RQG 68 - Funky to Funk

## Content Warnings

Compulsion, physical violence, fantasy racist comment (goblins), undead (Western-fantasy zombies), fire, vomit

## Summary

The party does a good old fashioned sewer crawl. Bertie realizes he invested well, Hamid fades out, Grizzop gets pious, and Sasha is attracted to Bertie?

## Synopsis

The episode opens with Sasha being compelled to walk closer to Bertie and be as close to him as possible. No one notices anything strange, and Sasha says she’s just guarding his flank. Hamid introduces himself to Grizzop and learns that he’s a paladin of the Cult of Artemis, before asking if he’d be interested in a job as a mercenary. Grizzop mentions that he’s already sort of on a job, but says he could be interested. He notices Sasha standing really close to Bertie and asks what’s going on with that; Hamid, Sasha, and Bertie all react disgustedly, and Hamid notices finally notices that Sasha is standing strangely close to Bertie. He mentions that Sasha doesn’t need to stand that close since the danger is probably gone, but Sasha shrugs it off.

Grizzop mentions that he’s looking for a rogue mage, one who might have the ability to do stuff like this, and enchant people. Hamid notices a magical energy coming from Bertie, but not from Sasha; it’s coming from the ring that Bertie is wearing, a sickly green pulsating energy which he recognizes as necromantic in origin. At first glance, it seems like a ring of “repel undead”, but the closer he looks, he realizes that the ring has the opposite effect, and asks Bertie where he got it. Bertie starts to explain, and Sasha takes their distraction as an opportunity to attempt to steal the ring. She’s successful, and the second the ring is off his finger, the compulsion on Sasha falls. Hamid and Bertie both look around for the ring, and Grizzop interrupts to say he needs to get back to his work.

They all decide to work together to find the rogue mage; Bertie and Hamid are still looking for the ring, and Grizzop asks why it’s important. Bertie mentions that he got it for a good deal, and brings up the 6,000 worth of platinum and bag of holding that the gnome sold him. Hamid starts to realize what’s going on, and checks the bag of holding - he realizes it’s cursed, and tells Bertie to drop it before explaining that the ring is cursed as well. Grizzop is a bit confused as to why Sasha was standing so close to Bertie, but lets it go. Sasha asks if it would be possible to remove the curse on the ring, and once Hamid says it is possible, she mentions that she will help them find it (considering that she has the ring, it’s easy enough for her to pretend that she found it sitting on the ground). She mentions that Bertie shouldn’t put the ring on, maybe, but Bertie puts it on and ignores her. Everything seems fine this time - there’s no compulsion making her stand near him. Bertie decides to keep the bag of holding and get the curse removed later, and then Hamid checks the platinum bars as well; he notices an illusion cast on them, and realizes that they’re actually iron bars rather than platinum. Bertie screams in anger, and Sasha backs away from him as far as she can.

The party decide to move on and investigate a nearby building to help search for the rogue mage that Grizzop is looking for. They head toward the building and make their way around the mess that the *fireball* made of the entrance. It’s pretty sparse, a gift shop for the university. As they move toward the counter, they realize two feet sticking out from behind the counter - they look to be human. Sasha moves the clothes rack laying over them, and it reveals a dead person, missing some chunks. Grizzop bends down over the body and uses lay on hands - nothing happens to the body, and Grizzop is able to tell the rest of the party that these particular zombies aren’t infectious. He does a quick prayer to Artemis over the body (“Ashes to ashes, funk to funky, now go off to the celestial hunty”) and gets ready to leave after quickly patting down the body. He finds a wallet with an address and photos of the person's family, and slips it into his own pocket so that he can find them and apologize.

At the back of the room, the party notices a slightly ajar door revealing a messy room. Bertie throws Sir Everard’s sword into the room first, and as the sword goes into the room, it emits a bright light. The rest of the party follow; it seems as though the horde must have gone through the room, with boxes and such pushed over. It looks as though they have come up from below, with a hole in the floor. Sasha notices that Bertie’s kicked the sword to the edge of the hole and goes over to inspect it. She picks the sword up to see how much it’s worth, and it talks to her; it rifles through her memories again, and Sasha and the sword have a small conversation.

Grizzop asks Hamid what’s going on, and Hamid mentions that there’s a bit of a thing with the sword. Grizzop mentions that they really need to be getting on with it, and Bertie takes the sword back and sheathes it before charging down into the hole, ignoring Grizzop’s suggestion to be stealthy. The rest of the party follows.

The tunnel down leads into the sewers; there’s a single zombie down there who is stuck in the water, and Hamid suggests that Bertie kill it. Bertie takes a slice through it and the zombie dies. There’s a clear path leading off in one direction, which Sasha and Grizzop notice, and the party decides to head off in that direction.

Hamid interrupts for a moment to ask if he can cast a spell on Sasha; she says no, and Hamid asks if she’ll let him do it if he tries it on himself. Hamid casts *invisibility*, and Sasha immediately says she’s okay with him casting it on her. He casts it on her and Sasha heads off down the path alone, now invisible. There’s a strange part of the wall that’s been broken in and doesn’t look natural; it’s more earthy, and she can hear a bit of murmuring inside. She heads a bit further in to listen and see what’s going on. Sasha, who’s gotten farther into the tunnel, realizes that it’s definitely zombies.

Hamid turns to the rest of the party while they wait and mentions that he didn’t know how to cast the invisibility spell yesterday. Bertie says that it’s probably related to the Romans, but doesn’t have any idea more than that. Grizzop, on the other hand, thinks that Hamid is one of the fae, probably a wood spirit. They argue over Hamid maybe being a fae until Sasha returns, and then they make a plan to go after the zombies. Grizzop asks which way they went, and Hamid and Sasha become visible again. Sasha points in the direction that they came from, and Hamid asks how many of them there are; she’s not sure, since she didn’t go in far enough. Grizzop isn’t sure he has enough arrows, but Bertie walks off, dipping Sir Everard’s sword into sewage and sheaths it. Sasha tells Bertie to wait there and the rest of the party go and purchase some supplies for going after the bombs.

Time skips as Bertie waits for them to return, and they come back with 5 flasks of alchemist fire. Sasha leads them down the path until they find the opening in the wall; it’s one person wide at best, so they’ll have to go down single file. Bertie pus the “attract undead” ring on his finger again. Hamid and Bertie hear undead down the hallway, and Sasha and Grizzop are able to recognize that there’s about forty to fifty zombies down there.

They wait in the entryway, and Sasha moves toward the entryway to stand close to Bertie with her daggers out. A few minutes pass, and the zombies don’t appear; Bertie bangs his sword on his shield and they hear a loud yell from below, but none of the zombies appear. Grizzop goes on ahead to see what’s going on and if he can see the zombies. The tunnel opens out into a larger space, but he doesn’t see anything moving. As he heads out and looks out through the opening, he sees an entire pit of zombies there, with numbers probably over 100. He remembers learning about plague in Prague and assumes that it’s an old plague pit that a rogue wizard might have come across and zombified.

He retreats and tells the rest of the party what he saw; Bertie thinks it might be a plague pit as well, but he remembers that Prague had a few issues with plague, and mentions that there are probably more pits throughout the city. Sasha suggests that Bertie takes the ring off before they head down the tunnel, and Bertie agrees and takes the ring off. Sasha heads to the edge of the pit and drops the alchemist fire; it catches and burns through the zombies quickly. Acrid smoke burns through the tunnel and the party retreat; Sasha starts vomiting from the smoke and the party drag her out of the tunnel and into the sewer.

## Quotes

**Grizzop**: "So, might be worth mentioning that I'm looking for a rogue mage ... the kind of person who may create a bunch of zombies and maybe compel people to stand next to each other quite close."
**Alex**: "Most fearful powers—"
**Grizzop**: "Varying levels but, y'know—"
**James**: "So, a necromancer, but also... a romancer."
―Grizzop reveals that he is on a bounty hunt for a mage.

