Thug Muggers in the Sewers 5/12/24
Table Talk:
First to resolve something from a week or two ago, the Loading Tag:
“Because of the time required to load this weapon, you can fire only one piece of ammunition from it when you use an action, bonus action, or reaction to fire it, regardless of the number of attacks you can normally make.”
I was getting confused with other tags, and maybe other game systems where you have to spend a full turn loading a weapon before being able to fire it. So no problems there, we’ll be able to just keep going as we have been.
With Brooke’s help, i’ve gone through and edited a few more of the old Summaries from 2022 before i had a good system going here. In doing so, i’ve added more of the written descriptions to my Nibiru notes doc, and now it is up to around 50 pages. I have three old ones left to edit and then that project will finish and i’ll start the next phase of this blog, mwahahaha.
Um, Maybe a trigger warning here for gross things including a bit of body horror.
Just a small thing before we get started. I spent the night before we played prewriting several descriptions that i’ll be reading out as we get to them. I'll be treating these more as mini cutscenes this time, letting the players interact and react in between, and describing things as they get looked at or revealed. So i’m holding the next prewritten intro back a session or two because i’m already gonna be reading out a lot in this one. However – I did decide to write a pseudo-lore intro for the summary that shows a bit more of my behind-the-scenes thoughts here. So, here we go.
“If behind the left ear there are two ears visible on the outside, the inhabitants of the boundary city of the enemy will become subject to you. [...] If an ewe gives birth to a lion, but with a head of a 'rainbow’ bird, the son will seize the throne of his father. [...] If a woman gives birth to twins without noses and feet, the land will be diminished [...] If a woman gives birth to an ox, the king of universal rule will prevail in the land.”
-Selections from Babylonian-Assyrian Birth-Omens ~700 B.C.E. (1914 Translation by Morris Jastrow, jr.)
🗡🐀🛡️🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿Chapter 16: Hostage Negotiations (cont.)
🗡🐀🛡️🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿Chapter 16: Hostage Negotiations (cont.)
The coded knock travels behind the door and down a series of spider webs, bouncing a few eggs sack, to move down the hall, and around a wall to ring a small silent bell. An ugly mottled face looks up and watches the bell hearing the code from the clapper she pushed up her skull a few days ago. A foul grin crosses the face of the evil woman. She sets down the tweezers and the bottle of acid, then leans in to kiss the snake on its exposed brain. She glances over her low shoulder, but her robed minions aren’t aware of anything amiss. She titters to herself with gleeful mirth.
She scuttles over the stained floor to the largest of her cages. She reaches a knotted boil crust hand in, and roughly squeezes then yanks one of the tentacles within. The eyes blink at her, and she giggles – the sound is rough and grating sound like nails dragged on a chalkboard. When the mouth in the cage opens in a rage, she turns round and drops her chemise, pressing her hot waxen flesh to the cool iron bars of the cage. The teeth hit the bars, rocking the cage against her bracing legs and scraping at her the exposed lumpy flesh of her back. She sighs in pleasure and turns around with all her exposed sagging bits all waving and swinging in the open air of this underground den. She kisses her finger and pokes it into the cage to touch the eye again. It waters and blinks and she grouses, “Now, now hunny dear, Sister has friends coming! And if it goes wrong, I want you to be full!” She covers the cage up with the leather top, and ties the rope in a loose knot.
She moves down the line of cages letting each beast bite her. Re-covering each cage after the monster inside tastes and chews some new chunk of her, then pirouetting with her arms out wide like the lead dame of a musical. The top of her body is still exposed to the air, ‘skyclad’ she thinks mockingly, and all the drooping bits of her fly out in long arcs as she swings. Her leaking mouth shoots swirls of shiny white spit, her open wounds fling dark black blood on the floor and something else leaks a pale yellow green as she twirls.
At the last cage she pulls her clothes closed again, cinching her stained apron with the bone bottun. She delicately lifts one leg like a cartoon dancer in fishnet stockings; she moves the shaky old mottled ankle into the cage with the air of a seductress teasing her mate in a game of footsie – and kicks the caged denizen in the teeth. Suddenly, she has to cover her mouth to stop the barking laugh from getting too loud as the enraged vermin chews on her boney leg.
