Thug Muggers In the Sewers 3/19/23
Table Talk:
We had a lengthy talk about my DMing and in particular about DM maths. The basics of it are that I am going to be working harder at balancing fights, and building encounters based primarily around the CR (Challenge Rating) system. At 4th level a party of four has a Daily Adjusted XP Budget of 6800. An Easy Encounter is 500 (adjusted XP), a Medium Encounter is 1000, a Difficult Encounter is 1500, and a deadly (still possible) encounter is 2000 (for reference, the boss fight in this summary was an adjusted XP of 1625). This math can get tricky due to the multipliers of having more than one enemy. So, a single CR 2 monster is trivial (less than easy), but two of that same monster becomes the higher end of medium. Or for instance, a single Basilisk (CR 3) is an easy fight, but two Basilisks becomes a deadly fight. All this is to say that i will be setting things up (as best i can, not discounting random player actions) to meet these numbers. I pointed out to everyone that one of the reasons they keep struggling is a seeming refusal to use spell slots with a ‘what if i need them later’ nervousness. But, if one of you is rolling death saves, maybe now is the time you should be using them. I emphasized this balancing to let everyone know that they can, and probably should, be using spell slots more frequently, the encounters won’t top out what they can handle, and they will be spaced so that they match up the spell slots available.
‘But priests are good kind men,' said Twoflower. 'At home they go around with begging bowls. It's their only possession,' he added.
'Ah,' said Rincewind, not certain he understood. This would be for putting the blood in, right?'
'Blood?'
'Yes, from sacrifices.'
-Twoflower, and Rincewind the Wizzard —Terry Pratchett, “The Light Fantastic: Part 2”
🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿
Chapter 15: The Cult At The End of Book 2
🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿 Chapter 15: The Cult At The End of Book 2
Against Ashley's protests, the group decides to click the “Stay Employed” button.
Pulgrok smiles at everyone, and goes to file the contract again, before hestiatings. *Nervous Croak* “Is there, um, *Nervous Croak* any part of the agreement you want to change perhaps? *Hopeful Croak*
“What do you mean?”
“Craok* it’s just that, ‘Thug Muggers’ *Nervous silence* well, *Nervous Croak* as a name see…”
The group stares at him.
“When I have to write *Mournful Croak* ‘Thug Muggers’ on official reports…”
The Thug Muggers stare back at him.
“*Croaking sigh* Oh nevermind.” Pulgrok slides the papers back into a stack on his desk.
“Is that all?” Sorin asks, “not to be rude, but we do have a thing we need to get to…” he winks furiously at his cohorts.
“Yes, you are going to the *Croak* Church of Shadows, correct?”
Sorin stares open mouthed at the toad man as he walks over to the little stove by the partition wall to his bed. The door of the stove is open and the wood is stacked, but there is no fire blazing away inside.
“We are.” Cypress says in a business-like matter-of-fact voice.
“Is there anything you know about them or what’s in the crypt that you can tell us before we go?” Ari asks as Pulgrok walks back holding a tray of shallow bulky tea cups and a teapot that is so covered in etchings and symbols it looks like a mathematics professor’s chalkboard.
“No, *Croak* I'm afraid I know nothing about it.” He says placing the treat on the table. “But,” he croaks and looks at all of you with a smile, “Perhaps this will help. It is a little gift from me as a *Happy Croak* ‘thank you’ for your hard work these past few days.” He reaches into a pocket, pulls out a locket, blushes, and reaches into a different pocket. Then, he pulls out a small leather saché that he sets inside the upturned lid of the teapot on the tray. When he does, Ari notices that the lid is placed in a circle carved in the tray amidst a web pattern of lines, and circles, and symbols, and numbers. The circle with the pouch and lid has a clustering of points around it like a star, and so does the larger circle where the teapot sits. Each of the mugs are sitting in smaller circles with only a single point, like a funnel, aimed at the teapot. “Some Pre-Annual tea to give you a tiny glimpse of what is ahead. *Quizative Croak* Are you all familiar with it?”
