Thug Muggers in the Tunnels 5/17/24
Table Talk:
Miniature Sorin has arrived! So, Ashley will be the first to get the long fabled surprise bonus OOOooooOOOoooo … … … once i finish getting it made, that is.
I gave the players XP for the last two fights, but i mucked something up in my notes that i need to correct next session. So i’ll wait to write it out here until the next summary.
Something i forgot to mention. Rae, the gem stones you found last time are all amber. And reader, i think i forgot to put this in but, when Rae picked up the partial Roper exoskeleton it overloaded her inventory due to its size. So now, Ari is carrying anything new she picks up.
HEY! Something new! That’s exciting! This is the first time you all have been up through a whole day and night without rest! So, that means you all have level 1 exhaustion, and disadvantage on skill checks! Wait – am i the only one excited here?
"This one will serve to conjur the celestial and infernal powers. Put the ring on your finger and the talisman over your heart, then pronounce the following words: Siras, Etar, Besanar, and you will perceive the effects."
Hardly had these words come from my mouth than I saw a multitude of spirits and figures of different shapes. The spirit who was at my side said to me: "Command and order and your desires will be satisfied."
The old man added, "My son, the sky and the hells are at your orders.
The Black Pullet: Science of Magical Talisman ~1700s
🍏🕶️🙏👁️👁️👁️🦹♂️🦹♂️🐀🛡️🎲🗡️📿✨🌿Chapter 17: The Poison Manufactory (cont.)
🍏🕶️🙏👁️👁️👁️🦹♂️🦹♂️🐀🛡️🎲🗡️📿✨🌿Chapter 17: The Poison Manufactory (cont.)
After the flickering light, the secret letters continue to glow for a few breaths, before they fade again. Seeing them reminds Cypress of the instructions from Guruuuuhckck. Since we’re not breathing nearly as hard as we thought we would be after that fight, they take a second to pull out the paper. He follows the line from the Quall mark (the frog language character for a guttural Q/cK sound in the back of the throat) to the instructions for this room:
“Poison Manufactory - - Clear out poison room. Stop poison. Fill the hole!”
Everyone turns to look at the well-like stone hole.
Rae is the first over to it, walking around the north edge, and avoiding stepping on the slope made by the rising earth. Cypress walks up to it, inspecting the walls of this strange elevated pit and inadvertently stepping on the painted magic circles behind him. Sorin stays where he is, but Ari goes over to cautiously peer inside.
This hole, this thing, this well… is hard to describe. It’s an unnatural formation, but not made by any mortal hand or crafting tools. It’s not a carved rock, or a bored pit. It looks like an unearthly earthbound zit, where the rock itself swelled up and opened – like a tiny cold volcano going down and down and down into the darkness.
As she stares into its depths, Ari can hear a faint sound. Almost mesmerized, she leans in closer. Something about the sound is familiar like the distant song of a bird you heard once on a family picnic. With a nat’ 1 on her History Check, she’s not paying attention to the others. She bumps into Rae, who looks mildly affronted.
Sorin looks up from the messages laid out on the table, just in time to see the flash of light streaming towards the others.
“Rae! DUCK!”
🐁☣️☣️☣️☢️🧟♂️🛡️🎲🗡️📿✨🌿Chapter 18: Rebirth
🐁☣️☣️☣️☢️🧟♂️🛡️🎲🗡️📿✨🌿Chapter 18: Rebirth
Rae jumps back just in time to doge the Wound beam flying through the spot where her chest was half a second ago.
We hear a deep rumble, and then a sonorous shaking chuckle. The ominous laugh is wet and gummy, like someone just waking from a sleep with gunk still in their teeth and throat. We turn to see the Spectator rising from the place it fell, in front of the impaled Hag and its broken cage. The single massive eye in its head is still rolled back, the pale webbing of the optic nerve still facing us. Its eyestalk tendrils lift up in erratic jerks and fits, blinking and struggling to focus.