Once she’s covered the last cage, she turns around, and sees her minions again for the first time. They’re all staring at her in confused and disgusted fascination. She snaps at them and rushes forward raising one gigantic arm to the head of the nearest gawker, “We’re having company!” She squawks, shaking them back and forth by the ear, “So behave for Sister and act menacing,” grabbing his other ear she starts to pull the ears apart, “listen to your Sister, or I’ll truss you up raw over my next fire, scoop out your insides to use you belly as my for cook pot!” Then with a smirk, she turns to sit down primly on the couch with the posture and poise of a fine aristocratic lady. “And, you know Sister will keep you alive to feed you that stew and tell me how good it tastes!” She coos in a crass parody of a tender loving voice.
As she hears a click from the door, she presses a finger to her lips and finishes getting into position.
Ari, Rae, and Sorin all watch Cypress pantomime and explain everything that happened to Bostra in some strange mix of “abb a l wa rarar aayaya” jerky Courage the Cowardly Dog shape shifting, and silent Remmy the Rat pointing. Honestly it's a pretty good one man-er- one rat show. Cypress plays himself and the Thug; at one point grabbing himself around the neck by his own tail and gasping while reaching out – simultaneously showing the Thug tightening the rope/tail around his neck to menace Ari, Rae and Sorin as they put down weapons, after Sorin ties up his own paws with a scrap of shaggy fur.
After the full scene finishes, Cypress-the-Rat lays down on the floor in exasperation and then merges back into Cypress-the-halfling. “I think I’m gonna need a minute,” they say, laying there on the nice cold bricks.
Ari glances at Rae, who shrugs, and they both turn around to start taking other people's belongings.
Ari loots the unconscious Thug by the door. He doesn’t have much on him, but tucked in one sleeve is an odd note reading.
The managory still needs.
1 Parrot 3 Snakes
2 Squirrels 4 Rats on a stick
“Huh?” She feels like it’s some kind of code or something but can’t figure out what it is.
Noticing it’s still open a crack, Rae lifts up the lid of the stronger chest to find 10 Gold and 10 expensive looking gems.
Coughing politely, Sorin waves over to Bostra, “Uh, now that you’re here sir, and uh, that - I mean now that we, um, have a moment…”
“Sorin, either propose to me or spit out whatever it is you have to say.”
With a bright blush, Sorin holds out his arm, “Nonono. Ijustwantedtoaskyoutolookatmyshoulder.” He rotates it in his socket. “The Roper was clamping down on it, and normally I’d ask Cypress to do a Medicine Check on it, but-”
A muffled voice on the ground says, “Later, Sorin.”
“Yeah…” Sorin continues, “So could you take a look, and make sure it’s not broken or dislocated?”
Bostra sighs and takes the boy's arm in both hands, forcing him to kneel down. He pokes and prods, occasionally making the boy wince, then lets go. “It’ll be weak for a while, and hurt for a few days, but I don't think any of the damage was permanent.”
After Sorin nods and steps back, Bostra sits down next to Cypress, opening a little tin and popping out a cigar. He offers it wordlessly to the halfling, who shakes their head. Bostra shrugs and sticks it in his own mouth. “A smoke always helps me breathe better after being held captive and choked out.”
Cypress – a well trained and practicing medical professional – considers pointing out the contradiction in this wild statement, but decides he’s too tired and just accepts it as a gesture of kind comradery.
Ari is moving to look at the small crates but before she can open them, she sees similar notes on each one. The first, wedged in between the wooden slats reads:
Mother’s List
5 eggs
2 flower
II CRAB
5 chicken Feet
Rope
Jug of milk
The second, tied to a nail with a bit of string is written in a fine if unsteady cursive, except for the rough jagged name at the bottom.
My Deepest and Dearest Love,
Send me your kisses
Right away lest i should
Expire need and
Greedy desire
- Mary
And the last one is pinned with a scrap metal tack pushed into a small knott-chip in one of the boards.
Don’t forget to
have the smith
Take apart out
Rake and Bring
me Back the
Handle!
- xoxo
PS. Love you boys!
She’s pondering over the notes and trying to run through the few codes she knows when Rae’s voice interrupts her train of thought.
“Hey, this one’s cloak is still good,” the high elf monk says, pointing to the corpse of the woman at her feet as ‘this one’. “Do you want it?”
“Yeah,” Ari sighs, and holds out her hand, “One more good hit and this one is through anyways,” referring to ‘this one’ as her own cloak, and not the passed out human being crumpled face-to-boot underneath her. Then she catches the tossed cloak and steps on the back of the unconscious person, in order to wriggle out of the fraying cloak, and into the fresh one that her best friend just robbed off a corpse.
