Thug Muggers in the Sewers 4/2/23
Table Talk:
To start with, i handed out Magic Item Cards to everyone for the magic Items theyâve recently picked up, and the ones weâve been missing for a while, like Ariâs Lifesteal Dagger.
I also showed my first attempt at some Condition Tokens i made for the table to help us keep track of fire damage, blindness, etc. Weâll see how well they work out. Also, I recently made several miniatures and items for the map and got some painted so i let people take a close look at some of them.
And lastly, Rae is not proficient with using the giant Maul she found last time. We all agreed that it makes sense for her to actually have disadvantage with it, since she is really only used to quick light-weight weapons.
âOh... little man, you're a little off on that one. See, I don't get rid of all thos night mare things... I abosrb them. Think of me as your own persoanl trauma sponge. It's all in me everything that ever made you scream, made you cry, everything that's ever kept you up wide eyed and sweaty. All your nightmares I've taken in. All inside my teddy bear self. And trust me, it's not easy with someone like you.â
-Shmee âJhonen Vasquez, âSquee: Sometime in dreamland"
âHave you ever heard a man scream his soul away?â
-Bealvamon âJason Murphy, âKiller Candy: Chapter 14â
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Interlude A: Sorin Dreams of Fishing
đČđĄïžđâšđżđđź Interlude A: Sorin Dreams of Fishing
A quick note, there were several dice rolls in this scene that determined the outcome, including a few saves and some natâ 20s. I left them out of this narration though, to keep the đđđđđđđđ đđđđ.
Itâs near the end of the night, and we are still in the Thug camp on the second level of the sewers. Ari has the last watch of the night now, having just taken over for Sorin about an hour ago and watched him settle into his meditative half sleep. Sheâs finished sewing the Rewind Button onto her gear, and sheâs getting a bit bored. Sheâs walked past Sorin once or twice and waved a hand in front of his face to see if he was faking. Now sheâs just sitting on the short table with her back to the wall when, out of the corner of her eye, she thinks she sees Sorin flicker. She stared at him for a while, but now sheâs passing it off as just a twitching eye or something. Then sheâs looking at him when it happens again. The wizard boy seems to almost fade as if his whole body is a thin film smeared across reality.
Sorinâs meditative half dreams are always a little strange. He usually âsleepsâ with his eyes open and his dreams are weird distortions of the world around him. Earlier he saw Cypress pacing back and forth, only the cleric was 9 feet tall, just a moment ago he saw Ari waving to him seductively, only her hand was a big palm frond fanning him. As he sits there in a dull half reality, the world around him fades, slowly darkening. Suddenly he feels completely outside himself. âOh cool, I've learned to astral projectâ he thinks, before realizing that he canât move. Heâs not just outside himself, heâs outside everything. Sorinâs soul tries desperately to claw at the nothingness, to pull himself back to the ever darkening reality, but his hands wonât move. The point of reality fades and shrinks and he canât tell if he is moving away from it or it from him, but still his body refuses to move.
The tiny speck of reality grows. It gets closer again, bigger and brighter. If his body would let him, Sorin would weep with relief. His soul flies towards the ball of light. He gets closure and closure and the light of reality swells, and then the teeth have him.
Ari is staring at Sorin debating about waking everybody, but the flickering hasnât happened again. Sheâs starting to lean back again thinking, âafter all I havenât actually seen him sleep like this before, maybe it's normal,â when she sees the fish. A flickering image of a gigantic angler fish appears hanging from the ceiling of the room hovering over Sorin. Just as Ari sits up, it disappears. Before she can relax, itâs back. Its mouth hangs open, slack jawed and gaping around Sorin, with jagged needle-like teeth pointing in all directions. Ari stands up staring at the giant upside down monster fish, and it disappears. Ari realizes that the room seems dark. No. It FEELS dark. The Fish reappears and this time its mouth is closedâŠaround Sorin. His lower half is sitting cross legged and relaxed on the cushions, but his upper half is inside the mouth of the beast, Itâs long needle teeth sticking through his gut around bloodied holes.
Sorin cries out, but no sound escapes him. He can feel the jagged bony teeth ripping through him. They feelâŠsoâŠcold. They leave holes in him and he knows that those holes are empty, gaps in him where he never was. Those holes are missing parts of organs that never grew from birth and never existed at all. He screams in the silent void, feeling the hollow holes of pure nothing forming around the needle teeth inside his guts.