Sorin, Cypress and Rae nod knowingly. Ari looks puzzled.
Rae whispers to Ari, “Remember when I told you about my years in the monastery, and how the high monks had a magic tea before we went out to villages? Well this is it.”
With a kind smile, Pulgrok says, “When it is your turn, simply hold the cup to your lips and *Croak* spit a little bit into the cup.” Turning to Ari he explains, you will get a glimpse of the future, a PRE-memory. *Cautionary Croak* But be careful, if you do not let what you see happen, time itself will send shivers through your bones.”
The tea will show a glimpse of something in the near future, but if you take actions to stop that event, you will have to take damage.
Cypress takes the first little teacup.
You see yourself on your knees, reaching through the gaps in the bars of an iron gate. You reach up over your head behind you and ask Ari to borrow her dagger. Then, with her dagger in hand, you start hacking away at the base of a very tall mushroom stalk. The mushroom is around a foot long, and the head is round and bulbous with little seams running up if and spiky thorn-like protrusions. There is a violet glow coming from way off down the hall. As you finally finish hacking through the root of the mushroom, you grin and pull it through the bars.
Cypress grins.
Rae takes her little teacup and holds it to her mouth.
You see the ceiling above you. It’s dark, but it looks a lot like the ceiling of the Thug room where you’ve been camping with Bostra. Only, in this room, you are laying on a pile of comfortable animal skins, rugs, and pillows. You know that the others are dozing off to sleep and you close your eyes in mediation. Just then, you have a short falling sensation and your eyes fly open in time to see one of the fancier decorative rugs wrapping around your throat.
Rae looks confused.
Ari Lifts her small teacup up to her lips, and gets ready to spit. When the teacup touches her lip, Ari suddenly realizes that her mouth is full of a bitter watery drink. She spits it out, but mostly it just dribbles into the cup from her surprised face.
You are moving and moving fast, jumping from stone bench to stone bench. You land on one and you see a ray of green magic coming towards you. You jump out of the way and fire your bow, but the beam eats up your arrow and continues towards you. Then a hand wraps around your ankle and pulls you down. Your body arches in a reverse somersault in mid air as you watch the green ray fly over you where your head just was, then your head hits the stone bench behind you.
Ari sets her cup down, thinking. She sees that the cup is now full of about a mouthful of murky brown tea.
Sorin takes the last tiny mug.
You are rummaging in some boxes. The others are asleep behind you. You’ve just opened a chest to find a couple boxes, you open one and another and another. You know you’re searching for something because you remember seeing it when you drank the tea, what was it, you start to get a headache and put an end to that line of thought. Eventually you find one of the boxes with a few smaller boxes inside. You frantically open these smaller boxes, and in the fourth one you find… Nothing. Just a dark empty hole in the bottom… surrounded with gold embroidery.
Sorin looks excited and headachey as he sets his teacup back in the circle on the tray.
Pulgrok smiles and then, one at a time, dumps the teacups into the gnarly teapot in the middle circle.
Pulgrok opens the baggy and pours the tea leaves into the pot, and Cypress asks, “Pulgrok, where would I find an iron grate with a violet glow behind it, and a corridor turning to the right?”
Pulgrok pours all the cups into the teapot and then stops to think before putting the lid on it. Ari cranes her neck and sees that the water inside is slowly turning clear.
*Croak* “Hmm, the gate to the Violet Mushroom Hutch right up from my office looks a bit like that.” He puts the lid on the teapot and carries the tray back to the stove where he sets it on a trivet hook and lowers it down into the belly of the stove.
Ari watches as Pulgrok lights the fire. Cypress turns and asks her, “Do you mind coming with me?” Ari nods, and the two head out the door.
Still in the room, Sorin kneels down by Pulgrok and says, “While you’re making the tea we drank, do you mind if I use the fire too?”
Happy to see the young wizard actually showing some manners, Pulgrok assents, and Sorin sets to re-summoning Akris.