While those two commit war crimes (hey, turns out corpse looting was part of the Nuremberg Trial – neat), Sorin is eying the two bright green bottles on top of the heep. Rae hands them to him to look over. He’s hoping they are full of oil or grease – for lubricative reasons i shan't guess at – but the first one is just full of small black roe. The little fish eggs are lumpy inside the bottle, and the top layers start to turn a frosty gray when he uncorks the bottle to look inside. The contents of the second bottle does look viscous enough to be like some oil as he sloshes it around. With a high Arcana Check, Sorin recognizes the script as a very old method of ingredient marking that no one has used for ages. It takes him a moment to translate in his head to something he can recognize. He blinks at the label, “Depulpated Oil of Pressed Lizard Brian - sans Skull Marrow”. Sorin puts it away before Cypress-the-Lizard can get a look at it. ‘I wonder if Devin…’ he thinks, having a long internal debate over how the Lizardman would react to seeing it.
Cypress finally sits up and when they do, a small scrap of paper falls off his chest and into his lap. Confused, he reads the note.
Oh Brother how you
Do vex me so!
you haven’t been to church
in month’s and you
need to make up with
mom before she dies!
See me Soon ♡ ♡
- Sister
He looks up and sees tZulèe nodding. The cleric cocks an eyebrow, and the little wooden gargoyle points over to the pile of boxes and sacks that Ari and Rae are digging through. “Found.” It says flatly, and then after a long considering pause, “For you.”
The three crates have all been just weird ingredients, and now Rae is finding more weird ingredients in the bags next to them. One large leath oil sack is just full of purple animal livers, another is full of little balls of itchy furr, and another is full of large individual scales from some huge reptile.
“Alright,” Cypress says looking up at everyone, “I’m ready. Let’s head in.”
🍏🕶️🙏👁️👁️👁️🦹♂️🦹♂️🐀🛡️🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿Chapter 17: The Poison Manufactury
🍏🕶️🙏👁️👁️👁️🦹♂️🦹♂️🐀🛡️🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿Chapter 17: The Poison Manufactury
Bostra is scratching his chin as he looks over all the open boxes. “I’ll stay here and try to figure this out…”
“tZulèe will you-”
The gargoyle looks affronted and holds out a hand. Then it gives one quick deep nod, leans down on all fours, opens its eyes wide, cracks its mouth open just enough to breath without moving, and just… stares unblinkingly at Bostra.
“-keep. an.. eye… on…. Okay then.”
Mildly disconcerted by the staring statue next to him, Bostra waves at the Thug Muggers. “Before you go in, remember what all we talked about.” As he uses his own Inspiring Leader Feat, he tells them, “Think first, use tactics, you don’t know what it is that you’re walking into (i mean come on, read the chapter titles, Bostra, duh), so go slow!”
Everyone nods and Rae walks up the wall and onto the ceiling. After Ari uses her Chimes to unlock it, she bends down/up to grab the top of the door and pull it open. She steps over the ledge made by the top of the door frame and walks into the tunnel.
Rae is walking on the ceiling when her hanging robe brushes against a trip wire. She hears the click just in time to duck up and avoid the spiked section of wall that whirls around, slamming into the section of wall next to it. Ari checks it over, but once sprung, the trap remains harmless until set up again, so the rest are able to continue past it safely.
At the entrance to the room Ari and Rae both crouch down to get a look inside; with Rae crouching upwards on the ceiling to make room for Ari to crouch down near the floor. They move forward. Ari’s boot hits the chain of a bear trap, and she instinctively pulls away. She sucks in her breath staring at the big iron teeth on the floor. She can see the dog pin wobbling between the upwards pressure of the coils and the jostiling from her boot. She reaches out, then pulls her hand back with gritted teeth unsure how to-
SNAP!
The sound echoes in from the hallway and into the room.
Before we can look around more we hear a panicked cry.
On the couch in the far corner, bound hand and foot, is a fair damsel. “Quick! Help! Save me!” she cries out, her desperate eyes filling with grateful frightened tears. Looking at us seems to have filled her with hope for the first time in days or even months. We’re excited to help, but the trouble is, there’s a lot between us and her. The Sending Statue next to her probably won’t be much of an issue, directly in between us and her is a large round table with some lanterns on it… and some weapons… and of course… standing around the table are two lesser Cultists, and a Cult Fanatic. They look surprised to see us, but not displeased at the idea of getting to kill us.