Ari brings her fingers to her mouth to whistle the room awake, andâŠnothing. The fish is gone, and the room is bright again. Everything feels normal, and stable, and real again.
Sorin falls over panting.
Ari lowers her hands and watches Sorin pats himself right above his waist. There is no blood.
Cypress comes to, hearing the panicked angry whispering.
âWhat the hells was that!?â
âWait, this time you saw it too?â
âSaw it? What was it?â
âOh good, okay so Iâm not crazy.â
âWait.. this time!?â
âWell at least I think Iâm not crazy. Thatâs a good sign, right? Though that is the first thought everyone has as theyâre going cra-â
Then, Cypress hears the slap and decides to sit up.
âOkayâ, the cleric yawns and groggily picks sleep from his eyes, âWhatâs happening?â
âOh good, Cypress, youâre awake!â Sorin says and knee-walks awkwardly over the cushions and rugs to him. âQuick! Quick!â He says, pulling up his tunic to show a pasty pale tummy, âCheck me and see if I need healing,â Sorin reaches out for Cypressâs hand.
Cypress pulls their hand back with a what-fresh-perversion-is-this-now look,
âUm⊠Please?â
With a sigh, Cypress places their hand on the pale skinny stomach. Their mind snakes down their hand and into Sorinâs flesh, and immediately they know something is wrong. Sorinâs organs are healthy. Theyâre full and healthy and normal. But⊠But⊠But they feel wrong somehow. There is a lingering aura around the organs, like teeth marks or holes. The aura is hungry, and wrong, and disturbed. Itâs exactly like the tentacles from a few days ago, only much much more exactly like them then they were.
Cypress pulls his hand back as if he just touched a hot pan and is unable to disguise the fear and disgust on his face. He takes a breath and calms himself, resting his face back to its normal placid, thoughtful expression. Then he looks up as Sorin as the boy pulls his tunic back down. âIâm sorry,â Cypress says to reassure the teen boy, âThat grimace⊠It wasnât at you or anything to do with your body.â He explains about the aura and the feeling of hunger and wrongness, and the disturbing feeling of outraged murky desire. âBut, itâs nothing I know, and nothing Iâve seen before.â He sets his head on one shoulder and considers for a moment before adding, âI would suggest you talk to someone at the school. Iâve never heard of this with Holy Magic, but maybe someone there will know more.â
âYeah,â Sorin sighs, âbut first we need to find a way back to the surface. Besides, âI'm supposed to meet Matteo today.â
Ari laughs, âWe have a way. We just need to go back the way we came down here.â
âUh hello,â Sorin says like a teen in an 80âs tv show, âThe room is sealed shut now.â
Ari laughs hard and punches him in the arm, âCome on muscles! You were just saying yesterday how incredibly strong you are.â She snorts laughter and nearly falls over thinking about this.
âDo you all know,â an angry muffled voice says from under a pillow, âhow impossible you are to sleep through!?â The pillow flies up and hits Sorin in the face. Rae sits up looking like an irritated and disheveled cartoon cat. âYouâre so loudâŠâ she says, rubbing her head.
âWell, weâre all up now,â Cypress says, pulling his pauldrons back over his head, âSorin, go ahead and dismantle the alarm, I donât think weâll need it now.â
A few minutes later, everyone is geared up and standing by the door to the camp.
Cypress stands with his ear to the wood, and then nods up at Ari. She very carefully pushes the door out and creeps into the area beyond.
The first thing Ari notices is how heavy the door is, and once sheâs on the other side, she can see why; it has part of a brick wall nailed to it. This little thug room, like all the others, is attached to a room in the sewers. But unlike the other rooms, the entrance here is an actual door instead of dismantling a bunch of bricks. The dark greenish 727a66 bricks of the sewer walls have been nailed to the door to keep it hidden, and in fact it takes Ari a moment to see the painted iron nailheads on this side.