The next 30 minutes are spent with Sorin casting magic, Ari handing over a dagger, Cypress harvesting a Mushroom, Pulgrok reading over some papers, and Rae talking to a gargoyle that she thinks is just refusing to talk back to her.
A quick note on that Mushroom, that is actually a Mushroom Mace, and it is the first of Cypress’s custom ‘homebrew’ Magic Items. Here is the description:
A Mace grown from nature's hardest wood-like mushroom. When at attack hits (1D8, B) the wielder may use a bonus action for the Mushroom Mace to cough out its Poisonous Spores. The DC and damage for the spoorses can be found on the Mushroom Mace table. If the target fails the Con save, they are Poisoned and take damage every turn until they take fire damage. If the Spores, or an attack from the Mushroom Mace, is the cause of a target's death, the wielder can choose to let the Mushroom Mace FEED on the corpse. Feeding requires one rest, and the mace must stay attached to the corpse after the killing blow. When the Mushroom Mace Feeds, it advances a level on the Damage Table.
Cypress and Ari walk back in to see Pulgrok dumping the teapot onto a plate, after letting it boil off all the water inside. He picks up the dried leaves and puts them in a small envelope with the brand ‘Manilla Time Tea Farms’ and the picture of a clock shaped like a fancy tea kettle. Pulgrok adds it to a pile that will eventually go to The Post, and then out to a little farm in the northeastern countryside that Cypress might have found familiar.
A short time later, after walking through several sewer passages, the Thug Muggers are standing in front of the gate to the crypt of the Church of Shadows. Peering in, they can see the warm red brick floors, several lines of large stone sarcophagi, and a large statue holding a red lantern in front of a spiral staircase.
Ari kneels down by the lock and rubs her hands together in an okay-here-we-go gesture. She pulls out her good (not -1) set of lock picks, and sets to work.
Alright Ari, give me That Lockpicking roll. Nat’ 1.
Click, spang, clack, thunk, creeeeeak.
The door slowly swings open.
“Awesome!” Rae says, patting her best friend on the back, “It always amazes me at how good you are at that.” She walks in as Ari struggles to unwedge her lock picks.
“Thanks,” Ari says cheerfully, then mutters “Dammit another ruined pair” under her breath as she looks at the mangled and un-usable picks.
“Yeah,” Cypress says, sardonically pushing the door open and closed and open and closed without it latching. “Amazing…”
Sorin is standing on the other side of the door, looking at the lock from inside, and fiddling with the spring poking out of the keyhole. It makes a ploig bloig sound. “Ari, is it supposed to..” He trails off looking at her glare. Then he thinks for a moment about the personality of the girl he has a crush on and changes tact.
With heart eyes, Sorin coils his finger around the spring like a lock of hair. “You’re so talented at… so many things.” he says with barely a stagger around the lie. The spring goes ploig bloig again and even that sounds like it is covered in glittery cartoon hearts. “ You did so … um… great.”
Ari walks past Sorin into the room, shoulder checking him.
Everyone is trying to sneak their way into the crypt, but we’re all too jittery and on edge. We can hear clicking buckles and soft thuds of gear as we move into the room.
Now that we’re inside, we have a much better view. We can see some doors along the back walls. To the left and right are normal wooden doors, going off to some other rooms. But in the middle is a heavy looking stone door, it is a tall stone slab in the wall behind the spiral staircase, and the only things marking it as a door are the large hinges on one side and the fact that it is so different from the plain brick of the walls.
Sorin and Cypress are drawn to the statue at the foot of the stairs in the center of the room. The statue is a tall figure in an elaborate arch-shaped headdress. The figure holds a pyramid shaped lantern in an outstretched arm. There is no flame in the lantern, but the warm soft red glow illuminates the entire crypt. Still, the face doesn’t look quite right. Maybe it’s a trick of the eye, like maybe it’s just the shadows from the hand or the headdress, but Sorin and Cypress know better. In those shadows, the face looks like a rat.