Cypress is up first. They use their Nimbleness to duck around Sorin, Ari and the sprung trap on the ground to cast Entangle in the area around the table. The Fanatic hops up on a chair and one Cultist jumps out of the area of the spell, but the last one is caught and held fast by the rapidly growing roots.
As Ari avoids the snapping trap, she reaches out to steady herself and grab onto the side of a shelf, thankful that it’s bolted to the wall. The shelves are full of potion bottles and magic doodahs in all different colors and sheens. On the other side of the shelf is a large urn-style jar and a coil of rope in the corner. Let's look around a bit more… when we have a second.
Ari runs into the room casting True Strike to view the weekspots of a Cultist, and uses her Cunning Action to be ready to dodge any attacks against her.
Rae runs into the room, and jumps down from the ceiling, flipping and driving her staff into the Cult Fanatic. Then, standing on the table she punches him once with a tiger palm cracking his chest. She finishes him with a Flurry of blows, punching out again and again until realizes that she’s holding his lung in one hand and looking through a hole in his chest at the pale face of the damsel on the other side. Uh… maybe you’ve been spending too much time around Ari…
As he gets into the entryway, Sorin unleashes a barrage of Magic Missiles with each of the two remaining Cultists taking two missiles to the gut. Behind him, Akris flies into the room, whipping his tail at the nearest one, but missing as they stagger back from his master’s blows.
Now that he’s in the room Sorin’s eye is caught staring at the floor.
Ooph, this room has a lot going on so strap in for a few of these little interruptions. The first thing we see in the dead center of the long room is the outline of a charged magic circle – or rather – several magic circles haphazardly stacked on top of one another. Chalky whitewash has been sloppily painted in over circles of the black and blue summoning runes. Then several red enchantment lines have been drawn over that and are still faintly glowing against the gray curves of a few mathemagical mandals. Then in the middle and on the top layer of all that floor mess is an extremely precise pentagram painted with a pink mix of cracked and drying milk and blood – at least let’s hope it’s milk and blood. Just in front of all this is a stony swell with a hole, like a well, descending to who knows what god knows when or where. And next to that is a large translucent red crystal. It’s hard to tell if it's the crystal or the sigil-ating magic circles that are bathing the back two thirds of the room in a dull red light.
Both the Cultists miss their swings at our heroes, as both seem woozy and move in dazed circles from Sorin’s hits.
Beyond this strange slapdash ritual floor of stacked and overlaid magiks are a row of cage, and behind the bars are some familiar titerings. Like the cages we’ve seen before in these tunnels, most of them are covered with rough homespun blankets. There are four familiar looking square cages, but the round cage in between them and the corner is simply carnage. A mass of blood and guts and broken bones spilling out from between the bars. And the last cage in the corner is much larger. We can hear a rumbling when we look at it, and unlike the others, this cage is covered in a heavy leather tarp bound to it by rope.
Cypress swings with his Mushroom Mace, and Rae swings her Staff, both hit their targets in the lower back, and the Cultists fall.
As Cypress’s mace gets a good bite of the corpse, Ari looks around.
The wall nearest us is where the magic happens… and what foul evil magic it surely is! On three stone plinths sit three cauldrons. One is a large and the dull black of pot metal with pale water in it. Another is smaller and a dark empty black, soot stained and carbonized with a bright nauseous green pigment bubbling inside, the occasional steamy hisses that condense in the air above it drips down the sides of the pillar. The last cauldron is a matte bronze like an urn, and the only thing inside are echoes of the past. On the ground in front of them is a small garden box with corrupt looking grasses and bright red tempting flowers in bloom. Next to these is the table of a mad alchemist or poisoner. There are jars and idols of power around a live dissection squirming in front of an open book. The table next to this is more studious with a scroll laid out and several lumps of metal and shiny body parts alongside a complex compass or orrery. Next to that is a stool propped up to the wall and held in place with ropes. It has numerous bottles, clay bowls, and jars scattered or tossed haphazardly onto it. Then, lastly, another pillar of stone. This one ringed with standing bands of bright yellow metal and a silver inlaid deck of runes surrounding a pool of constantly swirling milky blue liquid.
Ari moves to put the living dissected snake out of its misery but isn’t sure what to do, “Uh, Cypress?”