Before anyone can move, the higher pitched and discordant giggles of its smaller siblings dance their way into our ears. They too rise to stagger-float in their cages. The one nearest Sorin keeps faltering and bobbing down – without its lower jaw, the blood drips out a steady tip tap tap, tip tip tap. The middle Gazer’s face is still a toothy smashed grin with fangs booking through its face on all sides from where it bash itself to death on its own iron bars. But the last Gazer is somehow even worse. It has no middle eye from where the Spiritual sickle bisected it, and the two halves of it’s head flop back and forth as it turns around to look between all of us – the four eyestalks divided, two on each half of the head curl and whip like dreadlocks as the bright fluorescent pink and green insides pulse with goo and bubbling viscera. (I’ll be honest, i really don’t know anymore if i’m getting better at these descriptions, or just enjoying them more…)
His face bunched in a disgusting grimace at these foul abominations, Cypress casts Sacred Flame at the hovering Zombie Spectator. The spell begins to shape around one of its twitching eyestalks when it lets out a sharp barking laugh. The eyestalk curls and whips. The creature of the voids uses its Spell Reflection to hurl the casting at Rae instead. She jerks back just in time as the spell goes off in front of her eyes – leaving after visions of glowing holy fire.
“No!” Rae says it as she grabs her staff and runs across the room. She slams the weapon down on the beast's head, then kicks out and up into its jaw – sandwiching the giant head between her blows. Then she breathes in her Ki and lashes out a Flurry of Blows. The last blow is a knife hand strike with her Ki is like a blade along the side of her hand and it slices through the back of the eye (still the side towards us). There’s no pop, but just a ‘blorp’ sound and a waterfall gush of ichor as the aberration dies a second death.
Glancing around, Sorin can see that none of the attention of the fight is on him. He takes the opportunity to look around and try to piece together how these creatures came back to unlife. He’s staring at the runes around the magic circle, but his tired mind feels fuzzy, and everytime he feels like he’s on to something, his eye catches on a new rune and the idea slips away.
The middle Zombie Gazer is having a ball, and even though both its Rays miss (Dazing Ray at Rae and a Telekinetic Ray at Cypress), it just continues to dance and laugh in its cage. The words are hard to make out between its smashed teeth and shattered jaw bones, but it sounds like a rhythmic chant “Cling clang da finch eh ked”?
Like Sorin, Ari is trying to piece together what brought these things back. An idea takes her and she swings at the red crystal in the middle of the room.
Wow, is that your second nat’ 1 in a row?
The sword bounces off the ringing quartz and slices into the arm of her outstretched off hand for 8 damage.
Sarah, half joking and half afraid: “Wait, so does she have to attack herself now?”
Make a wisdom saving throw against your sword’s thrall, Ari.
Psst, don’t worry guys she’ll be fine and we won’t have to worry about it – i mean statistically after two 1’s she has to roll high, so– Wait what…
Huh…
Well then…
Okay… so… you don’t have to attack yourself, but you do have disadvantage with your sword now until your next rest. I think that’s the only solution that will get us out of this one…
The blue Zombie Gazer lets out two rays. The Frost beam flies at Rae, who saves; and the Telekinetic Ray flies at Cypress to push him out of the room again … but – to my dismay – they save.
The brown Zombie Gazer lets out two rays. The Frost beam flies at Rae, who saves; and the Telekinetic Ray flies at Cypress to push him out of the room again … but – to my dismay – they save.
With everyone distracted, and Sorin – the only one close to it – too preoccupied to notice, The Giant Zombie Diseased Cranium Rat sneaks out of the room and down the passage, away from the fight.
Cypress’s Spiritual sickle is once again at the bars of the cages, trying to slice into the Gazers inside, but one of them bites at it, gripping the blade in its half rotten teeth before letting go and sending the weapon springing back. Meanwhile Cypress is also trying to piece this all together, but like the others, the exhaustion is catching up to him and he just can’t focus.
With a swift turn, Rae’s staff finds the gap in the bars and comes down on the next Zombie Gazer. Her staff lands in the middle of the V cut by the sickle before – hitting the brain inside with a squelch. The blue Gazers eyestalker blink and flicker as it falls dead once again.
Sorin tries again to wrap his head around the idea, around the idea, around, what… No! The idea, it was… it was… Dammit. He just had it!
The singing gazer focuses just long enough to hit Rae with a Frost beam for 6 more damage – and to my delight – they hit Cypress with a Telekinetic Ray to push him from the room yet again.
