So the dungeon that ended on 9/22/2014 was a multi-session monster that started on the 16th of August. Pretty wild.
-Our party, consisting of Dot Hopson Hoshiko Taiyotsuki, Big Annie Bigs, Maya Drangleic, Brock Ohmama, and Macaiah, have agreed to a potentially three day long endurance Crawl. Since they're in the underground circuit, this could potentially lead to riches or rags. Made of flesh. Their flesh.
-We were in fact planted as one of the only competant participants. They wanted people who'd actually have a chance of clearing the whole thing, seeing as we were told there were upwards of several hundred participants.
-After a drive to the location (and a beer or two between Maya and Annie), and a conversation on taking things seriously, our protagonists arrive at the upper level of the Los Angeles tunnels. They walk into the dungeon proper, where all the competitors have gathered. None really stand out as actually dangerous...except for a man in a karate gi, and another party of six.
-There's a bit of interaction with the cannon fodder. Annie gathers a crowd with some of her hobo advice, though the party is quick to close in rather protectively.
-Our sponsors show up! Long story short we get Kaiji'd. Everyone can take out a loan at the beginning of the dungeon, up to ten thousand, and for every day they spend, they have to pay back double. Maya borrows ten thousand after a moment's thought. Hoshiko deliberates for a while before edging with 2000; Macaiah could care less and goes for 1000. Annie surprises everyone with ten thousand...along with whatever's left over after everyone's made their bet. Brock goes for 1000 himself. At the end of the loans, Annie gets another twenty grand on top of her initial bag.
-So we go into the dungeon with 44000 gold on us!
-The additional rules are introduced at this point; silver stars. Anyone can exit the dungeon with two stars; the stars are taken, debts are paid, and the participant can leave with any left over treasure. Each additional star counts as 7000gp as bonus.
-The dungeon consists of five floors and a down-only elevator where everyone starts. Each floor is worse than the one above The other participants fudge up and are forced to spend some money on last minute supplies, while our protagonists aren't so silly.
-After entering the elevator (with some questions asked and answered), our party debates which floor to go; eventually we decide on the third, using that as a gauge.
-The elevator opens up to the first floor; fifty people of the hundred run out thanks to the massive container of stars in the middle of a massive room. However, the leader of the pack hits a force wall before he can reach it. Someone fires off some magic, killing that guy off; to the surprise of everyone, two stars fly out of the middle container and into the killer's hand. A bloodbath begins as the elevator closes.
-The second floor reveals six balance beams over a pit. About 25 of the 50 left head out, some crossing the pit, others being more cautious...until a bladed pendulum swings in, destroying the balance beams and sending those unfortunate enough to be slow to their doom.
-The third floor is where we get off. Immediately there's a scream for help; the monk's eyes snap open and he dashes out. Everyone else seems less interested.
-Our party follows...slowly. We give the place a good look first; it's a lake with an island in the middle, where an attractive young lady is bound up in chains. The place is not well lit. Maya's skin itches when she stares at the damsel, and the last time she got the rashes was when they fought against a demon two weeks ago. Not a good sign.
-Kung Fu Joe jumps the thirty foot stretch of water easily as we case the area. The damsel's tiny, helpless looking, and has two stars on her slave's collar as the monk gets close enough to help...
-Damsel kisses him. Wings, horns, and a tail appear and our monk friend is stuck.
-As the party approaches to help, the succubus finishes up and pushes Ryu into the water, where the seaweed animates and begins to strangle; strangleweed, obviously. Maya trades slurs and epithets with the succubus as everyone else gets closer. However, Hoshiko flubs her jump and ends up in the water, but she does manage to hit the strangleweed.
-Long story short we manage to get the monk and Hoshi out, and pretty much maim the harlot, but in a fit of spite she breaks the monk's spine before we finish her.
-Next is a three section room with a choice; help a drow escape or let the imp on the other side kill her. We get two stars later with the first and two stars now for the latter; we go with the first option but cheat by just breaking apart the cage. Valeria the drow and a scroll of Baleful Polymorph (the way we were SUPPOSED to get her out) acquired.
-We find a set of stairs up along the way.
-Our next encounter is a very large goat with hooves of fire! He offers one soul for two stars.
-We trade the succubus' corpse for a star.
-Following this is a room with lots of unmarked levers and a kobold dangling from a chain above a tank of sharks! The chain is slowly lowering. Instead of trying the levers out like good adventurers we throw a grappling hook and pull the kobold aside. He passes us two stars and joins the party! There's also a secret door...with a secret green room!
-Next is an asshole trap. A guy is pinned to a wheel over a large pit, and there are two targets with various green and red stripes. Hitting a red spot does something bad to the guy, but brings the wheel closer; hitting a green does something good but sends him further away. We end up giving him some water via the targets before heading off.
-Afterwards we enter a room full of sahuagin! And a trapped faerie. We kill off the sahuagin, free the faerie, and trade a fishman corpse for goatman's last star. Hoshiko also goes unconscious this fight, but our faerie friend (Claire) helps heal everyone.
-We find an altar to Hades/Pluto and don't fuck with it.
-Our next encounter is a wall of corpses! But we kill it okay. Two more stars! The kobold then introduces himself as Bradic.
-After some more exploring our new encouter is...a repeat of the first? There's a woman with small wings and horns on the center of an island surrounded by a small lake.