The druid steps up and looks at it with horror. The Snake’s head is held upright to the table with an iron collar where its head and skull have been opened to show its pulsating brain. The rest of its body is coiled and twisted around to have its stomach up and slit open. The gash as well as many broken ribs are being held open by pins as it tries fruitlessly to squirm and wriggle away.
With a tear and a prayer, Cypress reaches in, and squishes its brain, ending any sensation of pain.
Rae and Ari look away.
The furthest wall from us is clearly just storage. Everything is in a line or maybe more aptly, a pile. The heap is made up of crates and boxes in the middle around a barrel, with several sacks of various sizes and muted colors leaning against the mound of supplies. The only other notable items here are the very large cask propped up on legs, and the darkly ornate chest near the exit over there.
Now we turn and our first really good look at our rescued damsel in distress.
Ari can’t help but notice her manor and demeanor. She is standing with perfect grace and poise, like the high ladies of the castles she grew up with.
Rae can’t help but notice her pale blue skin, so much like the tint of her childhood friend, and the way her spiked hair almost resembles small delicate horns like Shay too.
Sorin can’t help but notice her pointed elf ears, and her fine white pointed teeth. To see a drow in such dire straits, tugs at the strings of his heart.
Cypress can’t help but notice her vestments. The long green tunic of embroidered vines and leaves - no not embroidered, actual vines respectfully sewn into the cloth in the way of some druid clans.
“How did you find me in this awful place? I thought these tunnels were hidden and secret. Did one of the Wogs help you?” Her voice is soft and fair as she stands up, slightly higher pitched like a young girl. Her grateful tears swell around eyes that are wide in awe of her rescuing heroes.
The party is suspicious as they look at her, with Ari remembering the last time she tried to help an “innocent victim” in a Thug room.
“Wogs?”
The maiden’s hands rise in confusion or maybe fear that she's offended the people who so easily vanquished her captors. “Yes um… the frogs…?”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
This time, it’s Cypress who has had enough. “Oh for- Yes, we’re working with the sewers.” He turns to the others, “I’m checking her for injuries, because unlike SOME people I actually have manners and don’t suspect every per-”
“So…” The maiden's soft voice interrupts and drops to a dark husky tone. “The big idiot told on us, did he?” The soft and gentle maiden behind us cackles, her sweet melodious voice breaking like cracking tree roots. The laugh grows louder and we start to hear it echoing from the mouths of the hideous fiends in their cages.
The lanterns in the room flicker and go out. One of the layers of sigils on the floor seem to pulse and ripple and purple light steams down around us and many of the magic items around the room begin to glow. The gold banded pillar with its silver runes pulses out light in waves and we see magical lines around the stone pit.
We turn and look, but the fair maiden who reminded Rae so much of her childhood friend is gone. In her place stands a hideous laughing Green Hag! Her liver spotted skin is waxen like an old apple with lumps and pustulous soars. Her sallow nauseous face is twisted in a smile showing huge flat horse teeth crammed in next to needle pointed fangs, like sea urchin spines. Her mousey matted hair is a patchy and balding font in masking her bloodshot swollen black eyes and spills over her humped hunchback; which looks swollen at the shoulder where one tiny arm hangs as if in an invisible sling, while the other massive muscly arm hangs loose to her wobbling knees and seems to have worms crawling around under the skin. Her leather butchery apron is stained with blood and flecks of green. As we watch in horror she twists a button made of fingernail to open a pocket with her baby arm, pulling out a watery pupiless eyeball. The foul witch holds it over her mouth by the long optic nerve then she wraps her tongue around it like a seductress with a cherry!
When she barks out another laugh and we can see white bits in her gums. “Aren’t I pretty! Am I still worth saving, ye godless trollips!” She leans forward like a linebacker ready to tackle, her legs straight, her one good arm on the floor, head down below her chest, and her back hump openly weeping yellow pus through her shirt. “Come on ye murderous idiots, Sister needs new corpses!” She shrieks it out in a hoarse high pitch alarm siren voice as she rushes forward at Cypress!
Her sharp claws swing at them and we can see the gritty dirt and bug legs lingering beneath those hooked claw nails. She slashes him, then she leaps back, laughing.
She disappears.
We see no sign of her as we look around the room, still hearing her mocking taunts, until at last, with a puff of foul smelling vapor, she appears standing atop the table. Her little and big hands are holding her jiggling belly in mirth as something inside her pushes against her apron in the shape of a screaming face before she slaps it and lears at Sorin coquettishly, “Come on young man, Sister wants to tumble in the dirt witch ye!”
