Session 69, Part One – Curse Ye!
Soundtrack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-gBSL0yr6w
When Korrigan bolted back to grab Kai, he took Quratulain by surprise. So the voices in her head sharing the ‘plan’ were real?
Korrigan found himself beset by the baleful auras of Glower, Guffaw, Tremble and Pout. To rid himself of them, he stomped on the ground, but they were well-used to such tremors and simply rode the shockwave.
Uru planted demolition charges among the fire-dust barrels and then stole upwards onto the rough, high ceiling.
Uriel invested a great deal of energy in his deathly gaze power, causing the swarms of gremlins throughout the cavern, and the three huge earth spirits, to become frozen in horror at terrible visions of their own demise (which, in most cases, would turn out to be imminent). Pout was frozen too, but the rest of Granny’s favoured four were unaffected. More gremlins began to swarm into the room, to take the place of those that had been frozen. Uriel warned the others not to harm their frozen foes, or they would be freed from the effect.
“Aw, now ye’ve made Granny mad. Time for a spanking!” cackled the titan, as she swiped at Uriel and Korrigan. They should have been out of reach, but her arms seemed to elongate impossibly, though they managed to jump back out of the way. She tried to curse Korrigan, too, but it failed to land.
Gupta stepped back out of the gremlin’s auras and studied them for weaknesses.
Glower, Guffaw and Tremble, pounced on Korrigan and clawed at him. He fell to the ground, momentarily blinded, and the lesser gremlins swarmed over him and stole all of his possessions!
Quratulain tried to shoot at the greater gremlins, but her guns would not work until she stopped aiming to inspect them, whereupon they went off spontaneously!
One of Granny’s roving eyes cursed Quratulain with bad luck. “Aww! Does the widdle hero want to cwy now?” she mocked.
Korrigan flew up and out of the auras. Leon levitated and healed himself as best he could – he was exhausted after the huge teleports he had just pulled off.
Before the lesser gremlins could spirit all of Korrigan’s belongings away, Uru flew down on Little Jack and released his ghostly entourage, who snatched back all of Korrigan’s stuff. “You play fair now,” Granny admonished and her evil eye stripped Uru of all but his most mundane abilities. Then she cursed Quratulain too, causing her to stumbled blindly forward into the midst of the greater gremlins, where Granny trapped her with a stone wall. The gremlins then interfered with Quratulain’s metallic form, causing her to be frozen, unable to move.
Granny cursed Gupta too.
The demolition charges went off, causing a huge explosion that blew away scores of frozen gremlins, and caused the surface of the nearest earth spirit to crack, shaking it out of the deathly gaze. It swung at Korrigan and missed.
Leon teleported into the stone prison around Quratulain and teleported back out with her.
Uru shadow-stepped past the line of earth spirits to the huge cavern that had opened up behind Granny Allswell. Here, he took in the huge range of opportunities for mischief: a steam engine, three cranes, more shinies and a two-hundred-foot-deep pit.
Uriel and Granny exchanged spells. He fended off her evil eye, then subjected her to swarms of midges. Then she tried to curse him again, and again he warded her off.
Gremlins clambered up from crevices nearby, surrounded Leon and clawed at him painfully. He responded with a tiefling curse before teleporting away. (One of Granny’s eyes watched him go – he was not Unseen by her…)
Korrigan held forth his Icon of Urim and took control of the freed elemental, sending it stomping after Granny. Leon dispelled her hex on Quratulain.
Working on a hunch, Uru asked his spririt friends Winkin, Blinkin and Nod (who could work without creating too much noise, unlike his entourage) to ‘re-bling’ the earth spirit Korrigan had controlled, filling the pits that dotted its surface with coins from the royal treasury. This did indeed cause the spirit to change allegiance and become their ally. Then Uru scuttled across the chamber to inspect the cranes.
Uriel used telekinesis to hurl Quratulain as far as he could, and Quratulain used her rocket boots to aim herself at Granny Allswell’s face. Granny again tried to curse Uriel, who now was forced to ward it off with his staff, as his own reserves of willpower were sorely drained.
Gupta took on tiger form and sprinted across the room towards the titan; she was hit by a second curse.
The allied earth spirit struck at Granny, but its arm – damaged by the explosion – shattered on impact.
Propelled by Uriel, and by her rocket boots, Quratulain struck Granny Allswell a powerful blow. First blood! Better still, Quratulain’s armblade could weaken the defences of a foe bit by bit.
Uriel kept her in the air where she could do the most damage; Korrigan flew up alongside to support her and she reproached him. “You idiot! What were you thinking? Giving up your own child!” Korrigan smiled in admiration at her forthright manner, then summoned a second version of himself.
