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Post by Liou on Aug 15, 2022 17:21:55 GMT -5
Uvina B: ☆⋆:*:⋆☆ Team Superstars ☆⋆:*:⋆☆ Session 9: Robot and robbers - 23 June 2022
In brief: * There are bandits causing trouble in Lar'uk.
* We meet Luna's contact Calben and his sapient construct Maul.
* Calben tells us of the shady merchant who sells "Brain Boxes", Crackwick.
* Long rest -> Day 18?
* We stake out the bandits in the ruins of old Lar'uk.
* We use subterfuge to spook some of the bandits, and combat begins with the rest.
Recap:
After the whole siren incident, we got some good sleep on the ship. It's a nice day, the sun is high up in the sky. It has not gone supernova since last session, thanks to our wise and generous Presidente.
We are in Lar'uk, the modern name for the land where Regalia told us Nalariel came from. This foodie party immediately decides to seek food.
The local food genre resembles Mongolian and Nepalese cuisine, it includes rice based dishes, hearty meats, but also vegetarian dishes, good for our Vynvyn. There are ingredients we can't easily find in Corroza, like ginger.
There is an action-themed martial arts theater advertised in a poster, with monks performing a play. It looks awesome, it involves people fake-slapping each other choreographically, but also history.
We don't see nearly as much political propaganda as in Mettei, there are no posters for election campaigns! Because it's not a democracy.
There's a poster for Tian's acting school. We get the vague impression that this is something from the northern empire that's being brought down here.
We decide to try the tavern experience for once. There are tea places where we can also get wine. There is an imported rice wine that seems like a big deal. The tea place is very calm. We see a street musician playing a string instrument outside the window. The other customers look calm, elderly and scholarly.
We hear gossip about local actors' personal drama, then a rumour: some bandits have moved in? They are harassing people on the streets?
Lar'uk is somewhat of a vassal state to the northern empire, and its troops have been slow to arrive and handle the situation. What are we even paying them for, the gossips wonder quietly, if they're just going to sit on their hands?
Lar'uk is not a very troubled town overall. We see mostly unexciting merchants, some headed to Uvina, others going up to the mountain, where the dwarves and orcs and drow dwell, to buy super fancy weapons.
After tea we head towards the address of Calben, Luna's friend's cousin's uncle's son.
Most buildings here are structurally sound. This house is not up to code, it's like if the leaning tower of Piza was really about to collapse any moment. It's made of a zigzag of various house compartments. All the doors except one are made for tiny people like gnomes.
"I'm sure it's being held up by magic," Luna says in a tone that tries to be reassuring.
At that, Mara ritual casts Detect Magic. The outside of the house is not magical, uh oh. But there is a magical thing within its walls.
In order to avoid knocking on any part of this construction, we harmonise a Hello. The door is opened by a gnome with resting grumpy face. His eyes have a tense look that make us feel like we've done something wrong.
"Can't believe you'd visit your ..... Nobody ever visits! Come on in." He very gruffly takes Luna by the hand and leads us in.
We are served fake coffee and different kinds of loose tea all mixed together. The house is large and made of many parts with suspicious looking temporary fixes and patches. There is a bronze construct behind Calben, a tall one that looks like it would be very good at murder.
"You are Luna, yes?" asks the grumpy gnome.
"Yes," she replies, "it's nice to finally meet you, Calben!"
"No problem, it's good to have you, no one ever visits, I don't know why. Would any of you like local pastries?" The pastries are obviously and fortunately store bought, milk buns filled with dates. "I'm addicted to this stuff, though it will put on a few pounds. But you can do martial arts - I have a yellow belt, you know?"
"That's cool, congratulations!"
Calben's bronze construct keeps staring at Khitah, which is unusual for constructs. It's inching closer and extending a creaky hand. It shakes hands with Khitah.
"Maul is very friendly!" says Calben. "They rarely meet people their size."
This phrasing strikes us as odd because we know that constructs are not supposed to be sapient!
"Did you construct Maul?" asks Luna.
"Yes, I'm very good at construct construction."
Luna whispers to Mara: "Could this be the magic you detected?" We are intrigued and studying this clanky new friend, who even has a sense of humour.
"Hi Maul!" Luna continues. "I also get excited when I meet people my size! Like Vyn."
"Yes, it is nice to literally see eye to eye!" adds Vyn.
Maul meets Khitah's eyes and nods approvingly.
Vyn cantrip-messages Luna: "I'm worried there's a ghost in there?"
"For all I know it could be, this is like nothing I've seen before!" she messages back.