Rae leaps forwards, and before Ari can even say ‘told ya’, she’s lept onto a chair and swinging her staff. The Hag bats the stick aside, only for Rae to step up and punch out with a critical hit, for – really, only 9 damage on a crit’, yeesh. Then she roars in the Hag’s face and unleashes a Flurry of Blows, her fist sending jiggling ripples through the older ladies skin for 19 damage – Okay, that's more like it.
There is an almighty crash and the thick leather cover of the corner cage flies up to the ceiling. We try to watch it go up, but are distracted by the huge gnashing teeth trying to rip through the corner bars of the cage. Then, we hear a chorus of laughs and see the blankets fall from all the cages in the row. In the nearest cage chewing on the corpse of a rat is … another rat. A large filthy sewer rat the size of a dog with greenish matted first. It bends down for another bite and we see that the top of its skull is missing – only a goopy pink membrane separates its brain from the open air. As we gaze down the row of cages against the back wall, we see the Gazers next. Three of them, each in their own cages, staring with their permanently wet eyes at us and chuckling. The iron of the last corner cage squeals in protest and then snaps. The head that pushes and bends the bars back from it is the familiar head of a Gazer, but easily four times the size. Its single malicious eye glares in a promise of hatred and pain, its dark scaly skin still seems to drip with the cosmic void it was drawn from. It snarls and the light in the room seems to flicker as its mouth and tongue glow, feeding on our dread!
One of the Spectator's eyes shoots out a Ray of Confusion at the monk. She’s Confused by it, unsure where to look or swing. Watching this, Sorin is Paralyzed by fear – and the Paralyzing Ray that hits him and leaves him stony still.
The Gazer nearest the corner coughs and its Frost Ray misses Ari. The Telekinetic Ray misses Cypress… but only because the Telekinetic Ray of the closest Gazer hits him full on and sends them skidding back out to the hallway. Then that Gazer’s Ray of Fear hits Ari and she finds herself unable to move any closer to that side of the room.
Sorin manages to shake off his Paralysis but his hand is shaking as he casts, leaving the hand of his Chill Touch just a faint glow in the air.
The second Gazer lands another Fear Ray on Ari, and then hits Rae with a Frost Ray for 9 ray damage on Rae. Ray.
The giant Rat in its cage just continues to look on and feast on its dead companion.
Cypress you’re up, what’re you-
Nymbus: “I come BACK into the room!”
The holy water of Sheela splashes out onto Ari, Rae and Sorin, as Cypress casts Bless.
His Spiritual Weapon misses the Spectator, but Ari’s Fire arrow is right on target, landing in its jar and burning at its scales.
The witch pretends to gobble up Sorin’s weakly cast hand, grinning her awful grin and disappearing like the Cheshire Cat. We hear her sadistic moans echo all around and then a soft voice coos on the nape of Sorin’s neck. “Don’t ye think I’m pretty young mister?” The voice moves up to the sensitive part of the boy’s ear, “You want Sister’s tongue kissing down your throat?” Then she shrieks right in his ear, casting Vicious Mockery, “Because I'm the best that a scrawny little screw up like you can even hope for. You’re so pathetic, even flies wouldn’t mate on your corpse, boy!”
Rae can hear Hag’s voice and she lunges. The swing connects solidly and she shoots in a mix of a cheer and a rage – not realizing she just hit Sorin for 12 damage.
Ari turns to try and help her Confused friend, but when she looks around, she can only see a mesmerizing pastel blue and green swirl as the Confusing beam hits her full on. With the beast bouncing and laughing with a deep rumble at causing so much trouble, the Spectator's second beam misses Sorin.
The little blue Gazer is trying to stir up its own trouble, firing another Telekinetic Ray at Cypress and a Fear Ray at the monk, but the beams hit the bars of its cage as it sways and the rays glance off in the wrong direction.
Once again, where the Blue Gazer failed, the Brown gazer succeeds. Its Fear hits Rae and he blinks as the Confusion retreats but she finds herself afraid – or is it afeared here? Then it hits Sorin with another beam and 11 points of Frost damage.
Sorin Misty Steps over to the far corner behind the table where the damsel/Hag tried to trick us, and casts Chill Touch at the witch as appears right behind where he was, licking at the empty air he left behind.
The green Gazer burps and drools, not caring and just letting its Rays miss everyone, while the rat begins trying to push itself out a torn corner of its cage.
Cypress’s ethereal Sickles Slices at the Spectator for 8 damage.