She is standing in a square room a little bigger than the mechanical rooms weâve been in upstairs, and this one is definitely mechanical, but doesn't look to be part of the sewer system. By one wall is a squat platform of gray concrete tiles, with a small ledge around the corners, almost like a curb in a parking lot. On top of the platform are a few stains and puddles of mostly-clear ooze, and a few splatters of blood. When she looks around, she can see a trail of these spots leading out into the hallway. The room is well lit by a torch in a wall bracket, and underneath the platform, Ari can see the shiny worn teeth of several metal gears.
Ari waves Sorin over and whispers, â You get a lot of the mechanic stuff around here, what do you make of this?â
Sorin peaks under the platform at the array of flywheels, gears and screws, then looks at the wall and finds the smooth wrought iron tracks there and looks at the ceiling. Over the platform, he can see two large, reinforced hatch doors.
âOh.â Sorin says as Rae and Cypress enter the room.
âOh?â
âRemember Belgruuse saying they had a quick and easy way of moving the Gelatinous cubes around?â Sorin says.
âOh.â
âYeah I bet this lift puts them right by one of those rooms.â
Akris snickers, âYeah, I sssaw that when I wasss following the guy in thossse missstical robesss.â
âWait, he went by here?â
âYeah,â Akris hissing, pointing his tail at the far wall, âthen he passssssed through that door. Thatâsss where I ssstopped chasssing him so I didnât⊠lossse you..â He finishes sssheepissshly.
We turn and look. This square room is an offshoot of a long north-south hallway and right across from us, there is a door. It takes a minute to see though, because itâs another hidden Thug door and without Akrisâs pointing, we wouldnât have known to look for the nails holding the bricks in place.
With some silent nods all around, Ari and Cypress creep up to the door, listen, nod again, and pull the door open.
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Chapter 2: The Torture Room
đČđĄïžđâšđżđ Chapter 2: The Torture Room
We walk into a large room lit by a single fire in the middle that leaves dark edges along the far walls. Even for those with Darkvision, the contrast is hard to peer into. Right on the edges of the light, there are some bulky gray shapes in the middle of each wall. The fire in the middle is on an elevated stand, somewhere between a nice brazier and a burning oil drum in a back alley. We can hear crying as we look around. The flickering shadows on the ceiling seem like grotesque monsters reaching out from the void beyond the stars. The sobbing and whimpering gets louder. We look towards the sobbing, to the middle of the room. Next to the fire is a stack of wood. On one side, there looks to be a chair tipped over with a mostly decayed corpse half in its seat, and half on the floor. The crying stops.
âIs, is someone there?â
We canât see everything because of the slab of wood in front of us, like some kind of table set up on its end. We creep around to the side and the terrified voice says, âI -did I hear something?â Another sob. âPleaseâŠhelpâŠâ
Now we can see an empty metal cage by the fire. Its round bars are covered in spots of brown rust⊠and darker⊠wetter spots. Next to it is an upturned barrel, similar to all those weâve used in the Thugâs store rooms. On this one though-
âIâm begging you please!â the voice sobs.
On the barrel is a dirty ax and a ragged dagger, so notched it almost looks more like a saw. We creep closer to the light and a desperate face looks out at us.
âPlease, theyâll be back any minute, please, set me free!â A pause as we hesitate, â-or.. Or just kill me! But, donât leave me here until they get back!â The face looks at us across a table with a bloody cloth laid out on it. On the cloth are bloody pliers and a hammer covered in meat and bone chunks, as well as several small round stones. The face is still attached, for now, to a body, whose arms and legs are strapped and chained to a tilted table with an iron grating on it. The shackles are dug so deep into the joints that we think we can see white bone poking out. The torso is covered by a soaked red cloth, sparing us from whatever horror lines beneath.
The table is held at a steep angle by large gears underneath, they are covered in oozing muck that looks to have come through the grating in the table.
The face on the table has tear tracks streaming down it as it sobs.. âPlease, if you wonât release me, then please just kill me. Itâs better than any more of this.â
Cypress and Ari approach the body on the table to check their wounds and ask them about what happened.
Ari starts by placing a soft and gentle hand on the arm. âW-â
She canât even get the first word out, before the Cult Leader is up on their feet with a knife in her gut, their disguise melting off their skin as they snarl and laugh. âSo easy, so foolish!â
Ari pushes back against the Cult leader swearing an Infernal curse and the Hellish Rebuke burns their knife hand for 7 damage. Ari pulls out her Rapier, but stumbles as the pain in her guts twists her up, giving the Cult Leader time to duck.