When Sorin is staring at the statue, he hears the faint sound of stone grinding on stone. He looks around and sees a few pebbles drop off a sarcophagus from the spot where Akris is pushing against its lid. Sorin smirks, knowing the barely extant body of the little familiar can’t move an object as heavy as a stone coffin lid. The lid starts to give a little, and Sorin’s face goes white. He grabs the flying snake and makes a will roll “Stop it” he hisses in a whisper, “and how did you manage to do that anyway?”
His only response from the flying snake is a sniggering hiss, and his tail lifted to his mouth with a shushing sound.
Ari and Rae make overly complicated hand signals at each other. Ari goes up to the impressive stone door, and Rae goes over to the ordinary wooden door to the left. They both put an ear to the doors so softly they barely touch and listen.
Behind Ari’s door is a dramatic silence. The kind of silence one can only get with noise insulating foam when you really don’t want anyone to hear you on the other side of a wall. Rae’s door is also quiet, but it’s an ordinary silence with the little noises of an empty room; walls settling, a bug crawling, maybe a burned log falling in the ashes of a long dead fire.
Rae shakes her head and gathers with Sorin and Cypress behind Ari at the big impressive stone door.
We take a second to look at the imposing door. It is smooth granite, its freckled gray surface is unmarred and unpolished except for one spot. Right at waist height, there is a single key hole in the rock, and marked above it in pale soapstone, is a little drawing of a crude little rat face. The drawing is somehow familiar.
Ari kneels down excitedly and goes for her lock picks when she feels a hand on her shoulder.
Cypress whispers, “Didn’t someone find a key with a rat like that on it?”
Ugh, reader, this took WAY too long for the party to remember a literal KEY plot item. I’m tempted to write the whole exchange here to shame them, but it’s frustrating just to remember.
Ari feels in a pocket and pulls out two keys. She shoves the one stamped with ‘Nibiru Sewer Gates’ on it back her pocket before anyone can see, and holds up the other one. The bow of the key is in the shape of a rat head with a crude little drawing of a rat face identical to the one on the door.
Cypress and Ari nod to each other, and Ari carefully, and quietly, slots the key into the hole. She tries to turn it.
Nothing happens.
Brooke at the table: “Hey, wait what, that’s not allowed, you can’t do that!”
Ari frantically wiggles the key in the key hole.
Nothing happens.
Brooke at the table: “Come on, what!?”
Ari drops her hand and Cypress stares at the key, with its bow in the same drawing of a rat’s face.
“What about the drawing of the rat?” They say, “And the key, what if you-”
Ari picks up on the idea. She pulls the key out of the hole, and touches the rat face on the key to the one on the giant door.
Click.
Everyone goes completely still with the feeling that this all just got real.
“Open it just a crack,” Cypress says, “I’m gonna turn into a rat and sneak in.”
“Wait what!?” Akris says in a loud surprised voice, breaking the silent tension, “How long was I gone? You can transform now?”
Ari looks around at everyone and nods. Sorin covers Akris’s mouth as she slowly pulls the door open a couple inches.
From behind the door, comes a booming sonorous voice. It speaks in almost melodic ups and downs. It’s somehow soothing and almost hypnotizing to listen to. “And so, if you are truly grateful for what is given you, you must therefore be grateful for what is taken away. It is only logic that you should be grateful of the gift of sacrifice…”
Cypress reaches out his spirit to the Goddess Sheela. They can feel her life force flowing through him like a river. With a great will they send their spirit up that mighty river passing forks and intersections. Cypress’s spirit flows up the mighty river of life past the shapes of apes and past lemurs and wide eyed marsupials. Rae and the others see Cypress’s belongings melt into his body and his body changing shape through these animals while it shrinks in size. The whole thing looks like a stop motion movie slowed down just enough to glimpse each frame. For just a beat he stays in the shape of a Juramaia before shrinking further. Cypress’s spirit begins to tire, and they let themself coast down a new river of rodents, steering himself away from mice and raccoons in the quick current. The others watch as the Juramaia shirinks, its tail growing longer and then and its arms growing smaller until Cypress The Rat is sniffling his whiskers in front of them.