Something doesn’t feel quite normal about this underground level cult poison-room fight with zombie space eyeball monsters, and Ari is here to Investigate the situation. With stirring suspicion, she looks down to see that the blood from all the dead monsters is flowing in a congealing path like branches towards the corner… toward the–
Before she can say it, the brown Gazer lets out two more eye rays. Rae just barely ducks the harmful Frost beam, but the Dazing Ray… Ari is just so tired. It’s been a long day and a long fight – 3 fights really when you think about it. Her arms hurt and her legs hurt and she just needs to sit down.
Ari is Charmed. She walks across the room and takes a seat at the table.
Anyways, Cypress you’re up, wha-
Nymbus: “I come… back INTO THE ROOM!”
Ahahahaha this might be my favorite fight of the campaign.
Cypress almost has it now. It’s the magic circle. Something with the magic circle, and he can make out a path of flowing magic branching out from the corner. He’s almost got the whole thing now if he can just – the sound of a gargling Gazer makes them look up.
Rae, make a Con Save.
4.
Okay, you have disadvantage on attacking this one, because it's the one you watched bash itself to death making eye contact with you.
Sarah: “Okay, yeah, fair…”
With a disgusted grimace, Rae arranges her staff and hits out at the broken floating face. Giggling against a mouth full of broken crooked teeth it bites down on the stick. Rae pulls back, and without meaning to, smashes the thing against the bars again. It gargles and falls back again while Rae bends over, gagging.
Sorin may be tired, but he still has a good idea. He clicks the Truesight lens of his goggles into place, ready for if the Hag comes back to life and goes invisible again. That way, he can attach his Immovable Ball to her and everyone can see where she is. Then as his main action, he reaches out with Chill Touch and re-kills the last gazer to end the fight.
There’s a wet sliding sound as the lights flicker.
We hear a familiar ominous laugh in the darkness.
In the red flickering light we see a staccato strobe image of the Hag as her lifeless body jerks. Her arms turn backwards from her body and we hear her shoulders wrench and rip.
The large muscly arm pulls the impaled iron bars out of her as she lifts her misshapen body up from the broken iron bars of the cage. With a heavy thump she lands on the floor, already running at Rae. “Come here ye filthy tree wife! I’ll show ye what it means to be buried!” With her shoulders mangled, she has to twist her whole body, but the force of the swing carries her claws ripping into the monk.
Ari snaps to attention as the shrieking woman hits her friend. “Wait, why am I in a chair?” Shaking off the Daze, she jumps up on the chair, then atop the table. She grabs a vial from her pouch and hurls the acid into the center of the circle.
The glass breaks.
The circle lets out a hiss
Red, purple, and black smoke plume up from the ground.
This time Cypress’s Sacred Flame hits, and sends his undead foe reeling.
Rae unleashes her rage on the Hag, punching and kicking with all her fury.
Sorin blasts the witch with a FIrebolt.
Bleeding more and more, the Hag continues to stagger back to her target. Her undying hatred draws her to Rae like iron filings to lodestone. She grits her teeth and swings! It's a critical hit. The blood gushes out from Rae’s face as she staggers back, holding onto the crystal with one hand and her staff in the other to stay upright.
Ari rushes in with a vengeance. She goes to swing the dagger at the Hag’s gut, but then she sees the glitter of Cypress’s spell taking shape behind the Hag. At the last seconds, she changes and instead lunges at the witch’s face – using the witch’s dodge to force her back into the Sacred Flame.
The wretched woman shrieks and seizes for a moment as she dies, but Cypress isn’t taking any chance. They direct the sickle to cut a witch – literally. The sickle plunges into her swollen undulating belly at the sternum and rips a jagged hole down to her pelvis. Only then is the cleric satisfied!
Gosh golly gee, what a disturbing fight! Sure glad that's over, and we can relax now.
Heh heh heh…
“Oh gosh, Rae are you okay?”
“Quick here let me take a look at that!” – says absolutely no one after Rae took a critical hit to the face that will literally disfigure her for life. Nope, they all just go on like nothing happened.
With everything finally calmed down, Sorin is finally able to think straight. “THE CURSE!”
Everyone turns to look.
He gulps. “The curse…”
“Go on.”
“It’s her curse, I mean.”
“Yeah,” Cypress nods encouragingly, “I think we got that part. What about it?”
“When the Hag cursed Rae, you know, as she died, it was something that would bring her back to life. You all saw the blood flowing from the Gazer’s to her corpse right? So they come back to life then as they get hurt and die, their blood flows to her and she emerges with their life in her!”