Cypressâs hands were going for their medicine bag, but now instead, they grab the Scroll of Magic Missile he found last night. He finds the handprints on the paper and flings the runes into the air casting the spell at the Cult Leader for 15 damage. (We had established earlier that using a scroll for an unknown spell meant disadvantage, but since Magic Missile auto-hits, i had Nymbus roll these as attack spells⊠two of them crit.)
Rae runs up and swings her staff, and the cloaked figure backs away, but not in time to dodge her fist as her bonus attack hits them for 3 more damage.
The Cult Leader looks bloodied, but stands back up to their full height and grins. A hand reaches into the air, and over Cypressâs head. A shimmering battle ax appears as they cast Spiritual Weapon. The hand goes down and the rat-shaped blade cuts into Cypress for 10 damage. They smash a red bottle on their magic missile burns and laugh. As the Health Potions sizzles, they lift both hands up in the air and shout a word of power we donât recognize. Instantly the room is brightly lit. The cloths covering shadows along the walls fall away revealing cages, and the cage lids spring up.
From each cage rises a bulbousy floating reptilian head. They each have a massive fist-sized eye with an âXâ shaped pupil, and 4 short half-tail-half-tentacle stalks on top like floating scaly dreadlocks. These awful stalks end in exposed eyeballs that look all around the room. Wet cracks form in the slimy skin under their enormous eyes and become mouths that hang slack and drooling with sharp saw-like teeth. Each of the Gazers laughs just like the Cult Leader and the four laughs echo disorientingly throughout the room.
A magical ray shoots out from the first and second eyeballs of the dull green Gazer. The first ray hits Ari and she suddenly remembers a childhood pet, and sees the Gazer as that little loveable creature now. She smiles lovingly. She could never hurt such an adorable thing. The second ray hits Rae and she is struck with a mortal fear and finds herself unable to even step in the direction of the beast.
The bright green Gazer also shoots a ray at Ari, but it misses as she steps toward the other green one. Then its fourth eye lights up and the ray hits Sorin in the stomach, flinging him against the cage of the brown Gazer for 2 damage.
Sorin ducks for a moment around the cage and blasts the other green Gazer with a 7 damage Firebolt.
Two eyes light up on the blue Gazer and the Fear and Dazing rays strike Rae and Cypress.
The brown Gazer by Sorin shoots off two rays at unclear targets hitting no one as it bounces in the air with its evil laughter.
Ari pirouettes and thrusts, running the rapier through the Cult Leader for 8 more damage.
Cypress looks around the room, assessing quickly. He reaches into his bag and grabs three simple apple leaves. He dunks each one in the jar of Holy Water at his belt, and rubs them on one of the moss balls inside. Then, with a prayer, he closes his eyes and throws the leaves. Each one lands with a soft wet sound on the foreheads of his teammates, with the water holding it in place. Cypress brings his hands together in prayer and casts Bless. The leaves stay attached to Ari, Rae and Sorin as the blessing of Sheela goes through them (granting them an extra D4 to add to all attack rolls and Saving throws which is a lot in a fight with Gazers).
Rae swings after the Cult Leader twice and grinds her teeth as they dance back from her, holding the stab wound in their side.
Then they stand up to their full height and look down imperiously at Ari. âKneel!â they Command, but the pain from Ariâs stab makes them twitch and the spell falls apart before it reaches Ariâs brain.
The Gazers hear this command, and each slobbering pointy mouth starts repeating, âKneel!â, âkneelâ, âKNEEL!â, âKneel.â, interspersed with deranged evil laughter.
The dull green Gazerâs third and first eyes light up. Ari dodges the pinkish ray, but the blueish-white ray hits Rae and she screams out in pain as the frost seeps into her skin for 12 damage. The Gazer laughs again and then shouts a mimicking version of Raeâs pained scream.
Cypress and Sorin both dodge the rays from the other green Gazer, and Sorin casts Chilling Touch on the blue one for 5 damage and, causing its teeth to chatter as it repeats the command to âKneelâ over and over.
The blue Gazer retaliates by charming Cypress with its Dazing Ray, and then using its Telekinesis Ray to hurl the bloody ax at Ari from the barrel for 2 damage.
