Lamplighter Levity

Historian: Caleb. Date: 03/10/2025

TLDR – We manage to beat Quasit and un-square-ify everything. Gwyn discovers her mother’s work in Quasit’s machinery. Everyone is perplexed by Astranna’s pyromancy, including Astranna. We check in with Newt, and stay the night at the local Lamplighter’s Lodge. Jericho makes a toothy new friend, and discovers we can’t enter dreams without a mysterious blue crystal. Gibby goes fracking. Newton asks Jericho (and by extension, the rest of us) to solve the mystery of Mrs. Penderghast’s missing item.

• Date: 5 Lionnir 777AR – 6 Lionnir 777AR.
• As the waves of energy expand out, we cut to Low Falutin. There are townsfolk walking down the street, pushing wagons and carts, and all of a sudden trade grinds to a halt, as there’s a horrible squealing sound from the wheels and gears around town… people at the local well are trying to bring up water, but the round gears have turned square and gnash into each other.

Combat Continues

Still Round 3

• From atop his machine, Dr. Quasit declares that the rest of the Skybound Lands is next (aside from what he owns). He fires his Charlie Horse Ray at Jericho, this time with a tinge of yellow sparks to it. Dalton is asked to choose between left or right. He chooses left, and Jericho’s left foot turns square… and he gets a charlie horse! His movement speed is reduced by 20 ft.
• Anja rips and tears her way from inside the cube, and puts Command on Quasit. Gwyn also gets out, and gives Anja quick feet. Astranna takes a minor injury (movement speed reduced by 20 ft) as the cube eats her from the feet up. Gwyn is attacked by 2 green oozes. Alphie tries to freeze their way out, and fails the check, but according to the gm it is a good idea.

Round 4

• Jericho momentarily disrupts the dish, and things revert a bit, the cubes losing some of their shape. Quasit calls us meatheads, and action dashes up onto the dish to start trying to repair the damage. Anja sends forward a curse, and a darkness creeps over the dish, seeping into the cracks of the metal and ripping it apart. Quasit makes a phys save to keep from falling, and fails, losing 20 sp.
• Astranna takes a major injury (enemies get B1 on her for 1 day), but uses her action to heat herself with her Pyromancy, making the ooze explode and shoot her out. Alphie escapes their cube, and bravely runs away.

Round 5

• Jericho plants his newly-unsquared foot on Quasit’s chest and shoots the dish. Quasit bites him in the foot, making his shot go wide.
  • “Aha! I win!”
• We find out “I’ll be back, you haven’t seen the last of me!” is apparently Quasit’s activation phrase for the teleportation… but it’s very slow. Anja successfully breaks the dish, and high above, the energy dissipates. The trees become more rounded, and the cubes begin to shrink a bit, their corners becoming far less exaggerated. They don’t look nearly as strong now. Jericho reads Quasit his Miranda Rights.
• Gwyn chops through one of the blue cubes. Quasit starts to shout, “Hey! That’s one of my employ–” before he’s teleported away. Sensing their own weakness, the cubes merge together into one megacube. Astranna attacks into it with Pyromancy I (B1, Sheer I – 3 successes) and there’s a series of mini explosions in it, as its membrane weakens.

Round 6

• Jericho shoots at the megacube, and sets the membrane on fire. It has no more sp left! He gives Astranna Chosen’s Blessing. Anja uses Blighting Hex on it (4 successes).
  • “I HATE CUBES! I AM ROUND!”
• The darkness seeps from the dish and crawls at the cube quickly, seeping through it and digesting it. It dissipates into nothing.