Nods all around.
“Okay,” says Rae, “So, what made the Gazers come back to this?”
Sorin scoffs, “ Well that’s – … a good question actually.”
Groans all around.
Rae folds her arms. “Well something magicky happened when Ari threw the acid on this magic circle thing.” She walks over the floor towards the stone plinth of swirling liquid. “I’ll dump this water out on it and we can try to wash it off.”
As Rae reaches the stone basin we hear a deep rumble, and then a sonorous shaking chuckle. The ominous laugh is wet and gummy, like someone just waking from a sleep with gunk – I mean you get it right?
Rae saves against both of the Spectator’s attacks, and Ari takes a minute to consider what Sorin said, and roll her own Arcana Check.
Wow, three critical fails in one session, you need to do something about those dice… I’m not usually one for corporal punishment, but maybe you need to beat them a little after the game.
Ari is piecing the whole thing together now, she looks down and sees her foot inside the circle, where she’d just taken a step to follow after Rae. “Oh crap,” She mutters. Then shouting to everyone. “It’s me guys! I’m the problem. It’s me! When I put my foot in the circle it must’ve triggered. I guess because Rae and I are linked with the protector thing or something.”
Forgetting the lesson from less than two minutes ago (five combat rounds plus some talking), Cypress casts Sacred Flame on the Spectator. WIth a laugh, if reflects spell back at Rae – who has to take 6 more damage.
The blue Zombie Gazer fires off a beam at Rae, but she’s still staggering and it misses; then it shoots a Telekinetic Ray at Cypress to push them out of the room.
Cypress has had enough! He plants his staff in the ground, rolls a nat’ 20 and faces down the beam with the same stubborn will of a cactus growing in barren rocky desert. He refuses to budge.
The brown Zombie Gazer lets out two rays. The Frost beam flies at Rae, who saves; and the Telekinetic Ray flies at Cypress to push him out of the room again … but he has advantage from the nat’ 20 and saves.
Rae’s muscles bulge as she strains to dip over the basin, but it only barely tilts, and then rocks back into place.
Yawning in the middle of combat like any teenage boy convinced he can pull an all-nighter, Sorin unleashes a lazy spray of Magic Missiles – killing one Gazer, and bloodying… okay, more bloodying the other two.
With its main eye gone, and only a quarter of its original health, the Spectator Zombie is just barely limping along as it tries and fails again to attack Rae.
Ari turns to the chuckling Sending Statue, “What is it you want!?”
The statue and the DM blink in mutual surprise, “Wow I didn't expect anyone could be THAT dumb. Maybe wait to talk to me when you’re not actively dying?” They both say in unison.
Something about what Ari said sticks in Cypresses mind and he plays it all out in his head again. “Wait! No, it wasn’t Ari. Rae, it’s whenever you step near the magic circles!” As he saves against another telekinetic Ray, he explains, “When Ari accidentally bumped you by the pit, you stepped in it.” Rae dodges a fear Beam as he continues, “Then just now, you crossed the circle to get to the plinth thing.” He and Rae both dodge the next Fear and Dazing Rays as he finishes, “Then when the Gazers and the Spectator Zombies die on the lines Sorin found, they bring HER back to life!”
Rae nods and runs around the edge of the room to swing at the Spectator and kill it for the third time today. “That tracks, I think.”
Able to select any weapon she wants now (with equal disadvantage), Ari draws out one of her darts and flings it at the nearest Gazer. Her luck seems to be changing. The Gazer turns to her as she throws, and the dart snags one of the eyestalks before going into its face. Pinning the wriggling tentacle down as it dies.
Sorin and Cypress nod to each other. Together they cast Sacred Flame and Chill Touch, dispatching the remaining two Zombie eye monsters.
“Okay, let's take just a second her before –”
The Hag comes to life in a lurching run like a zombie runner at the starting pistol. Her larger arm slashes at Rae in a wide uppercut lifting her up into the air. Taking 19 more damage, our heroic monk is knocked out cold. She crumples back to the ground with closed eyes. “Eh heheheheh,” The witch coos over Rae’s unconscious body. She bends over her and bits of her ripped open stomach flop out onto Rae’s face as she stage-whispers, “Call my a lumberjack, girlie, I’m good at felling trees!” SHe turns to the other, letting organs fall from her open chest, “I told her I’d teach her what it means to be buried. And after all, Sister always keeps her promises, ack ack ack ack!”