The brown Gazer screeches in pain, sounding a lot like Rae, then laughs and its third eye builds up 11 damage worth of frost on Ariâs leg.
Not to be deterred, Ari slashes the Rapier at the Bloodied Cult Leader for another 12 damage.
As the Cult Leader limps out of Ariâs range, Cypress uses their Thorn Whip to drag them to the open fire (also causing 3 more damage).
Rae punches the Cult Leader and tries to push them into the fire.
The bloodied Cult Leader throws Raeâs hands off and then wraps their hand around themself. They fling their hands back out and a shimmering Shield or Faith surrounds them, when it does, their robes fall away and their skin grows hairy as they shift into their Wererat form.
The bright green Gazer, lifts the rusty dagger with the ray coming off its fourth eye stalk and flings it at Cypress for 6 damage. Then the dull green Gazer hits Cypress with a Fear Ray on top of that.
Soin peeks around the cage at the Wererat and concentrates hard. He examines the figure of the Wererat, envisioning each muscle and sinew-fiber under their skin.. He flings out his hand and casts Ray of Enfeeblement. An array of tiny black lines of magic shoot out from his hand and he watches them hook into the muscles of the Wererat under their skin. Sorin grabs the bundle of magic strings and pulls. The hooks pull loose some of the Wererat muscles leaving him weaker and unable to hit as hard.
Piling on with the others, the blue Gazer hits Cypress with a Frost Ray for another 9 damage, while the brown one looks on, calling, âKNEEL!â over and over and shooting more beams into the room, adding to the blacklight-arcade vibe.
Ari swings the rapier again, but the frost on her leg sticks her to the ground for just long enough to make her fall short of cutting the Wererat.
Cypress pours his last Health Potion over his burning-freezing arm.
Rae swings her staff in a feint, watching the Wererat duck. As soon as they do, Rae drops her hands off the staff, letting it hover in the air. Then, to the Wereratâs surprise, she grabs them by the shoulders, turns them, and sucker punches their face directly into the bowl of fire.
As the Wereratâs hairy skin begins to sizzle and hiss, he doesnât scream out. Instead he simply states two words we do not know, and goes unconscious in the flames.
The dull green Gazer hits Sorin with a Fear Ray. Then it, and the bright green one, both pummel the Wererat Cult Leader with two frost rays. The Wereratâs body goes limp and still in the fire.
Sorin fires a Firebolt up through the bars of the cage at the brown Gazer. Now bloodied and dripping, it tries to use a Fear Ray on him, but its eye stalk only oozes a gray slime onto Sorinâs arm.
The blue Gazer flings Ari into the small round cage in the middle of the room for 3 damage with its fourth eye stalk. Its other rays shoot off around the room with the other Gazers to look like a medieval laser tag arena.
Ari pulls herself up, she looks round for somewhere to hide. But itâs a square room, with a multi-eyeballed monster along each wall. Instead of hiding, she runs to a far wall, tressing her back to it to limit the possible attack directions and get all the Gazers in view. She pulls out her bow and her second to last +1 arrow.
Cypress casts Sacred Flame at the brown Gazer, but it floats jauntily out of the way and waves its eye tentacles at him in a mocking taunt while it laughs.
Rae runs up to the blue Gazer and swings her staff into it, knocking it from its perch atop the cage, then she spins and kicks it for a total of 8 damage, leaving the Gazer bloodied and oozing on her foot.
âKNEEL!â The bright green Gazer shouts and hits Cypress in the back for 9 frost damage.
The dull green Gazer shoots out two rays, Sorin shoots off a fireball, the blue Gazer shoots off two rays, and the brown Gazer shoots a ray and then uses its telekinetic eye to fling a hammer at cypress. In the confusing white-green-fire-green-white-blue-pink-white laser show, everyone misses.
As soon as the rays disappear, Ari looses her arrow and bloodies another Gazer.
Cypress runs up by Rae and Thorn Whips out to try and drag the blue Gazer into the fire, but they miss as the monster floats back atop the cage.
The Gazer cackles its manic laugh and shouts, âKne-â, and then goes silent and dead, squished between the butt of Raeâs staff and the wall.
The brown Gazer tries to shoot out a Ray of Fear, but that eye stalk is bloodied and it just drips a shiny green puddle on the bars of the cage. Then it tries the blueish-white eye on Ari.