Calben admits, "I'm not that good at building constructs, usually when I turn them on they blow up. But Maul did not blow up! I spent a lot of time on its brain unit, I thought the others were too stupid to not blow up. I got this unit from this guy who was building brain boxes. I'm not sure how to install them, honestly? It's this kind of cube thing, I put it in its head. And it didn't blow up! so I think the problem was that all those other constructs were too dumb."
We quickly ask how and who from Calben got this Brain Box.
"He was a travelling merchant, with a really weird accent, like nothing I've ever seen before."
"Was he a gnome, a human, an elf?" presses Luna.
"Kinda looked like a half-elf to me."
"Did you ask their name?"
With effort, Calben reaches deep into memory and recalls the name... Crackwick!
Mara cantrip-messages Vyn, "What if Crackwick was Nalariel in disguise?!"
Vyn replies, "I'm worried there might be a spirit trapped inside that brain box! It seems like a bad place to be!"
Then, Mara sends a cantrip-message to the construct themself, Maul!
"Hello, Maul can I message you?"
And Maul responds, "Yes!"
This construct sounds very sapient for sure. While Calben appears blissfully unaware of this silent cantrip conversation, Mara asks how Maul is doing. Maul is okay overall, but their leg could do with some fixing. Mara is more alarmed to hear that Maul can feel pain and urges Calben aloud to fix Maul's leg real quick and real soon without waiting.
"I would do anything for my father's niece's cousin's friend!" says Calben, still glad to have visitors.
For the rest of our evening, we consider attending the play we'd seen advertised earlier. We invite our host Calben to come along, to which he agrees and invites his plus one: "Maul, do you wanna go?"
Maul nods in response. We take Maul and Calben to the play! Everyone gives a very wide berth to the tall murderbot.
"Wow Maul," Calben comments in amazement, "we got the best seats!"
This action-packed show, in a style resembling wuxia, follows a travelling monk who kicks abundant butt while saving children and puppies left and right. The heroic monk comes across a town oppressed by the evil elf Nala- *cough* Nathaniel, a very exotic sounding name yes. The play culminates in an epic final battle against this Nalariel expy villain, with all the dramatic lines.
"Nathaniel, I have come to end your reign of terror!"
"NEVAAIAIIIR!!1!"
Calben comments that "Nathaniel" actually burned down a lot of old Lar'uk, leaving behind some ruins which are now a lair for bandits.
Before going to bed we enjoy the thriving night life of this town! Which features a club in which theater kids air out their beef in haiku battles. The most talented here is definitely the accompanying musician. Mara decides to stay up late for haiku battling, feeling more rebellious because they are so far away from older adult supervision.
A haiku battler disses bakers, and Mara dashes in to perform some kind of retort! It's lackluster, but they manage to stand their ground.
A haiku battler disses axe wielding barbarians! Khitah rises to retort loudly... but rolls a natural one for haiku. She crouches to hide behind all of us, as an awkward silence - nooo - fills the club! But we take fabulous poses to protect our kitty's image, and it stops.
Before we leave, Vyn takes the time to write and read out a good, non-improvised haiku complimenting her friends, and it's received as a breath of fresh air and positivity!
We sleep somewhere that is anywhere but Calben's house! Khitah sleeps on a properly sized bed. It's a new day, we sleep in after a late night.
We should check out those bandits we heard of. Vyn and Khitah purchase grappling hooks. Luna gets a spyglass. Mara gets a fancy soap.
We get to the bandit-infested ruins... by daylight, hmmm. We decide to stake them out. That's what we were planning yes we had thought that through. Vyn acts as our stealth counselor and at least we have a spyglass, thanks Luna, and don't need to come too close.
We manage to spot parts of the ruins that seem likely to be occupied by bandits, some semi-intact parts where some of them hang out, another campsite further away, and just into the ruins, a more ruined area of ruins that they've had to prop up to keep it from collapsing.
From this distance we can't tell who's in charge, they all wear the same non-uniform jumble of pilfered clothes, they are a mix of humans and elves. We can count 15 of them.
That is many of them, too many of them to take on directly. But maybe we could make it so that there are fewer of them. We sneak within casting distance. Khitah stands guard over her squishies, who by their powers combined, use a fushion of shadow magic, Druidcraft, and a Minor Illusion enhanced by Mrie aesthetics, to make a bigger, spookier version of the murderbot Maul manifest in the bandits' camp, complete with special effects!
The math begins.
9/15 of the bandits are really spooked. 5/9 stay where they are. 4/9 of them start legging it away.
5/15 bandits investigate Big Maul.
Khitah spots 1/15 bandit who is sneaking up on us!
She attac! He tries to stab the squishies. Khitah swings her axe and misses, but successfully deflects the stabby aimed at the squishies.