Nymbus, at the table, shrugging: “I mean… at least Rae can’t step in the circle if he’s dead…”
As Sorin’s Chil Touch ghost hands flies out, Ari rushes forward in a rage. Not caring anymore about any stupid curse, she draws her rapier in a dead sprint, and slashes. The cut is precise and surgical – if not exactly clean – the blade lances through the skin of the Hag’s hump on her hunched back, peeling it back. The rapier cleaves neatly through the swollen warty skin, and for a brief moment before she turns to fall dead, we can see the yellow and brown inlaid layers of moldy rotten bone and bile-pus like tree rings in the nasty old woman's back. As she dies, she shrieks in a cracking wail, “My beauty! My body! My Purity! How could ye, ye feckless demon!”
Sarah: “Her lumps, her lumps.”
Ashley: “Her icky haggy hump!”
Well, Ari, that was over 20, so you get 10 HP back
Brooke, gagging: “I don’t… think i want that…”
Before anything else happens, Cypress steps carefully around the magic circles and in between the two heaps of the Hag (her body and her hump) to cast Cure Wounds on Rae, and revive her.
Rae awakens with the sight of blood and yellow pus inches from her face as Sister’s hump starts to hiss and and deflate. Gagging, she kinda wished she was in the black void of near-death.
Sorin starts looking around for a bucket to wash out the circles on the ground while Ari and Cypress head over to the statue. He finds a wooden bucket in the mound of random supplies and goes over to the stone basin Rae was trying to tip over. To scoop up the water.
“Don’t bother.” Rae says with a shrug. She’s still standing by the thing, unwilling to tempt fate and cross the room without knowing how close she can or can’t get to the circles.
“Why?” Sorin looks at the swirling liquid. “Oh.”
The liquid isn’t water, and it also isn’t much. The recess that holds the swirling fluid is only about an eighth of an inch deep. The liquid itself never stops moving, seemingly repealed by the stone containing it.
Over in front of the Sending Statue, Ari takes a stance with her arms crossed over her chest. “Well. We’re not dead.” She glares at the indistinct figure. “So, what's your deal? Why’re you watching this?”
The shape of the statue is that of a cloaked and hooded figure, not unlike the Cultists we've seen. But this one has a tall spiky crown atop it that continues to slowly spin in place. The hood has a face underneath, but even in the light it is hard to make out. The melting metal gives an almost lively air to a beard making it seem to roil and crawl. The face itself stays moving and constantly changing – sometimes distinct and sometimes so normal as to be unrecognizable.
The statue laughs, “Why, I'm enjoying the show! You’re right. You’re not dead. Not yet… but soon.”
Ari’s hands clench into fists in the pits of her elbows.
“t- uh ehmmhmmhmm” the figure hum-laughs, “Zaanth has told me so much about you all. I’ll be honest, I assumed she was lying about you all for a while. I didn’t think anyone would be that big an idiot. But seeing you all again for myself, well… I’m just glad ‘Sister’ is having some fun. It’s been ages since she’s really been able to stretch her arm.”
Gritting her teeth, Ari tries to relax her arms and her hand instinctively goes to the pommel of her sword. “Well, if we’re just idiots, why aren’t you here to deal with us yourself? Hmm?”
The shoulders of the statue slump its shoulders and it sighs with pitying scorn, “Oh my, oh my… Zevari Valros, look how far you’ve fallen. You see, a REAL King delegates. It’s no wonder your family fell so quickly. No wonder you lost all your power and land. You see, Zevari, a true lord, a true ruler, a true King, stays and lets their peons deal with the garbage.”
Sorin sees another heated exchange between Ari and the Sending Statue only catching her angry, “Where then, huh?” and a calm “always here.”
As he walks over to join them, Ari scoffs, “Well that all sounds pretty convenient. Then if you’re ‘always everywhere’,” she throws up her hands mockingly, “then why are you here now, and not doing something Kingy Kingly.”