Combat Ends

• The party questions Astranna’s fire. No one knew about it… including her! They volunteer to help her with her magic. She just hopes it doesn’t require her being mad again, since that’s why it happened in the first place.
• Gwyn climbs on the machine to see if Quasit left anything behind… it doesn’t seem like he did, but some of the parts are finely machined, and she recognizes them – the machining is the same type, design, and technique used by Anwynn Artificing. She removes a custom bolt she’s seen used 100 times before… everything is the same. It is unmistakably Morgan’s.
• Gwyn rapidly takes things apart and stuffs them in her bag, looking freaked out the whole time. She gets 5lb premium Quasit scrap, and tells the others (everyone sans Astranna, who stayed on the ground) that she recognizes the work on them – they look unmistakably like what her mother uses. Anja suggests that maybe since the scraps got here, it’s a sign we can get back where we came from. We decide to press Quasit on where he got all this next time.
  • Astranna’s been sitting on the ground cross-legged, pulling up handfuls of grass, but stands when the others hop down. Gwyn offers her help walking, which she readily accepts.
• We make our way back to Low Falutin. Some people poke their heads out of their homes, others cry out.
  • “There they are! The Tattercoat Knights!”
• One woman throws flowers at Jericho, other people throw handfuls of grain… and then he needs to make a physical save! He gets hit in the face by a brick. A turtle man with a wagon full of bricks gives a thumbs up.
  • “Thank… you… Tattercoat… Knight…”
  • “How did you throw that so hard when you’re so slow?”
  • “It’s all… in… the angle…”
• He picks up the wagon and runs away at regular speed. Jericho gives Piero a flower, and looks for a stand with celery. He finds one run by a rabbit-person, who asks if we were the ones who helped to stop whatever was going on over there, and they give Jericho the celery on the house.
• Astranna checks on Henrietta, who’s chilling. Pecking at her and the grain. Henrietta says the sun is hiding, and Astranna tells her the stars are coming out to say hi, but soon the sun will come out to say hi again!
• Anja takes Maple to a fish stall, and tells her it’s her choice, but she has to eat all of it. Maple wants to choose all of it, but eventually they settle on halibut, which Maple insists on eating indoors.
• We go to the well, where Newton is waiting for us, and he tells us we look terrible. We ask if there’s somewhere we can stay for the night, and he tells us the Lamplighter’s Lodge; we can find a lodge pretty much everywhere we go. The Lamplighter looks out for all travelers. We pass through more of the town, and more people look and point at us, toss us some thank you’s and, among other things, some coins. Jericho grabs all of them – +30gp (dispersed amongst us).
• We ask about Newton’s family, and he tells us his mom runs a stall, and his dad goes out and trades, bringing in new items from other villages (and Newton’s an explorer!).
• We eventually make it to the Lamplighter’s Lodge, a 3-story domed building, with a series of lamps giving an orange hue to the street. We find out there’s no one to check in with or pay – it’s all covered by the clerics. Inside, the central chamber is filled with candles leading the way to a dining room, where animals in different vestments make their way around, putting bowls of porridge, fruit, and meat in front of travelers.
• There’s a big book that shows which rooms are open and which aren’t – of 24 rooms, 11 are free, mostly on the first floor, but some on the third. The third floor ones are all 1 bed to a room, and the max is 3 beds to a room, though only one is like that. Jericho asks if we’d mind him having a single room, and no one does. Astranna asks to share with someone, and Alphie and Gwyn both volunteer, so they decide to all room together. Anja takes a single room for herself and Maple.
• Jericho stops a pigeon cleric and asks for something cold. They give him an ice water, and he uses the glass on his black eye.
  • “May the Lamplighter show you the lit path to your destiny.”
• We head to our rooms, which are equipped with straw mattresses, and some pillows and blankets. Anja lets Maple out and gives her the fish.
  • Maple looks at the fish. Sniffs it. Little bite. Consider it. Little bite. Sniff sniff. Bats the fish around a little bit. Little bite. – And she keeps on doing this.
• Anja watches her with tired eyes, and if she ever stops watching, Maple starts yelling at her to pay attention.
  • “What if I choke on the fish?”
• Maple is happy that she’s finally inside, and doesn’t wish to go outside again.
  • “I’ve got bad news for you, but I’ll tell you in the morning.”
• Maple says that as long as it’s not that they’re going back outside, it’s fine.
• Jericho goes to the communal bath. He sees rows of heated tubs, and in one is an 11 ft alligator, with its head partially out. Jericho takes the bath closest to the door, and the alligator slowly looks at him. Jericho attempts to shut his eyes and ignore it, but every minute or two he opens them and looks in that direction out of habit. Each time, the alligator’s a little closer. He leaves his eyes open, but still, every few minutes it takes a step closer.
  • “Can I help you?”
• The alligator continues to step closer, and it dawns on Jericho… there is no sentience in this creature. It’s just an alligator. As soon as he realizes this, he throws his pants on and sprints out (holding the rest of his clothes), running headfirst into a hippo.
