to push it open but it doesn't budge. I'm about to make them do Perception checks when Cadmus jumps in to pull on the door. Would you know? It opens!
Inside is a big foyer with marble floors, a huge desk, potted plants, the temperature is a nice 21°C and it smells like good coffee and *actual* chocolate chip cookies - without any liquorice whatsoever.
Behind the desk sits a twink who smiles at them brightly and welcomes them to the top floor. He introduces himself as Melvin and tells them he's the secretary of the Head of Office. Aether says they need an appointment with the HoO right away and Melvin starts looking through the date book. Aether has a feeling this isn't going to go well for them, so they roll to discern this person's sexuality and they rolled nearly a nat 20, I think? Either way, they got a pretty high roll and found out that Melvin is ace so no chance at seducing him. They do, however, successful Charm Person him, and then Melvin is more than ready to get them into the office. He pushes a button on the intercom and tells Mr. I that there's a group of people here with a correctly filled-in Permit A83.
Mr. I says to let them in, and so another double door behind Melvin, even bigger than the first one, opens inwards by itself.
Cadmus: This is the one that is pushed open.
Aether: Thanks, I've noticed.
Despite the enormous doors and luxurious front office, Mr. I's actually office is small, and sparsely furnished. Normal-size desk, no decorations, nothing worth noticing.
Behind the desk sits an androgynous person with long, dark hair and a beard. He doesn't seem too friendly but he does take Permit A83 from them, checks if it's in order (staring at everyone in turn to make sure the person in front of him is the person whose name is on the permit) and then stamps it with "APPROVED", signs it, hands it to Melvin who makes a copy and returns. Mr. I stamps the copy with "APPROVED COPY" and signs that too, then hands that to Aether. After that, he takes out a slip of paper from his desk, fills in an archive number, another stamp and signature and that's handed to Aether, too. This is for the 3rd bracelet charm.
Aether narrows their eyes at Mr. I and asks "What about the fourth?"
Mr. I didn't roll well enough to hide his surprise but he's smug about it anyway and doesn't tell them how to get the fourth charm.
All of them try to intimidate him and Cadmus does roll pretty well and is looking literally and figuratively hot with the lava glowing in his skin and the anger radiating from him. He knows fiends and devils well enough to know that Mr. I is vulnerable to silver, and is trying to communicate this through an angry glare, but since none of them made the DC with their initimidation checks, Mr. I remains smug and unimpressed. Instead he pushes a button on his desk and a trap door opens beneath the group, sliding them all the way back down to the ground floor.
On the upside, they don't have to walk down the stairs themselves again!
[1] If they had failed 3 con saves, they would've taken a level of exhaustion.
[2] No one rolled a Nat 20 on this one but if they had done it 3 times in a row, they would've memorised the floor plan
This is, where, after 3 hours of frustration (on the characters' parts), desperation and violent fantasies (on the players' parts), and fun and glee (on my part) the session finally ended. Next time we'll be heading to the Archive to get that charm and try to find out how to get the fourth charm so they can finally get out of the 9th circle of hell.
Aaron, who play Aether, will be missing due to short-notice RL commitments, but Ria will pilot Aether in his absence, along with her own character, Ronnie.
As before: If any of my players notice that I missed anything important (or funny or interesting), please add it in the comments.
PS: If you'd like to know what inspired this task:
