[LL] Subterranean Salvage Co session 40 summary

And now the exciting conclusion to the Hell Hound massacre of two weeks ago over at Gavin's game: The return of Henry "Slippy" Slippums! Well, sort of...

Darkness. I can still feel the burning jaws of the Hell Hound biting down, piercing my dented plate, crushing my battered body... the fire in its eyes... distant sounds as life bled from my body... then darkness. When I wake up, I'm in a small barge, rocking and creaking on a river of flame. My only companion: a skeleton in a dark hooded robe, slowly punting the barge to destinations unknown. As I wake up, he looks up at me, revealing no discernible emotion for his lack of features, and he says: "Your soul belongs to Orcus now, Henry Slippums." Then he goes quiet again and speaks no more, despite my continuing exhortations. Finally, exhausted and frustrated, I give up and sit back in the opposite end of the barge, and glance over the edge, into the burning stream. Fire and brimstone... and for a moment, familiar faces, companions of old, now dead and forgotten... they call out to me... no, I will not join them! Not now... not ever...

After an indistinct period of time, what could have been seven minutes or seven years, I can feel invisible hands tugging at my body, as if my soul is lifted from the barge. The skeleton looks up to me again, and for a moment I think I see a trace of annoyance in his hollow eyes. I flip him off and shout: "Death holds no sway over Henry Slippums, I am invincible! Muahaha..." Everything turns black. I can already see myself rise from the slab in the temple of Orcus, back in my good ol' body again. But something's wrong. When I try to laugh again, a foul liquid fills my mouth and nostrils. My eyes open, and I find myself in a large vat. I can see the distorted figures of my comrades and some wizardly looking types outside. I swim to the top and pull myself out, gasping, and clamber over the edge of the tank. With a wet thud I fall to the stone floor, and as I try to rise I realize something is horribly wrong. I feel so weak... and these arms, they are black and naked, where did all the fur go? I look down in dismay and to my dismay discover a pair of sagging dugs. I look up to my treacherous underlings and the ghastly realization strikes me as I see their phony smiles. The miserly bastards didn't resurrect me at all, they had me reincarnated. I turn around and look at my horrid reflection in the tank: the face of a goblin with its wicked teeth stares back at me. I fall to my knees and cry out in anger and despair!

But it will have to do for now. That insane necromancer Cagliostro has disgraced my previous body, boiling away the flesh and turning it into an animated skeleton. I make sure to grab a few pieces of bone. I will be a proper ratman again! Various plans start forming in my head on how best to accomplish this feat. Yes, Henry Slippums is back, and the world will know it!

The company coffers and our personal reserves depleted, we set out to the undervaults again, and return to Vault C where this tragedy befell me. We get up to a bit of the usual horseplay: tricking people into trusting us and then killing them when they least expect it, nick their stuff, coerce them into showing us where they keep the other valuables and then slit their throats. I did miss being alive. But the Wizards of the Left Hand proved untrustworthy indeed (in retrospect a good thing we killed them all): the promised relic turned into a trollish monstrosity that, after mauling me, turned on one of my more respectable companions (ironically he's a self-professed thief) when we thought we had put him down for good. Poor Venser did not live to tell the tale, and that useless necromancer stood there twiddling his thumbs. Venser, I even forgive you for all the times you threw up on my carpet and passed out. Rest now, good friend, we will give your body a proper burial. Your youthful, human, still in fairly good condition body... perfectly suited to hold a new soul, now that I think of it... must inquire about this possibility....