Session Twelve: Bag of Fucks

From the logs of M'k'Splswap

Scene 1: Blut und Eisen

While we ticked off the last of our shopping list, including a silver sword to help with the next werewolf we encounter, Miley went to the Tau consulate, which was, of course, glorious. There were three people there, including the secretary, in front of whom Miley dropped two briefcases full of three-and-a-half-inch floppies. Genetic and research data from the human outpost, hopefully of use in the Tau's efforts to create more of their kind.

The consulate paid us as well as they could for the trove; they didn't have any money ("We'll...probably make rent this month..."), but they gave us a few artifacts that might be useful: an amulet that could store outfits and instantly change them, a magical rope for hanging yourself (not sure about that one), and a prototype jump pack. The latter was handed over with some reluctance; it had historical significance, they said.

We had two goals at this point. The first was winning the Tenkaichi Budokai; we thought Doktor would take it easily, although M'k might also compete, depending how tough the competition looked, and whether there was a prize for second place. We had six months to wait, though; in the meantime, we wanted to explore the bags of holding in the Town of Lost and Found.

The problem was that only our smallest member, Igneous, could fit through the holes in the bags, now that Octocat had retired from adventuring and settled down as the mayor of the Town. M'k could cast portals, but not to connect different spheres, though he vowed in Vectron's magnificent name to learn the trick. Until then, we would need to bridge the gap with a portable Geller projector (we could never fit one of spelljammer scale, even disassembled).

We were unable to find a portable projector on Sigil, but everyone told us that they were a dime a dozen on Titan's Arm. Titan's Arm was a titanic arm, which legend has it belonged to one of four ancient robots, of absurd scale, who first created the crystal spheres out of astral dust, perhaps including the outer planes.

We didn't have enough time to spelljam there and back before the tournament, but Samuel heard about a Sigil Door to Titan's Arm. Ominously, he didn't want to give us any details.

"You need to trust me," he said.

We barely knew the guy, but, fuck it, right? What's the worst that could happen?

He did tell us that we'd need pieces of iron and fresh menstrual blood. The iron was easy; for the blood, we had to do some digging through public restroom trash cans, but we eventually found what we needed.

We stood in a line, facing an unremarkable alleyway with only a metal rod stretching across to complete the "portal", and Samuel told us to hold hands. Into each pair of hands he placed a bloody iron rod and an unlabelled syringe. He then tied our hands together.

"Hold these, face this way, and when you feel it, go forward."

In unison, we injected the mystery substance into our thighs.

Terror gripped us, immediate and abject. Igneous seemed too stunned to move, and M'k was rooted where he stood, shaking in fear, but the others pulled them forward madly, sprinting in panic as from mortal peril.

The drug started to wear off as we passed through the Door and found ourselves in a wide tunnel, facing oncoming traffic.

Scene 2: The Finger

Being tied wrist-to-wrist and half-crazed with fear is not the best state in which to avoid six lanes of speeding vehicles, but we managed it. Mostly. M'k teleported out of the way, as Vectron would have wished, which freed Miley, who also reached safety. Dewey and Samuel were hit, but the drivers had slammed on the brakes pretty well, and so we just bandaged them and told them to suck it up.

Exiting the tunnel, we saw a vast metropolis built from gleaming chrome. This all fit on the distal phalanx of the Arm's middle finger.

We found the Tau embassy, which was considerably larger than their outpost on Sigil. We were rather shocked when one of the functionaries actually knew our blue teammate.

"The James Miley?" gushed the fanboy. "I've read your dossier!"

Utterly in his element, Miley explained that he'd been on a mission from the embassy in Centuria, where we'd mitigated the damage from Orobas, and then explained how we'd collected the genetics data, a copy of which we provided. Miley asked the embassy to properly remunerate us -- he called us "his mercenaries" -- explaining that we had suffered losses in the course of providing invaluable assistance under dire conditions. An understatement. They gave us a little cash; nothing significant compared to our existing wealth, although it was a windfall for cash-strapped Miley. They also provided a handful of useful maps and a sky-scooter for each of us (apart from M'k, who practically jumped away from the things, and who could make his own way regardless).