“We must take back our glory!” The voice from behind the door booms as the little rat scurries its way into the room, “The world is ours, if only we rise up and steal it. Join us…” and so on, you know, cult stuff.
Behind the door, Sorin casts Spider climb on Rae, and whispers in her ear.
Cypress sees the room beyond the door in the skewed perspective of a rat on the floor. He is aware of the smooth tiled floors, a red and white pattern that he can’t make out so close to the ground. He sees rows of towering stone benches in two lines. Along the benches he can see the enormous shapes of robes figures lining an empty pathway leading to a dais that blurs in his vision. He can smell sweat and fear and angry lustful vengeance in the air and it makes their little whiskers wiggle.
Ari looks through the crack in the door, but she can’t see much beyond the iron barred gate that Cypress had just slipped through. She thinks for a moment, debating what to do.
Cypress creeps forward on their little rat paws, but suddenly they notice their paws aren’t click-clacking on the tile floor anymore, and they are just pawing the open air. Cypress writhes and squirms in the air, held by some invisible hand as he floats past several burning braziers to the center of the room. As he shifts and turns he sees the hooded and cloaked figures backing away toward the wall and lower their heads in respectful bows.
“Cower not, dear brethren!” The voice shouts. It seems to be echoing inward from all around the room, “Look at its Beauty! This Rat, this humble creature. See how it writhes and wriggles in the grasp of god! It cares not for morals or politics or the well being of its neighbors. It only wishes to scurry through life biting what it wants, eating what it wants, humping what it wants, hoarding what it wants! Surely we all yearn to be so free! The Way of the Rat…” and so on, you know, cult stuff (but about rats).
Ari, Rae and Sorin all hear Cypress’s shrill panicked squeaking in their Stones of Far Speech as the part of Cypress that must have absorbed his stuff kicks in. Ari thinks more frantically. She tries Thaumaturgy on the gate beyond the door, but it only barely wiggles and does not swing open. Giving up, she braces against the stone door and shoves. The stone slowly opens, grinding on its giant hinges like a millstone.
Rae and Sorin look in to examine the room quickly, before pulling their heads back to remain unseen. They see the long tiled floor with its 9c3545 red and white pattern of crossing circles and lines. They see the rows of stone benches with lit braziers on the ends and the hooded figures behind them. The figures are wearing coarse fabric cloaks that cover them from toe to tip. The cloaks are a deep brown with golden lining around the hands and feet, and silver sigils in the corners. The faces of all the figures are covered by a shimmering purple-green haze that seems to hurt the eyes. At the end of the room, three sets of stairs lead up to a dais. In the middle is a stone plinth covered in magical runes and glowing lines. Standing atop it is another figure in robe, with their arms outstretched as they speak. To either side of them, sitting on two large heavy stone thrones, sit two more figures, their hands together with their steepled fingers just visible in the haze obscuring their faces. Behind these three, on the furthest wall from us, is a magic portal. A tall stone archway looms behind the figure on the plinth, its stone bricks are covered in lines and symbols that seem to pulse with light. In the gap of the arch itself is a glowing sheet. A sheen of wavy blue and purple light leading to… well it could lead to anywhere!
The fight begins in a single heart beat.
Cypress is dropped to the ground as the Leader yells, “GET THEM!” and points to the Thug Muggers at the gate (i mean come on, what else was the leader of a cult in the back room of a spooky crypt gonna say?).
Ari pushes the rat head of the toothless key against the rat head drawn on the lock of the gate.
Nothing.
Brooke at the table: “Oh come on!”
One of the Cultists moves to the gate and pulls a scimitar from their robes to ready their attack.
“Come on, come on, come on,” Rae hisses behind the door.
“Go get Cypress,” Sorin says, pointing.
Akris flies into the room looking for the rat-shaped cleric.
Ari tries the toothless key in the lock, and it turns. She swings the door open and rushes in.