-Maya understandably is quite frustrated after all the encounters with her extended 'family' this floor and levels with the girl. We do end up freeing her and she joins the party! She's an alu-fiend named Jane. Maya begrudgingly offers her the same shelter she's offered Val and Bradic at her neck of the city.
-The next new room we enter has a troll! And the area its in and before it is surrounded by coldfire torches instead of normal torches, oddly. We land a few hits and Maya prepares to throw one of her bombs to stop the thing from regenerating...but notices something! There's an odd reaction when she lights the catalyst. Maya realizes the entire area is filled with explosive gas! Hence the torches. But we manage to kill the troll anyway.
-Last encounter of floor three is a kyton! We kill it and take all its chains...and find a diary in Infernal about something involving a politician? Maya transcribes a summary of it and passes it to Brock, then burns the diary. Some Senator seems to be behind the dungeon, and there was something about blood sacrifices!
-We head to floor four!
-First room of the dungeon is a...diner? With a dude? A chump we saw take ten grand out loan wise. He's worried! We try to reason with him, but upon seeing Annie he attacks! In the end we discover he's possessed by a ghost so we just kill him.
-Next room is a bunch of dead sahuagin! Actually killed by the possessed guy before he got possessed, apparently.
-After is...a hugeass lake room. Annie and Maya go exploring the lake while everyone holds back; we end up getting into an altercation with a juvenile black dragon and trade some hard hits; we leave but we aren't sure if we killed it! We waste some time with a bait then leave.
-Following this is a room where three cabinets have been hacked apart! And a dead guy. Seems like he was looking for secret compartments the violent way and got poisoned for his troubles. We loot some stuff.
-A room next with a huge chest in the middle is next! It's definitely trapped. We try a few things, then finally tug it open from afar with a chain. It blows up in a huge pillar of flame! But there's nothing inside. Already looted. Regardless, we loot the mechanism of the chest itself and find some alchemy materials for Maya.
-The next room we find is full of trash, rats...and a Raijuu. We try to pelt it from afar, but all that does is set off a huge trap! Brock nearly dies when the Raijuu turns the corridor we entered from into a railgun.
-Our next encounter is a Rope Golem! But Brock has Animate Rope and it gets eaten alive.
-At the bottom of a pit there's a bunch of loot and acid cleaned bones; we end up in an encounter with a wall of slime but survive. Hoshiko gets paralyzed, but she recovers well enough. We loot a bunch of platinum, a star, a brooch of +2 con, and three swords!
-After this we sneak up to another room...and find a huge mess of slimes, of all different colors, mixed together. It's a 30 square foot monstrosity that hurts to even look at. We decide to bail the fuck out.
-We make a quick stop at the safe room next to the sharks, where we put our NPCs, and decide on a plan. The party agrees on exploring floor two a bit then heading back to floor one.
-After another room of dead sahuagin we actually find the stairs to floor one near immedaiately. There's a strange machine with several settings and a green room! Opening it reveals the survivors of the mess on the first floor, all looking really shaken. We putter around a bit before heading back down. At this point we have 27 stars, 18000 in coin (not including our loans), two swords, a katana, and a brooch of +2 con.
-Returning to floor two, our next encounter is a large room with chains crisscrossing all over it! There's a chest suspended there as well, and live electricity runs through all the chains. The chest ends up being a capacitor and shocks us, but we find a secret compartment in the ceiling that gives us two more stars.
-Two kobolds in a chessboard style room follow; the kobolds try to set off the runes on the tiles to get us with what seems to be a beefed up Magic Missile spell, but they die to their own clever plan. Two stars!
-Our next encounter is an extremely loud room that plays dubstep so loud it actually does damage; we manage to turn off the machine from afar. However, a pair of allips attacks us in the room! We manage to turn the machine back on to pulp them, then back off. We find 2 stars, 13000gp, three daggers, one chain shirt, and a set of studded leather. And Nikes! Maya puts them on and finds she's more agile.
-The next room is full of carnival mirrors! Two stars are reflected in one of them, and there's writing on the floor that says "Relax, close your eyes and just take it." Further fine print reads "All mirrors property of 'Dis' LLC. Any damages will be charged via standard contract 2934726c." We end up thinking about it too much, but end up with two more stars!
-Afterwards we find a room full of acid! We don't bother.
-Another room with a pit! Also don't bother. Grates and falling things everywhere.
-Thank the gods, we find a green room next. We rest a bit...and hear voices. They're moving away. Other contestants that seem to be grumbling about loot, and specifically us. If "That old hag has 30k on her!" is any indication.
-We choose not to fight them there and back off to our NPCs, hoping to get out.
-However, the shark room is bathed in darkness! The dragon we fought earlier reveals herself, and we end up teaming up with her to take on the other legitimate party, who apparently took the dragon's treasure after we weakened him. Her name's Murk!
-The chase is on! Sadly the fight in the end is pretty anticlimatic. Glitterdust OP. We shank their barbarian after he lands a good hit on Hoshiko, immolate and impale their rogue, and stick their mage to the floor. The other two get away! But we end up with 29 more stars, 87k GP, an axe, a knife, studded leather, a set of robes, bracers, two amulets, a cape and a breastplate.
-We get out! The machine on the first floor is used to unstone the guy on the third floor, for another two stars, and we leave the dungeon. We pay off our two day's debt of 88000, returning our loans and then some, then cash in our stars. Brock has an apartment complex offered to him, and everyone heads home...
total: 382k, scroll of baleful polymorph, and assorted gear