Even though her eyes are still blurry, Ari thinks she can make out the vague shape of the Hag. She swings.
Fortunately the slash does help Rae come back to her senses, unfortunately it hurts quite a bit.
The Green Hag is laughing as her powerful arm slashes Ari.
Okay, so that's a chance for you to get un-Confused. Give me a Wisdom Save.
Brooke: “14?”
Great, but you did take damage, so now make another Wisdom Save for the influence of your sword.
Brooke, betrayed, and distraught: “Nat’ 1.”
Hmmm… so you’re not confused, but your sword is, and it really wants you to be hitting Rae.
Rae uses her Sentinel Feat to get a hit off on the Witch before she flies away. Then she Jumps and flips onto the ceiling and out of Ari’s reach to fire a +3 crossbow bolt at – nothing…. the bolt falls out of the upside down crossbow.
The Spectator grumbles a deep booming cough and then a bright violet line of light shoots from one of its wet eyes, Wounding Ari for 20 damage, and another chance for a Wisdom Save.
Okay, congrats, you’re back to normal and not compelled to target anyone you don’t want to.
The blue Gazer misses Rae again, but this time finally succeeds at using a Telekinetic Ray to push Cypress back into the hallway and out of the room. And to complete the reversal, the brown Gazer misses both its attacks.
Sorin jumps up on the battered wooden couch to get a clearer shot, and finally hits something. The ghostly Chill Touch hand sinks into the flesh of the Spectator. The monster shakes and shivers, the massive eye in its head rolls up to the white as it convulses! Its Eye stalks curl up and then in like a dying spider, before it falls to the floor unmoving.
Under his breath Sorin mutters, “Rae better let us have some of the eyeball loot this time,” with a jealous over gooey aberration organs that i did not expect.
The middle Gazer looks from side to side to make sure no one is watching and then fires two beams at the Hag. She ducks and giggles waving a ‘naughty boy’ finger at it. The gazer looks sheepish and blushes.
With a triumphant roar – or rather a triumphant squeak – the Giant Diseased Cranium Rat is finally free of its cage!
Cypress you’re up, what’re you-
Nymbus: “I come. BACK into. THE ROOM!”
Haha oka-
Nymbus, pissed: “And my Spirit Weapon attacks the Gazer that just pushed me out!”
Sheela’s sickle pierces through the bars of the cage. The point hits the hideous creature’s giant eye where it curls up to the ceiling, bisecting its brain, and letting the gooey V shaped body fall to the floor.
Suddenly Ari can feel cold damp beads of spit and smell the hot rotting meat scent of the Hag’s breath, “We’re the same little Girlie. Ye could be Sister’s long lost sister. Yer cruelty makes Sister smile and itch in such a special way. And I know deep down you feel it too deary!” Then her magic catches the whispers and makes them echo over and over in bubbles of grimy spit and air wrapped around Ari’s ears. The Vicious Mockery repeats, “You and me”, over and over in one ear and, “Exactly the same!” in the other.
From the ceiling Rae, lines up her shot at swings-
Someone at the table, laughing: “It’s a reverse pinata! It hangs from the ceiling and swings a bat at you!”
Then she jumps back to the floor and uses as much Ki as she can dredge up, punching and kicking and sending the hideous Hag skidding back across the room!
With a crash, the Hag flies back and lands on the ripped bars of the Spectator's broken cage. She reaches her feeble hand up, and then her muscular arm, but before she can wriggle her way off, her weight shifts – and suddenly we can see the bent and broken iron bars sticking out of her chest. Coughing, shrieking, and laughing as she dies, the Hag’s last words are, “Ye thoughtless trollop of the Tree! With my last breath I curse ye! Raelle Woodmaker, let my curse harry you to the grave as ye have cursed mine!” Then she spits and her last bit of magic carries the noxious yellow phlegm across the room and onto Rae’s forearm, leaving a acidic burned mark.
“How did she-” but before Rae can ask, she’s interrupted by a scream of rage, and a gleeful laugh as Cypress is once again pushed from the room.
Much to the derisive disdain of everyone at the table, Sorin cast’s Chill Touch on the little furry rat that just escaped its prison, for 5 damage.
Then Sorin collapses on the couch as the other Gazer’s Telekinetic Ray pushes him back.
Fortunately for me, the Rat had 6 HP and so, with the last of its life, it bites Sorin on the ankle, it’s only 2 damage, but Sorin failed the Con Check and so he is now also Diseased – take that, you jerk!