Granny gave a twitch when she was struck and momentarily focused both eyes on Quratulain. “Hehehe, dat tickled ol Granny a little bit. Maybe after this rough’n’tumble you can come scratch me back a little?” With that, she cursed Quratulain with mundanity, so she could no longer pry open her defences. Then, with a hand-gesture, Granny dismissed the stone wall she had conjured earlier, releasing her favourite gremlins, who scampered out to wreak havoc. Seeing the danger – for their very presence was inimical – Leon weaved an aggressive teleport spell that dumped them over the two-hundred-foot pit. They squealed as they fell to their deaths. “My children!” Granny wailed.
Now his hunch had been proved right, Uru encouraged the ghost children to fill up the holes in the remaining elementals, then released one from its frozen status by shooting an all-but-harmless shuriken at it, just enough to sting it into action.
Surrounded by gremlins, Uriel muttered an incantation and became insubstantial to stop them stealing his stuff!
Granny threw out more curses, and destroyed the one-armed elemental with her fists.
Korrigan2 stomped on the head of the only elemental that was still frozen, then armed with two earthen monsters, advanced towards Granny, with the intention of shoving her into the pit.
Granny’s evil eye roved back onto Uriel who was by now too exhausted to resist. Her eye rendered him mundane, and he returned to normal. So he summoned the righteous might of his staff, and prepared to fend off the gremlin swarm. Meanwhile, with Uriel’s telekinesis abruptly ended, Quratulain dropped like a stone and was forced to pick herself up of the cavern floor. Then Granny landed another curse on Uriel, one that neither he nor Leon could identify.
It turns out that the timing could not have been worse. When Korrigan’s elementals tried to bum rush Granny, she invoked her hostile juxtaposition and swapped places with Uriel. The opportunity to end this quickly was lost! And then both Korrigans vanished.
At this point, things were looking dire: Granny’s curses were exhausting to fend off, and crippling if they landed; most of the unit had been rendered ‘unlucky’ or ‘mundane’; very little harm had come to Granny; most of the unit was drained, and Uriel – who might otherwise have been able to restore them to full vitality – was unable to cast any of his spells.
Quratulain and the elementals quickly triangulated on Granny, but she dominated Quratulain and turned her on the stone giants. Then she lashed out and damaged both of them herself.
The turning point came when Uriel shrugged off the last curse afflicting him. There was a trend here, as Quratulain and Gupta won free in short order too.
Leon, some distance away at the far end of the cave, took immediate advantage and teleported Uriel to him, creating a dimension door next them, with the other end close to Granny. Uriel used the healing power of his incarnation Tadeo to restore Leon fully, then Leon stepped through the portal he had created and took the fight to the evil titan with his Dreaming Blade. Korrigan returned and, seeing that victory was still within their grasp, inspired his comrades to fight on.
Uriel drew upon his most warlike aspect, turned the Arsenal of Dhebisu into a sword and stepped through the portal Leon had created. There, he rejuvenated Quratulain with a touch, and she struck at the titan again and again, as did the elementals, now her magical wards were worn away. Leon landed a debilitating curse of his own, and Granny cried out in alarm. Here was pain! Here was danger!
She lashed out, her immense, shovel-like hands catching both the elementals and shattering them. But the tide had already turned, and under a relentless flurry of attacks from her foes, she suddenly stumbled and at once, cried out, not for mercy – her pride would not allow that – but for a different bargain: Now, all she wanted was Redcap, just this one little mountain to call her very own. In return for that (and her life, of course, so much was implicit) she would send curses out against all of their enemies – a dozen foes who they could name, would be weakened by wicked dreams each night.
Uriel counselled against leaving her be; such a wicked creature should not lay claim to a single square inch of Risur. Korrigan agreed. Uru needed no further invitation. He had buzzed across the cavern on Little Jack and taken up a position where his aim was clear. Now he shot Granny in the eye, and she let out a horrible wail that caused the walls, the floor and the ceiling of the cavern to rumble and begin to crack. They had just seconds in which to escape.
Gupta resumed her human form and Stared in Wonder for a means to do so. There was none, unless Leon could find the strength to get them all out at once.
Uriel empowered Leon, Korrigan maneuvred everyone into place, and Leon teleported them all to the surface, just as Granny Allswell’s cave collapsed in on itself.
Granny may have forced them to flee before they landed further blows, but all was not well down there. Uru had shot Granny with one of the new shuriken Quratulain had designed for him – to overcome the effects of the Blood of Ostea, and deliver an automated, clockwork coup-de-grace. The insidious, mechanical thing burrowed its way deeper into Granny’s head – not far, but just far enough that, in her weakened state, when it stopped moving, she did too. The mother of all gremlins had been killed by a technological doodad.