Samuel made contact with some archaeologists, friends-of-friends of his parents, and learned about nearby expeditions into the Arm; Igneous expressed interest in the months-long delves, but that would have to wait.

We were, as promised, easily able to purchase a Geller projector of good quality, which would reliably project a field 10 m in radius, and which could be disassembled to fit through the bag tears to reach the Town.

We rented a hotel room and got to work.

Scene 3: Holey in Vein

With the projector assembled in the Town of Lost and Found, we were ready to pick a destination. The locals described a handful of interesting bags:

One which contained an ever-changing procession of books. (Igneous wanted to explore this one.)

One which contained nothing but small birds, flitting endlessly in and out.

One into which a trickle of gold and minor artifacts consistently accumulated; the halfling Townies had been skimming from this one carefully.

One which was used often, and therefore avoided by the skittish halfling Townies, and which had, in the past, been full of clothes, whiskey (not in bottles), a live horse (or most of one), and a pair of lovers loudly mid-copulation.

One which had at times contained powerful artifacts.

Lastly, one which had been unused in recent memory.

We decided to start with the unused bag.

Igneous felt an uncanny agitation as he entered the bag. He was carrying an object like a large collapsing fan, which unfolded into a surface large enough to cast a portal on, though we put that off. M'k sent his Eye into the bag.

When Igneous opened the mouth of the bag, we heard a sound like wind howling through trees, except it was more horrible, like the wind was screaming in pain. Samuel said that this was probably Pandemonium, a chaotic and evil plane of endless caverns, tortured souls, and dangerous creatures. No place, in other words, for worshippers of Vectron and his endless, calm benevolence and snazzy outfits.

M'k send an expendable, less-durable Eye, bearing a tiny LED light constructed by Igneous. The bag was at the bottom of a pit, with nothing around it. The pit was a kilometer and a half deep. At the top, there was more nothing. We withdrew.

Scene 4: Paladin-n-Out

Our second target was the bag that had contained powerful magic items, including enchanted plate armor. Igneous entered the bag and saw a sheathed daiklave, an extensible rod, some coins, and some rations of food, water, and liquor. He unfolded the fan.

Igneous was ready to send a small camera, but M'k impatiently sent in his fragile Eye. The thing was barely noticeable, right? He'd taken off the LED.

M'k saw a small campsite, with bedrolls surrounding a flickering fire, and a grim-faced elf, who was staring right back. "We're friends!" M'k had time to convey, before the Eye was destroyed.

As M'k recast his spell on Karen's armored eye, Igneous was seized by a creature in shining full plate; if it was human, it was a huge one, and its helm obscured its face. The thing swung a greatsword at Igneous, who teleported out of its grip...somehow? It looked like an Eldarin sort of teleport.

M'k by this point had sent his Eye into the bag and cast his portal, allowing the rest of the party to rush to Igneous' aid. Miley, Samuel, and M'k passed through the portal, immediately repeating M'k's message, "We're friends! We can explain!"

Around the fire stood a female elf with knives and bow, the figure in plate who'd just lost his grip on Igneous, and a human female blearily chanting and waving a magic rod at Igneous, who seemed to barely resist some sort of enchantment.

The party recognized the insignia stamped into the armor: this was a paladin of Cuthbert, god of law and order. With this in mind, M'k straightened his bearing and pronounced that we had visited lawful vengeance upon the thief who had sundered their bag of holding and ours, and who had stolen from all of us. By Vectron's downy wings, we came in peace.

The paladin was unmoved.

The caster read something in his body language. "Wait!"

"We will not deal with devils!" shouted the paladin, as he swung at Miley, who twisted away, evading the sword by a hair's breadth. The locals seemed unaaccustomed to non-daemonfolk with blue skin and hooved feet. Igneous, of course, was hideous enough to pass as a daemon almost anywhere.