-TO BE CONTINUED DUN DUN DUNNN- |
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Post by Liou on Aug 16, 2022 17:43:41 GMT -5
Uvina B: ☆⋆:*:⋆☆ Team Superstars ☆⋆:*:⋆☆ Session 10: Mistakes and identity - 14 July 2022
In brief: * We fight bandits in the ruins of old Lar'uk and reach some sort of surrender.
* We explore the Secret Tunnel in the ruins to search for traces of Nalariel, and a shadow moth guides Vyn.
* We meet Nalariel the cyberelf, not to be confused with Nalariel the jerk who impersonated a council elder.
* The jerk Nalariel made copies of themself, and they share memories, so we get to learn more about the mean one from this copy. Recap:
Dungeon Master Gag:
While Moni was in NYC airport, Moni met a ghost. She thought he was Quebecois until he spoke, and turned out to be a really old french ghost of a Bastille guard who was just in the NY area. Moni had a chat with him. Unfortunately, because of that, a rat stole her pizza, and she was so dismayed that she completely forgot last session. D: And thus we had to recap.
*****
The sneaky bandit who had snuck up on us is still being grappled by Khitahbae, he struggles amazingly well, but she holds him *critically* well.
The bandits that are not stunned by our Big Maul illusion quickly move in, there are quite a few of them! Have some popcorn.
One attacks Mara, another fires a crossbow at Luna. Vyn Magic-Missiles Bandit the First. Mara follows with a Toll the Dead pointed right in their face, and Bandit the First is quite dead.
Bandit 4 hits Vyn with a bolt.
It's Khitah time, she enters rage and attacks a bandit!
A bandit goes up to Luna and attacks, she strikes back with her staff.
Sneakybandit, now ungrappled, tries to attack Khitah, and fails.
Meanwhile, Bandit the First is still dead. Bandit the Second aims for the spooky wizard who just killed their friend, does not hit the wizard, the arrow whooshes past their head, and hits Bandit the Second's very dead bandit friend instead. There are days like that.
Vyn casts a Witch Bolt, using a spell slot since we're not planning to fall off any cliffs. Which bolt? Not this one, it didn't connect.
Mara casts Sleep on a clutch of bandits, it could have gone better, but Bandit 5 is successfully put to sleep, as well as a human caster bandit. The leader, Bandit the Third, tries to yell at her squad to stop fleeing.
Bandit the Second's crossbow misses again.
It's Khitah time! She now smashes the sneaky bandit dead.
Luna cautiously steps over the sleeping Bandit 5 and casts Frostbite on Bandit the Second, who passes. They are the worst.
Bandit the Second, since the crossbow strategy has been working so well so far, shoots another bolt and hits a tree behind Mara.
Vyn sends another Frostbite at Bandit 4, Mara's Ray of Frost fails.
Bandit 6 attacks Luna, misses. Bandit 7 dashes up to Luna D:
Bandit 4 aims at Mara, and finally hits well! They are so proud! Khitah smashes Bandit 4 to death, RIP his sense of pride and accomplishement, which dies with him.
Bandit the Third/Leader thinks they're pretty useless at this point. "Alright boys, wrap it up. I'll give you a chance to surrender or wrap hostilities."
Mara tells her that we have no weapons to drop and suggests a better idea, that they get out of these ruins. Which is why we tried to spook them in the first place! Khitah and Luna do drop their weapons.
Bandit the Leader is not appreciating the edgy wizard kid casting spells through a piece of bread. "Drop. The baguette."
"You drop it!" retorts Mara.
"Fine, I will".
Bandit the Leader slaps at the baguette, but Mara previously used their divination (Portent) to predict that her grab would fail, and the prophecy turns out to be self-fulfilling, as the baguette slapping fails.
"Okay, you can keep your stupid stale baguette," scoffs the bandit leader, blowing on her hand. The baguette prevails.
The leader can tell that her team wasn't doing well and now wants to negotiate to limit the damage done to her companions.
Bandit the Second, now known as Rou, looks visibly shaken, still sad at the death of their friend. The leader knows that they went right in to attack us and we were defending ourselves at that point, though, so she doesn't seem to be holding it against us.
When she asks what we want, we reiterate - no bandits in these ruins to bother the city people! Then what are they to do instead?
The leader realises that we weren't officially sent by the city, they're too passive to take such measures. She explains that they can't just pick up jobs as known criminals. Would taking prisoners be an option for us?
Vyn floats the idea of them working as mercenaries. But it is pointed out that usually, when people turn to banditry, they didn't have much of a choice in the first place.