Once again, the posture and tone of the statue is derisive – languidly lording over lesser creatures, “Mocking once again? DIdn’t Yofess teach you that mockery is a stain on the lower class, that dignity and refinement are – No, evidently he died before he could teach you the decorum of class. Well, once again, miss Valros,” it says, carefully pronouncing the lack of any title, “it is a difference between riff raff like you and a true King. I am overseeing my Kingdom, ins-”
Sorin interrupts him with a barked, “This isn’t your Kingdom, this is Nibiru!”
“Ah yes, Sorin, exactly the manners I'd expect of an abandoned gutter orphan. Tell me, street rat, are you still trying to call yourself Sorin Nameless as if you actually had a family name?” With a scoff, the vague face is distorted in disgust, “No matter. This IS my kingdom, little bottom feeder. Call it what you like, but it all belongs to me in the end.”
Now Sorin is boiling alongside Ari, “Fine, then what’s the name of this so-called Kingdom!?”
“Yeah,” Ari chimes in, “And where’s your palace and throne!?”
The constantly contorting face frowns in dismay, a school teacher ashamed of students that just won’t learn. “Children.” It spits. “I am ToTKoA. I am all and everywhere. I rule all things and all shores…”
While the statue rambles on a problematic monologue about being better than everyone else, Cypress’s eyes are rolling so hard he might have to take psychic damage. The speech goes on for about a paragraph of self aggrandizing talk with ‘glory’ and ‘truth’ and ‘deep in your hearts you know you’re filthy scum’ and so on.
Cypress (and my keyboard) just feel gross, bored, and done with it all.
Cypress-the-fed-up-with-Chauvinists starts moving the coals out of the hearth underneath the statue to turn it lifeless again.
“-but I am at the center of it all in the hearts of all and in the heart of the earth.”
The statue’s movements are slower and its speech quieter. The spinning crown slows to a halt as the figure cools and goes still. It’s final words are creaky and low.
“So long, Thug Muggers. It really is a pity we won’t have a chance to meet before you die.”
I really want to leave off on that, it’s so close to a good line… But “so long ThUg MugGeRs”!?! God i wish they’d chosen a better name… Anyways, until next week i guess *fart noise*
EIGHT OF SWORDS LUNA-SILVER
The Seventh Spirit is Amon. He is a Marquis great in power, and most stern. He appears like a wolf with a serpent's tail. Out of his mouth vomits flames of fire; but at the command of the Magician he puts on the shape of a man with dog's teeth beset in a head like a raven; or simply like a man with a raven's head. He tells all things past and to come. He procures feuds and reconciles controversies between friends. He governs 40 Legions of Spirits
–Aleister Crowley, “The Illustrated Goetia: Sexual Evocation”
Table talk:
Well, we ended off hearing from a major d-bag, so i thought i’d leave off with a quote from another very problematic person. The quote was pulled from Aleister Crowley’s “The Illustrated Goetia: Sexual Evocation” which is tied to the Ordo Templi Orientis. At the risk of saying too many things that might get me hate mail, i will just say that Crowley’s works are widely regarded as false discoveries of ancient texts and methods that he wrote himself. Also, he and one infamous LRH of scient - - ology fame were good buddies, and some people claim to have heard them often laughing about starting cults together. While there is plenty of doubt about the authenticity of the beliefs in this book, Crowley has nevertheless had a HUGE impact on our culture. In particular our ideas regarding what we think of as magic, paganism, demonism, satanic practices, and indeed the idea of mystic rituals itself. That is why i included this quote in my series of old magic texts. (If you want an interesting dive on the subject, check out “Ross and Carrie Go OTO (Part 1): Nudity and Dark Rituals Edition” [Spotify link])
So when the Green Hag first came back, and right before she died, she hit Rae with a crit’. Because i’ve given player options with crit’s (see the Roper fight with Sorin hitting the Roper’s eye), I gave Sarah an option. 32 damage, or 16 damage and a permanent facial scar. She chose the scar. Mechanically i added a -1 Charisma penalty to that, leaving her now at CHA 11 (+0). We discussed this at the table, with some arguments that a scar would enhance her charisma. My reasoning is that narratively this is a new scar – not only is it going to still be healing for a while, but it will affect how Rae carries herself. She might be timid with her face not looking like it always has, or try to show it off and come off like a dork. The point is that it’s new to her and she doesn’t know how to pull it off yet. She might bump that stat up when she levels up – symbolizing her adapting to it – or might get a tattoo adding to it and removing the penalty, but that all comes later.