  • “Hey– oh, you’re a Tattercoat Knight. Hey, have you seen an alligator anywhere?”
• Jericho points him inside the bath.
  • “Oh! Princess! There you are!”
• A growl comes from the alligator, and the hippo-man comes out with the alligator fireman-style over his shoulder, with a pink collar around its neck and a whole cooked chicken in its mouth. The hippo thanks him, and Jericho gets to finish his fucking bath. Piero tells him his celery is good. Jericho gets a hero point!
• Astranna does a dance for Gunthar before bed.
• In the Astranna-Gwyn-Alphie room, they decide to play a card game. Alphie teaches them BS, and says that when they were a kid, their friend Beatie convinced them BS stood for Bologna Sandwich. Since Astranna’s deck is missing the 9 of hearts, they ask the Gibbit for one, and the Gibbit eats Alphie’s blanket before opening its mouth and firing a continuous stream of 9 of hearts. Everyone pets the Gibbit, and get distracted from the game.
• The Gibbit eats some of the floor, and they try to redirect it with scrap [1d100 – 48]. It starts blinking and twitching, making noises, before coughing up an hourglass. The sand in it flows against gravity. Astranna trades Gwyn the cigarette in exchange for the hourglass, and is very entertained playing with it.
• Alphie tries to recycle a 9 of hearts to get a spirit board, and it throws up goo. They give it a days’ worth of rations, and they get… kind of a spirit board! There are letters mixed with weird arcane symbols. The Gibbit is uninterested in communication.
• Jericho asks the Augury how to use the sand to contact Stella – his vision darkens, and he sees himself from a 3rd person perspective, floating in space inside a bubble. He cannot break through it. He throws the sand, and it does not get through the bubble. He watches himself look around, and grab what appears to be a small, long, blue crystal. As he grabs it, his hair whips and whips around the bubble, before breaking through. He throws the sand out, and it drifts through space, until amongst great cosmic clouds, he sees Stella floating there. As the sand whips around, all of a sudden, he’s back to himself, and the bubble closes over, like it’s repairing itself.
• The vision ends, and he tries to send a dream of him and Stella walking in the woods.
• We get a complete rest!
• Those sharing the room notice Alphie buried under a mountain of blankets, and a tunnel going into the ground. It’s about 3 ft in diameter, and snakes down through the floorboards, through the foundation, into a basement, and even below that. The Gibbit is snuggled up to Alphie on the pillow. They give him scritches and breakfast, with no expectation of recompense. We go out to get porridge.
• Astranna stresses about the hole, and wants to tell a cleric about it, but the party wants to wait until after breakfast. She just kind of pushes her porridge around, clearly worried – the Gibbit lays on her lap, making noises – and Jericho sighs, standing and finding the pigeon-cleric. He tells them we’ve unintentionally damaged the room, and offers payment.
  • “These things happen between couples, I suppose. [...] We’ll have to see the damage, but I am sure the Lamplighter will provide.”
  • The cleric tells him word has gotten out of our deeds yesterday, and thanks him.
• Anja breaks the bad news to Maple, who feels hated and runs away. Newton walks in, saying bye to Maple as she runs past. He asks Jericho if he’s good at finding things. Jericho puts his spoon down and straightens his coat, saying that yes, he is good at finding things. Newton tells him there’s been a robbery last night, and Jericho’s eyes widen.
  • “Do. Tell. Newton.”
• He says a neighbor on his street was robbed – Mrs. Penderghast. A very important item was taken from her, and she’s been looking for it everywhere last night and this morning. Newton told her they had people who could help, but she thought he was telling tall tales. Jericho and Piero whisper to each other in celebration of their case, and high-five.
  • “Okay, Newton, you’re gonna tell me more things.”
• Newton tells us Mrs. Penderghast used up sunlight woven into sugar for this – that’s a rare thing.
• On our way out, we pass by the room… the cleric and 3 others are standing and staring at the hole in dead silence, mouths completely open. One has a stick and is poking it. Astranna tries to give them 10gp, but Jericho stops her and gives them 25gp. Anja calls Maple, and bribes her with fish, along with telling Maple she was very jealous when Maple ate the very delicious-looking fish. Maple demands uppies.
• One cleric counts out the gold, while the others look down.
  • “Yes, but… how did it know where the natural gas deposit was?”
• Anja tells Maple she’ll make scarves for her if she’s extra good (with blankets supplied by Alphie). No biting, using her words, being very cute… Otherwise, she’ll make Alphie a mega-blanket.
  • “I will play your stupid game.”
  • “Use your nice words, we don’t say ‘stupid’.”
  • “I will play your game I find meaningless, but you put meaning in, despite all evidence to the contrary.”
• As we head out, Alphie feels a shiver go up their spine, and their hand goes to the ball set within their necklace… there is now a very deep crack in it that seems to have been exacerbated by the cubes. They don’t pull any magic from it.
• Session ends here! We gain 1 level, rolled by Dalton.