Ari shivers as the frost and ice build up on her neck.
The dull green Gazer tries to use a telekinetic ray to fling the bloody pliers at Sorin and a frost ray on Rae, but both rays stop half way to their targets as Sorinâs Firebolt hits the Gazer. The firebolt hollows and melts the central eye, leaving the Gazer body as an empty slimy sack piled on top of its cages, with its eye tentacles gently swaying back and forth over the side as the empty eye socket sizzles.
âKneel.â The brown Gazer barks out, then its frost eye lights up, but the arrow stuck in it refracts the ray and it hits both Ari and Rae for 12 damage. The ice and frost pile up around Ariâs face, and she falls to the ground, choking underneath the ice.
Cypress quickly casts Spare the Dying, and Sheelaâs grace shatters the ice block in front of Ariâs nose, mouth and throat. She lays there unconscious and shivering, but stable.
Rae has had enough (itâs been awhile). She runs across the room jumping of the torture table and (rolling a natâ 20) slams her fist into the open eyeball of the brown Gazer that just downed her best friend. The fist sized eyeball pops and sprays Rae with a coating of gelatinious puss. The monster laughs the Cult Leader's evil laugh as it dies, oozing around Raeâs hand.
Sorin casts Magic Missile on the last remaining Gazer, hitting it for 5 damage, and if flies off its perch.
The blue Gazer screams out in Raeâs scream of pain and flies toward the open door.
At the last second, Cypressâs hand whips out and his ethereal Thorn Whip emerges to drag the Gazer back. The whip wraps around the floating head of the beast and Cypress pulls, but he stumbles back unexpectedly. Instead of grabbing and pulling the Gazer back, the whip severs the monster in half, and the two reptilian chunks fall to the ground gurgling and bubbling on the floor.
Cypress grabs a rag off the floor, goes over to the fire and holds it there until it starts to smolder. Then, he walks over to the unconscious Tiefling, and presses the burning-hot rag to her frozen face. Ari comes to, feeling warm and safe, and hearing Cypressâs thankful prayer to Sheela and the Cure Wounds spell brings her 13 Hp.
âSorin do you still have a spell to contact Bostra?â
The young wizard flips through his spell book to the page marked Message. âYeah, what all do we need to tell him?â
âWe should show him this room.â Rae says, half proud and half in awe as she wipes Gazer goo off her hand and arm.
âAnd, we should tell him about the Cultist we fought last night.â Ari says as she stands up and uses her claws to scrape off the frost on her face.
In a quiet angry voice, Cypress adds, âAnd, that the Cult Leader had his pets kill him in a fire sowecouldnâtaskhimanyquestions!â They throw the bloodied pliers at the far wall, and then walk away to cool off.
Sorin forms the images and messages in his mind, and then reaches out. And out⊠And out⊠And stretches himself⊠And... Nothing. The psychic link falls apart in his head and he sighs. âWeâre too far away. Weâll have to get closer to Bostra for me to send a message with that spell.â
âWell, thanks for trying wizard boy.â Rae says from across the room.
Sorin is surprised by this good natured kindness for the monk. He looks up and sees Rae pull two Healing Potions out of a bag by one of the cages. âWell, that explains the good mood then,â he thinks.
âCan you come look at this, Sorin.â Ari asks, and he rushes over to her like an eager puppy. Sheâs found a syringe full of a cloudy gray liquid with green swirls shimmering in it, and a note scribbled in charcoal.
Sorin takes a look at the note and reads.
Turn 3: á„
Turn 5: áŹ
Turn 2: á”
Position 1: East
Light: áŻ
âItâs for the Sending Statue,â he says after a minute. âItâs a kind of instruction and coordinate set to use it to connect to the right person and place.â
Cypress is standing by one of the two tables and reading through a stack of short Scrolls. âHe wasnât in charge,â they say.
