Unknown Armies Play Report: A Dungeon Too Many, Playtest Two Part 2

 LATER, IN A FAR AWAY PLACE...

 

Cactus Garden was a border city, captured at the beginning of the Monarchy’s war with the Djinn Potentates. It sat atop a vast rock formation overlooking a desert of red stone and sand. Water from the pinnacle spilled down to the gardens and farms below.

The city took its name from the dwarf forests of cactus that grew in the foothills of the rock. These were deliberately cultivated by the Djinn, protected from overwatering or clearance by orchardists. They did this so they could use dense patches of cholla to crucify their enemies, tossing victims naked into the dense patches of cactus and watching them impale themselves trying to squirm free. The Old King had the Djinn Citadel converted to his War Palace, where he could direct the war from a safe position reasonably close to the frontline. In the interest of maintaining continuity with the previous rulers, he maintained the tradition of executing people by cactus.

Over the last month, flagellants, mercenaries, itinerant wizards and adventurers gathered in Cactus Garden. Unlike the rest of the soldiers and profiteers flooding into the city, they didn’t come in anticipation of the King’s new offensive against the Potentates. They came to stage a revolt, and that’s exactly what they did. 

 

Every gate in the city was packed with insurgents, attacking soldiers and preventing the Monarchy’s forces from moving freely. The rebellion had no chance of taking and holding the city long-term. They weren’t trying to. Their job was to keep reinforcements out of the War Palace until the Two Adventurers and their mutant brute squad could kill The Old King.

The sounds of battle in the city below were audible fifty feet below as they disembarked the climbing-snail, through the shredded window-grate and into the palace baths. Swords, shouting, lightning bolts and crumbling masonry.

 

The palace baths were empty. Water cascaded from the ceiling and flowed out through drains in the floor. A mural on the ceiling told the story of the Djinni Shiwomeez and his six wives. According to a recent addition to the fresco, five of those wives were now dead, and the lone survivor now served the Old King. A search of the nearby women's quarters confirmed this, as only one of the rooms appeared to be occupied (though not currently). The drawing room was likewise empty, the War Palace was apparently down to a skeleton staff with no reinforcements forthcoming from the city below. They went through a servant's chamber and down a flight of stairs to the lower level of the palace.

The ready room at the bottom of the stairs had a document detailing the defense of the palace. There were only nine guards on duty according to the document, three on each floor, all with instructions to regroup outside the war room in event of danger. The Two Adventurers and their mutant cohort explored the bottom floor of the palace. They entered a kitchen, where six slaves supervised by a half giant prepared food as though nothing was wrong. The slaves fled the armed adventurers, and Dacian used the power of the Self to coerce the giant chef into joining the rebellion. The chef, whose primary source of joy was preparing delicious meals for The Old King, flew into a psychotic rage and attacked Dacian. Lucky for the mage, the cook's anger overrode his reason, and he didn't have the presence of mind to fling a pan of hot cooking fat at anyone. He dealt Dacian a critical chop with his cleaver but was swiftly overwhelmed by Marrow Bone, who stabbed and stomped him to death alongside his  mutant allies.

 

The Adventurers barely had time to catch their breath before a pyromancer burst through a secret door, clad in an apron and safety goggles. She yelled at the chef to shut the fuck up because she was trying to work, saw that he was dead, and immediately began casting. Dacian drew the Ghoul Claw of Glory from his belt and cast Hold Person, immobilizing her so the mutants could subdue her. Through the secret door was a magickal laboratory full of grisly human experiments. A headless corpse filled with tubes, distilling a boiling substance from inside the chest cavity. A body used like a candle. A huge bronze oven, surface covered completely with nails. 

 

A single slave dressed in the same PPE as the fire mage tried to escape through the back door, but the adventurers grabbed him and demanded he explain what was going on. Firebringer was doing experiments for The Old King, trying to find a way for him to get magickal charges by burning people just like she did. The Old King was upstairs in the war room. They could get there using the dumbwaiter in the kitchen, or by going up the kitchen stairs. He also turned over the fire mage's notebook and a flask of aluminum shavings that would burn through any substance. The Adventurers gave Firebringer to the mutants to execute as they pleased, since they were victims of magickal experiments similar to her own. They tossed her in the oven of burnt nails and set it alight, suffocating her to death with smoke.

 

The Adventurers decided to hit the Old King with a pincer movement. Dacian would go up the dumbwaiter and hit him with a Hold Person using the remaining wax on his Ghoul Claw of Glory. Marrow Bone would lead the mutants up the kitchen stairs and come in through the front door of the war room.

 

Dacian packed himself into the dumbwaiter and sent himself upstairs. The little door slid open and he found himself in a circular chamber. The Old King stood at his scrying table, a shining oil lamp in one hand and a gauntlet on the other, a bronze crown in the style of the Ancient Empire upon his head. He was lost in intense concentration, micromanaging the defeat of the rebellion telepathically. Then the little bell on the dumbwaiter rang and he turned to face it, expecting a plate of sugar fried noodles and sweet coffee. Dacian lit the Ghoul Claw. The fleshsmith's candle flared to life, and the Old King's lantern flared in response, negating the stun effect but extinguishing itself in the process. Undaunted, Dacian reached out to grab the Old King, intent on spending his major charge to scramble the monarch to death. The Old King caught the blow in his Iron Hand.

Outside, Marrow Bone killed all the guards with a single swipe of his goedendag. He smashed through the door to join Dacian. Inside was a conjoined being, a two headed mutant composed of Dacian and the Old King fused together. The two heads were trying to strangle each other. Then Dacian stopped trying to do that. He pinched the flesh of the torso he shared with The Old King and unzipped, killing them both with a significant blast and extinguishing the Monarchy.

 

The mutants cheered. The Cave Hulk Asterion, Captain of the Palace Guard, burst through the floor too late to save The Old King. With no overriding authority to govern his bestial instincts, the huge insect began eating the corpse slurry off the floor. One of the mutants scooped up Dacian's head, which mouthed a final epigram to the Tower of Pain.

Marrow Bone smashed the holy man's skull, and that was the end of it.