The Cultist waiting there, swings at Ari, slicing down her arm for 6 damage. But Ari doesn’t even seem phased, instead her eyes glow red and she points at the Cultist. When she does, little flecks of her dripping blood fall on them and start to sizzle as she casts Hellish Rebuke. The Cultist rolls a Nat’ 1 to resist and starts to scream as Ari’s blood boils away on their skin.
Sorin ducks around the door frame, picks his target, extends his arm with his hand up and lets loose a barrage of Magic Missiles. Each one flies across the room and into the chest of the Cult Leader standing on the plinth in front of the magic portal. Before even seeing them land, Sorin ducks back behind the door frame.
The Cult Leader grinds their teeth behind their hazy magic mask, then closes their eyes. They reach out in the dark void sensing all the souls around them. They utter a necromancer spell and curl their claw into a fist. Sorin grips his chest as the 23 damage from Inflict Wounds cascades down his spine, and he tries to catch his breath and coughs up something that tastes like pink copper.
Another Cultist rushes Ari from their post by a bench, slamming into her and tackling her to the ground (knocking her prone).
Cypress The Rat darts behind a bench. They let their body begin to pull back up the stream of life, but before his spirit can go back down the river of Apes, they divert it at the body of an ancient ungulate and their body begins to shift and grow.
A heart beat later, Akris swoops down to pick up the Rat cleric, “Nope, nevermind”, and flies away from a Boar that emerges from behind the bench, shrieking a battle cry, and pawing the tiled ground, preparing to charge.
The Cultist by that same bench swings their Scimitar at the Boar, but misses as Cypress begins their charge.
In the crypt by the door, Sorin sees a spark of crackling energy in the air, “Close your eyes!” He shouts.
Rae and Sorin both save from being blinded by the Light spell someone cast in the air right next to them.
Cypress’s raging boar eyes see a similar spark growing in the air. He shifts his body to the side as he runs and dodges the Sacred Flame that goes off behind him.
Another Cultist runs up to Ari and stomps down on her head… missing by a horn as she twists in the grip of the one holding her down.
As Cypress The Boar gets closer to the dias, two of the flanking cultists rush to the steps and plant their heels. They hold out their hands ready to try to wrestle the tusks of the rampaging animal, and defend the Cult Leader above them.
Rae rushes into the room and thrusts her staff at the Cultist that just tried to stomp Ari. It misses, as the hooded figure ducks back, then Rae swings out a foot. The cloaked figure bends at the waist and the foot swishes through the air. Rae grits her teeth and channels her Ki in a swift double punch. The Cultist steps back from the first fist, but now they’re up against the wall. Rae lands the second punch right in the hazy face of the cloaked figure for 7 damage, but the stingy burning sensation of the magic mask does 1 damage to her own fist.
Ari wins a contested Strength roll against her attacker, heaving them off and getting to her feet. Looking around wildly, she shoves the Cultists around her and powerslides to the other side of the room. Then she rolls under the stone benches to conceal herself.
Sorin turns the corner, panting. He can feel his clammy skin as the cold sweat rolls off him. He concentrates on it. He calculates feverishly and pushes his hand out into the air with an open palm and pulls back suddenly. His body starts to warm as all the cold leaves him, condensing into the ghostly after image of a hand floating through the air. The Chill Touch lands on the neck of the Cultist who had tackled Ari. They scream as the frost builds around their throat, and Sorin pulls back behind the door again.
The Cult Leader on their dias bends over. They wiggle their fingers by their toes and slowly raise up, leaving a shimmering wall in the air. They push the shimmering wall towards the Cultists at the foot of the stairs, and the Shield of Faith wraps around one of them.
The Cultist that Rae just punched, lunges for her, attempting to pull her to the ground. But, the blow left them shaky on their feet and they stumble as Rae dashes away from them.
Cypress The Boar charges the unshielded Cultist in front of the stairs. They attempt to grab his mighty tusks, but he ducks under their hands and gores them in the stomach, they scream and curl up on the floor as Cypress paws the ground in search of his next victim – i mean target.