"Hey, one of my favourite ever characters was someone that was so—her Charisma, like, modifier was so low that she would just go into pubs and cast, like, Make Friend."
―**Lydia**

"That's what happens without Zolf—nothing! *Nothing* happens!"
―**Alex**

"This appears to be your common or garden variety of zombie."
―**Grizzop**

**Alex**: "There's a collection of, like, novelty "this is a Prague coin" coins that you can lay on the eyes, that kind of thing."
**Ben**: "I'm sure there's a way, like, an Artemisian way that's done, which is like ..."
**James**: "Put a gonk in it's mouth."
**Lydia**: "For the boatman."
―Grizzop says a prayer for one of the people who died at the hands of the zombie.

"Ashes to ashes, funk to funky, now go off, join the celestial hunty."
―**Grizzop**

"Grizzop's gonna leave not because he thinks that, like, any of you are a problem, it's just like, "they're just irritating ... they're just really quite socially inept"."
―**Alex**

**Bertie**: "Downwards and onwards to the second death of all zombies, yes!"
**Grizzop**: "I, I, I'd suggest a little bit of tact, uh, maybe stealth?!"
**Bertie**: "Why?!"
―Bertie charges into the tunnel

**James**: "Well-structured sewers... almost im-prague-nable."
**Lydia**: "They're very prague-matic."
―[add context]

"Nothing's ever gonna get done in this campaign again, I miss Zolf so much! I miss him so much! He was my ally, he kept things moving, and now he's gone! *[he sobs]*"
―**Alex**

**Hamid**: "How many zombies, Sasha?"
**Sasha**: "Well, just enough to be really loud."
**Grizzop**: "Ten? Thirty? A hundred?"
**Sasha**: "I, I didn't go in..."
**Grizzop**: "Fair enough... just lots?"
**Sasha**: "Yeah, well, I mean, to be fair there was an echo so it could be one really enthusiastic..."
―Sasha returns to the group after investigating the zombies.

"I like to think that she's still desperately attracted to the ring, but her innate hatred of Bertie is overcoming it, personally? Like, she's, she's getting a bonus because it's *Bertie*."
―**Bryn**

**Alex**: "There were cases a long time ago where plague was a thing in Prague, it looks like it's an old plague pit. As for why it is now—"
**Ben**: "I'm gonna take a wild guess and say: a rogue wizard came down and said, "You should all be zombies now!" and they were like, "Yes boss. Let's go boss.""
―The party tries to figure out where the zombies could be coming from.

## Dice rolls and Mechanics

Sasha rolls a will save to resist Bertie’s ring: 9.

Bertie rolls a perception check to notice Sasha near him: 6.

Hamid and Grizzop roll perception: Hamid gets 13, and Grizzop gets a 23.

Hamid rolls a spellcraft check: 21.

Sasha rolls a perception check: 22.

Sasha makes a sleight of hand to steal the ring: 26.

Hamid and Bertie make perception checks as Sasha tries to steal the ring: 20 and 4, respectively.

Hamid makes an identify check on the bag of holding: 19.

Sasha makes a will save against the ring: 19.

Hamid makes a spellcraft check on the money: 14.

Hamid makes a will save against the illusion on the money: 25.

The party makes a perception check in the building: Sasha rolls 16, Bertie rolls 4, Hamid rolls 12, Grizzop rolls 16.

Grizzop makes a roll to search the body: 26.

The party makes a perception check in the building: Bertie rolls 10, Grizzop rolls 18, Hamid rolls 15, Sasha rolls 19.

Sasha appraises the sword: 25.

Bertie makes a survival check to track the zombie: rolls a 2.

Grizzop makes a survival check to track the zombies: 14.

Sasha makes a perception check while looking for the zombies: 16.

Grizzop rolls spell check on Hamid knowing spells randomly: nat 1.

Bertie rolls a knowledge history on why Hamid knows random spells: 8 or 11.

Sasha rolls a will save to resist Bertie’s ring: 21.

The party makes a perception check: Bertie gets 16, Sasha gets 22, Grizzop gets 24, Hamid gets 12.

Sasha rolls a will save to resist Bertie’s ring: 10.

Grizzop makes a stealth check: 14.

Grizzop makes a knowledge religion check: 23.

Grizzop makes a perception check: 12.

Bertie rolls a knowledge history check: 13.

Sasha makes a perception check: 12.

Everyone makes a fort save against the zombie smoke: Sasha rolls a 10, Hamid rolls a nat 20, Grizzop rolls a 27, Bertie rolls a 26.