The caster chanted again, and Miley fell immobilized to the floor. The wild power of the spell drew static electricity from the warp, which fried all the electronics in the area -- which is to say, all of the gear Igneous brought.

M'k summoned his power and hardened the sphere around his territory, which, though no doubt awesome, might in retrospect not have helped so much to disabuse the paladin of the notion that we were devils.

The ranger threw two knives at M'k, who teleported twice to dodge each in turn.

Samuel repeated M'k message of lawful cooperation in every language he knew.

The paladin again readied his sword against Miley, to the caster's apparent horror.

"Michael, no!" Miley was suddenly freed, just in time to roll out of the blade's path, though the force of the swing tore through the earth and kicked up debris hard enough to tear gashes in his skin.

The human caster continued, frantically, "Stop, they haven't attacked!" Miley turned and hid behind her.

The elf had Samuel at knifepoint. "Michael, stand down!"

The paladin visibly seethed with fury. "I know you are weak-willed, but this cannot stand!" He swung his sword and finally connected with Miley, grievously wounding him.

The caster chanted again, but this time it was Michael, the paladin, who was frozen in place. Again, however, she had pushed her spell recklessly far beyond the limits of her power, and she tore deeply into the warp; she would have fallen away at right-angles to reality had not Miley grabbed ahold of her arm, wrenching her back, before he fell unconscious from his injuries and exertion.

Michael began to break his enchantment through sheer idiot will. Before he could strike, the sorceress, clearly smitten, dragged Miley into the bag of holding. Samuel followed, exploiting a lapse in the elf's attention, and Igneous teleported behind him.

M'k was loathe to retreat, standing his ground as the paladin recovered his strength and struck for the only remaining target. M'k's shield was not strong enough to stop the hit. Wounded, M'k hesitated for a long moment, trying to figure out how to salvage the situation, before giving up, blinking to the bag, passing through the portal, and closing it behind him.

Scene 5: Hunt

The caster introduced herself as Janis of Eldbrook. She had a lot of questions for us; her sphere was utterly isolated and unaware of the vast Wheel around them. The answers obviously blew her mind more than a little, and she decided she wanted to learn more of the wider universe before returning home through the bag, although that decision might have had more to with staying near Miley. Mutual life debts apparently create a fast bond.

The bliss daemon within Miley allowed him to heal quickly over the night, taking strength from the embrace of our new companion.

In the morning, we picked another bag to visit: the one with mundane but unpredictable contents, including the horse and the enthusiastic couple. Currently there were meat pies, mugs that must have held mead, and, at the bottom, a pool of mead, which M'k drank with gusto. "Everybody into the fucksack!"

M'k was discouraged from incaution, Igneous instead entering the bag alone, bringing the collapsible surface. Igneous heard galloping horses.

He stuck a camera through the smallest possible opening. The bag's owner rode with other horsemen, hunting on a beautiful mountainside. Luckily, this didn't seem to be another primitive sphere; one of the hunters in view wielded a long las.

We waited until they'd made camp and were cheerfully feasting, and then until they were blitzed on mead, before we exited the bag and made our introductions. This time we sent Samuel in first to do the talking, and we were welcomed with smiles and overflowing mugs.

We were on Ysgard, a chaotic outer plain leaning slightly towards good, and the revellers were Thor worshippers on an infinite hunt. Their quarry were people, which soured our opinions of them, but we bit our tongues and played the gracious guests. The magic of the mountain twisted those on it into either hunters or prey, which was not quite enough of an excuse for our hosts that we would feel bad stealing their bag of holding. We would kill them if it were necessary, and probably even if it weren't. May we be forgiven in Vectron's sapphire gaze.

Ysgard was conveniently close to Wicked Mountains, the sphere holding the tournament, so we could make our way from there. We would need to find another path to Sigil, the portal to Titan's Arm having been one-way only. After a polite stay, long enough to feel our drinks, we parted, promising to visit again. Back in the Town, we planned that visit.