Anyways, Cypress you’re up, wha-
Nymbus: “I COME! BACK INTO! THE ROOM!”
Haha i-
Nymbus, pissed: “And my Spirit Weapon attacks the OTHER Gazer that just pushed me out!”
Sheela’s sickle pierces through the bars of the cage, then twists and slices. With a drowning gurgle, the Gazer’s jaw is sliced off. It tries to float in the air for a moment, dripping blood and brains, but the main eye slowly closes, and falls to the floor of its cage.
Ari stares at this strange horror and then casts. Her own Ray of Sickness hits the last Gazer, sending it to the back of the cages in a fit of ticklish giggles.
Sorin uses a Firebolt to finish off the Rat at his feet.
Rae follows her lead and runs to the cage, trying but failing to wedge her staff in the bars to finish the terrible thing off.
The Gazer slowly rises in its cage, its teeth dripping from an awful insane grin as it makes prolonged eye contact with Rae. Then, still grinning as she watches, it begins to bash its face over and over, harder and harder against the bars and blots of its cage. Each time it pulls back, its face becomes an increasingly bloody and unrecognizable pulp, until finally the sharp tooth grin fails to come back the last time. With the magic lights of the room flickering, the Gazer gargles and chuckles out the last of its breath.
Trying not to gag, Ari and Rae look away when Ari spots something on the floor. The note tZulèe found for Cypress is there and for just a second, she thought she could see something flicker on it. She picks it up, but nothing is happening.
An idea strikes her and she waves to Sorin. “I think I know what the code on these is!” She lays all of the notes out on the table and looks at him. “Just trust me okay, I want you to cast any spell, the higher the level the better, standing right next to these.”
With a confused but ‘okay I guess if it makes you happy then sure’ expression that makes him look queasy or constipated, Sorin cast’s Haste on Rae. When the spell is in the air, something glows on the paper.
Ari stares at the notes, taking in the glowing letters as they slowly fade. The hidden ink is written in the gaps and even crossing parts out, and it changes the messages entirely.
The managory Sister still needs.
1 Parrot Piercer 3 Poisonous Snakes
2 Squirrels Oozes 4 Diseased Rats on a stick
My Deepest and Dearest Love Delphin,
Send me your kisses 9 Quail
Right away lest i should Hearts & Brains
Expire need and 7 virgin squirrel eyes
Greedy desire & 3 thorns of Deadly olives
- Mary Sister
Sister Mother’s List
5 eggs of imps
2 flower nightshade
II CRAB Eyes
5 Cuckhold Feet
Rope
of Hanged man
Jug of milk
of AmbroSia
Don’t forget to
have the smith Constable
Take apart our
Rake Delphin and Bring
me Back the
Handle Brain!
- xoxo
PS. Love you boys!
Fail me and i’ll
Kill you Slowly!
Oh Brother Delphin how you
Do vex me so!
you haven’t been to “church”
in month’s and you
need to make up with
mom Totkao before she dies I Kill you!
See me Soon Or else 💀
- Sister
Indispensable invisibility spell: Take fat or an eye of a night owl and a ball of dung rolled by a beetle and oil of an unripe olive and grind them all together until smooth, and smear your whole body with it and say to Helios: "I adjure you by your great name, BORKE PHOIOUR LO ZIZIA APARXEOUCH THYTHE LAILAM AAAAAA IIIII 0000 IEO IEO IEO IEO IEO IEO IEO NAUNAX AI AI AEO AEO EAO: and moisten it and say in addition: "Make me invisible, lord Helios, AEO OAG EIE EAO, I in the presence of any man until sunset, IO IO IO PHNXRIZO EOA."
The Greek Magical Papyri (100s BCE to the 400s CE)
Table talk:
Before we played today, Brooke told everyone how i’d made a comment about “if you all go where i hope you’re gonna go today”. So during the earlier table talk, the players had a good laugh at me joking about just turning around and walking out in the other direction. Well, if they’re reading this and still wondering. Yes. This is the room i was hoping you would go to. You actually did what i planned… for once.
I put a lot of work into the miniatures used here, especially the tiny things like the bottles and everything, but i also did that with the map for the room itself. Because of that, i included a larger than normal “area of play” map below this time. So, if you would, please take a second and click on it to zoom in and look around (again, using Dungeondraft as my map program).
Going forward 🔔 will be 📿.