The Cultist whose scimitar narrowly missed Cypress before, leaps over a bench and readies themself at the top of the steps behind their fallen comrade.
The shielded Cultist swings their sword at the Boar, carving into its hide for 4 damage.
Just then, Rae leaps from a bench and swings at the new defending Cultist at the top of the stairs. They duck, but she channels more Ki, steps once off the thin air, spins, and heel kicks them to the ground before landing on the steps herself.
From her hiding place under the bench, Ari jumps up, steps off the bench in front of her, leaps, and lets an arrow fly at the Leader on their pedestal. The arrow is dissolved in the air by the green ray of magic flying towards her. Her eyes go wide. A hand grabs her ankle. She is pulled down, just in time to see the Ray pass where her head just was, and then she feels the hard stone smack the back of her head for 1 damage. ‘Well I guess I don’t have to worry about that anymore,’ she thinks from her Prone position on the floor.
Sorin has his breath back now, and behind the door he whispers, “My turn now.” He reaches his mind out in the empty void around and sees the glowing souls moving around him. He’s practiced this far in the book, but now it's time to try the next step. He extends his index finger and points at the wall. If we drew a straight line from his finger through the wall, it would cross the center of the Cult Leaders chest. In a deep and sonorous voice, that sounds like something in distant memory he chants, “ℝ𝕒𝕪 𝕠𝕗 𝕊𝕚𝕔𝕜𝕟𝕖𝕤𝕤”.
On their plinth, the Cult leader looks around wildly and clutches their chest.
Cypress The Boar is really quite dedicated to his new role as ‘wild animal on a rampage’. They tusk and bite and slam the robed figure Rae just kicked for 7 more damage and a rewarding scream.
One of the Cultists sitting in the stone chairs on the dias finally stands up. They throw their arms wide and suddenly, without Sorin there to warn her, all of Rae’s vision is just a searing white light and then darkness as she is temporarily Blinded.
The other Cultist stands up from their chair and pulls out a spiked mace, they run forward and swing at the pesky Boar, bloodying its other side for 4 more damage.
Then, the shielded Cultist swings again for 6 more damage, and Cypress the Boar is stumbling back and forth and covered in matted hair and dark pulsating blood.
Rae is covering her eyes, but points in the direction she last saw a Cultist and shouts at her staff, “Get ‘Em!”
The staff swings, unaided, through the air and collides with a skull for 2 damage.
Ari gets up again and readies herself to attack.
Sorin Tries to cast Ray of Sickness again, but this time he can’t see the souls around him and swears as he feels the empty spell leak out his finger tips.
On the plynth, on the dias, in front of the glowing portal, the Cult Leader slowly stands to their full impressive height. They seem to loom over the entire room. Their voice booms through Rae’s brain, and suddenly she is running out of the room. Sorin resists the Command spell with a nat’ 20. But, Ari is forced to grovel on her knees falling Prone again as me and the Cult Leader laugh.
The Cultist with the mace swings again at the boar and then the same light the blinded Rae goes off in front of Boar’s eyes. It has no effect though as the boar suddenly shapeshifts into a 2 foot 10 halfling, wearing leather pauldrons and swinging an odd looking Mace.
A Cultist runs to the gate and intercepts Rae as she runs from the room. They punch her square in the gut, shaking off the spell. But by the time Rae’s head clears and she stops, she is already standing at the broken gate to the crypt.
Ari doesn’t bother to get up this time. She can feel her hatred rising and she barks an infernal curse. A Magic Missile Flies off from her mouth as 2 more fly from her horns. All three land in the center of the Cult leader as they stagger back, falling off the plinth.
The Cult Leader looks back at Ari, and then runs. The portal behind them glows brighter and shimmers, and then the Cult Leader is gone, leaving only the shimmering portal rippling in their wake.
Sorin peeks his head back in the room and quickly casts Firebolt at a Cultist who was trying to get back on their feet.