âWhat?â
âListen to this: âDid you hide the body like I told you to? Remember, ifâ then thereâs some kind of symbol or initials here, âfinds out about this, weâre in for a really big HEADACHE!â and the symbol again âis getting impatient, we need to collect more MEAT for the RATS soon or elseâŠââ Cypress puts down the scroll. âI donât think that Wererat was the one in charge, I think they were working underneath whoever this symbol of initials is.â He picks up another one and reads out, âThere's more here too, âI overheard that the Company was worried about how long the JaCâs took to replace after Renny âwent missingâ, so be sure to get the JiMâs set up down here fast so the Frogs donât catch on.ââ He looks up. âThe âFrogsâ must be Belgruuse and Pulgrok, and the âCompanyâ must be the Nibiru Sewers, but I donât know who this âRennyâ is.â
Everyone shrugs.
âThereâs a weird initial symbol on this one too, âWith Renny dead, remember that we need to be careful walking the sewer hallways now, in fact maybe empty the top store rooms and set some giant spider egg in them, just in case. We need to find another Company man we can recruit, and fast beforeâ initials âfinds out. Find someone a bit less experienced this time, maybe that stupid ironworker, or that mechanic babe, but definitely not the wizard they got up there!â What do we make of that?â
âThereâs an initials symbol mentioned here too,â Sorin says from the other table as he looks over the scroll there. âI think this is the sermon or whatever that we interrupted last night, listen, âThe Holy Masterâ SYMBOL 'has granted purity to us all, let us bow our heads and prayâŠââ
Ari walks over to the corpse on the other torture table and, after making sure it wonât attack her, pockets the shackles.
Sorin also finds a few pages of a spell book and puts them in his bag, âItâll cost about some gold for supplies and take a rest or two to copy and practice, but then I can learn that Command spell they used on Ari.â (10 gold and 1 long and 1 short rest to be exact).
After a little bit, Cypress goes over to the half decayed body on the floor next to the broken chair. He turns it onto its back, and stops. The moldering face on the corpse is starting to rot away, but the parts that are left show a clear pattern⊠a stained pattern. Even in the decay, the line dividing the black lower-right half and the white upper-left is as straight as a razor. âA high priest.â Cypress says in a flat voice. âRight, Sorin? Only the higher priests paint the white half of the face?â
Sorin nods, looking over⊠way over Cypressâs shoulder in horror, âYeah, the regular clergy only paint the black half.â
âThey kidnapped⊠beat⊠tortured⊠and killed a high priest.â Cypress leans down and reverently picks something up. Barely glinting in the sunken and collapsed chest of the dead priest is a gold chain. They take it off and look at it. The medallion is a golden icon of a Church of Shadows Death Mask. A tiny gold version of the Iron mask placed on the dead face of a devout church member when they die; a simple and stylized upper-left half of a face (so that the decayed body eventually forms the other half of the symbol). Cypress looks up at Sorin, âDo you know what this is?â
âWell the death mask is-â
âI mean, what it is as a gold necklace?â
âNo.â Sorin sighs.â
âBut Matteo does. âCypress says, gripping the medallion. âSo, this meeting you have today⊠Are you supposed to go alone?â
Boom awesome, dramatic ending, fantasti-
âOoooh i know, I can transform myself into a mouse and ride along on you. Are you ticklish? And, have you ever seen the movie âRatatouilleâ?â
âSoon Heinz would have more data for his paper, Certain Preliminary Observations on the Administration and Consequences of Electrifying the Shit of Reluctant Interrogation Subjects.â
-Fletcher âStephen King, âEverything's Eventual: In the Deathroomâ
Table talk:
This encounter (âThe Torture Roomâ in my notes) was a difficult rating at 1800XP (about ÂŒ the daily allowance). I actually upped the textbook 1700XP since i gave the Cult Leader/Wererat a Health Potion and a bit of rejuvenation when they transformed back into their Wererat form.
So, an interesting thing about Gazers; they are completely random. Part of what makes them a lower Challenge Rating is the fact that who they attack, and what attack they use, is completely decided by dice rolls. This means that a DM canât just have them hit hard over and over again. This session had a LOT of me rolling dice. Each time each one of them attacked i was rolling a 2D6 to determine who they attacked (re-rolling any repeats), and this rolling 2D4 to determine which attack it was (re-rolling any repeats). The Gazer Attack rounds lasted a long time at the table and i think maybe really pulled us out of the game and led to a bunch of distractions. I do not think i will be putting 4 of them in the same room again.
In the next Summary, when we have some combat, i might leave out the parts where someone misses an attack. It feels like it just takes away from the action and drags it out a bit. What do you think? Please, let me know.