Cypress The Halfling casts Poison Spray on the Cultist that kept hitting him with a mace. Ironically, the shock that made them stumble back from the boar-turned-halfing, saves them as they stumble underneath the green mist.
One of the Cultists swing at Ari for 7 damage, but she’s too pissed to even notice.
The other Cultist regains themself, and swings their mace at Cypress again, landing 7 more damage.
As Sorin ducks back behind the door frame for cover, he sees Rae running back into the room, “Spider climb!” He shouts in a doppler affected voice.
Rae gets the message and steps up the wall, around the arch of the door and onto the ceiling. The Cultist waiting for her attempts their attack of opportunity, but they have disadvantage now and are flummoxed by her running out the room on the ground and then returning running on the ceiling. They miss.
Rae jumps up from the ceiling and drops down on top of them, knocking them Prone.
Ari dashes, around the Cultist, up the steps, around the plinth, between the stone thrones and up to the magic portal, before coming to a halt and thinking about her actions here. She examines the portal before going through.
Sorin pokes around the door again and lets off another Firebolt.
Rae hears a scream from the Cultist under her feet, and she gives Sorin a thumbs up before he takes cover again.
Cypress’s swinging Mushroom Mace misses the Cultist, and the Cultist’s Scared Flame misses Cypress.
Ari takes the opportunity of Cypress’s distraction, to jump off the top stair, and sneak attacks the Cultist with a Dagger in the back. The Cultist whispers, “Et tu Brute?” as they fall to the floor.
The last standing Cultist looks around wildly, and then runs for the door.
“Sorin, hold out your spell book!” Akris shouts from out of nowhere.
Sorin does, frowning. He is trying to figure out why, when the hooded figure runs full strength into his arm and is knocked back on the floor in the doorway.
In an instant Rae is there listening to Akris hissing in her ear “Yeah, come on curb stomp ‘em!”
The Cloaked figure rolls out of the path of Rae’s foot… and then stops rolling when Sorin’s Firebolt hits them in the chest.
We look around and see no Cultists left standing. Ari wipes off and sheaths her dagger.
“Well, that was some fight.”
It sure was guys, that was a great boss fight! Well Done! And, next time, we loot!
“The Supreme Grand Master smiled in the depths of his robe. It was amazing, this mystic business. You tell them a lie, and then when you don't need it any more you tell them another lie and tell them they're progressing along the road to wisdom. Then instead of laughing they follow you even more, hoping that at the heart of all the lies they'll find the truth. And bit by bit they accept the unacceptable. Amazing.”
-"The Supreme Grand Master" Lupine Wonse –Terry Pratchett, “Guards! Guards!”
Table talk:
So again, for reference, this boss fight was a Difficult Challenge Rating (adjusted XP of 1625). The Cult Fanatic (the technical enemy name for the main leader) is a CR of 2, an easy fight on their own, and the Cultists are a CR of ⅛th (all 8 together would barely make an easy fight). I did grant 2 Cultists the same cantrips that the Cult Fanatic has, to make up for the fact that the Cult Fanatic was not engaging in any melee, and not using the multi-attack ability that makes them a CR 2 threat. This is the kind of balancing i will be focusing on more in my preparatory work.
Ashley and Sarah were cracking up when i described the magic portal in the room, and then again at the point when the Cult Leader fled through the portal and Ari chased after them. They explained afterwards. Apparently, the night before when they were laying awake, the subject of the D&D game came up. Ashley floated the idea that, since i had mentioned making new maps, the party might be coming up on a magic portal (she told Sarah about a previous campaign that did this a lot). Sarah laughed this off saying it definitely wouldn’t happen, besides, even if it did, it’s not like they'd have any reason to go through a big glowing magical portal.
Speaking of a big glowing magical portal… Since Ari did take a look at it, i told Brooke what was behind it. Later when it was just us, i told her all about the portal, and what Ari saw on the other side. So, *ominous voice* she knows what’s coming.