Since they're open to discussion and wonder what we're doing here, we ask the bandits for notable places to explore in these ruins - since the historical play showed us that Nalariel was from here.
Bandits usually don't mess with these ruins, because they're so old that anything worth pilfering is long gone. Bandit the Leader tells us there isn't much to find in the northeastern section, just a piece of wall. The southeastern section is just a house that they use sometimes for its hearth.
But on the left there are hidden stairs!
Leader makes her squad file away, we're too dangerous to deal with. Mara suggests they lie low and offers to tell them of any job offers we hear about.
"You just want a happy ending for everyone, don't you," the leader says.
"If this gets worse, the city might send you someone worse than us!" Mara cautions.
Vyn invites them to dinner?! They accept, and some bandits are designated to stay and keep an eye on us while we cook.
"Vyn, we don't have any food..." Mara whispers.
We put together our rations, forage for edible herbs and berries, and assemble the prettiest possible salad out of random trail food, with a flower arrangement because presentation always helps.
Luna bonds with a bandit, who used to be carpenter, then got into a drunk bar fight with the wrong important guy.
The dinner bell is rung! The leader is surprised that the meal doesn't look bad. The bandits get into picnic formation and we roll initiative to eat. No, really. Luna rolled a 20 so she is one of the first to reach the salad! Most of the bandits eat before us.
Nobody woke up Unpopular, the unpopular bandit, from their nap, so Luna sneaks them a little bowl for when they wake up.
During the meal the Leader reiterates that cares about her friends, speaking in defense of her group, to which Khitah responds: "So do I, that's why I attacked that guy!"
"You're not helping," sighs the leader.
"Well I think you're helping," Mara grumbles.
After this very comfortable meal we go up the secret staircase. Everything worth looting has been looted, it has been two thousand years and these ruins are not well hidden!
We look at the wall murals in Olde Elvish. Mara can see they're like diary entries, as if there had some sort of experiment here, and the results did not seem too pleasing to the person obtaining them.
Vyn's shadow sense is tingling! From the southwest corner of the hidden room,
something is whispering to her. She sees a little shadow moth, moving its wings deliberately, not to fly but indicating a line between two tiles.
Vyn touches it with her paw! The floor vamooses and we fall ten feet down onto stairs - that wasn't very nice of whomever designed this place. The new stairs lead deeper, and are not very dusty, oddly enough.
Mara rituals Detect Magic and sees only darkness. We descend into the tunnel, it has stairs, straight lines, it goes up, it spirals, like it was designed to be a real pain in the butt!
Eventually, we hear delightful humming. Vyn starts to hum back, Mara joins in, we harmonise. The humming stops, then picks up again, sounding more tense. Vyn stops, Mara tries to hum more soothingly. Nothing happens except the humming soon dies down. This place doesn't echo as much as we'd expect.
We reach a door with a little knocker. Before anyone can touch it directly, Mara knocks with a Mage Hand. We don't hear anything happen, but the door swings open seemingly by itself.
We see the figure of an elf, and although we are more surprised by their shiny fire spear which pointing towards us, the elf's face is clearly not a natural face, with a pattern like a circuitboard.
Mara introduces the party. The elf is confused by the mention of Kadu-vi, but does recognise the name Uvina. That means they're a boomer.
"We're here to learn more about that jerk Nalariel!"
The elf seems mildly surprised. "I can tell you more about them, for I am Nalariel."
Mara blinks and takes it in stride. "Oh, there you are! Well, why did you attack Rahul back in Kadu-vi? That was not cool at all!"
But it is evident that this elf knows nothing of that incident, is not the same person at all and was not impersonating a village elder either.
"We're curious meddling kids looking for information to do good, pleased to meet you!"
At this, the botelf invites us to come in, and we do.
Inside is an alchemy station, though with equipment unlike anything we've seen, it looks more like a modern chemistry lab. These things haven't been touched in a while.
Mysteryelf pours us some water, they don't drink it but have collected some over the years, it is the only thing they have to offer.
They proceed to explain why it is that they are Nalariel, but not the Nalariel that we met. They possess the same memories as the other Nalariel:
"I wanted to achieve a constancy with my eternal self. Though I could jump from life to life in reincarnation, the problem is that is extremely unreliable - besides the many nations of this world, there are many other worlds, many places -" they gesture vaguely upwards "- that are completely foreign and perhaps beyond our comprehension, even in the mortal plane. I wanted a way to stay here."
One problem with preserving your memories after each reincarnation is that you don't end up in the same world every time. Nalariel found a way past this, to transfer their consciousness, but only managed to make copies.
Other-Nalariel shows us a box which projects a hologram of a brain. "One way is to try storing yourself in one of these. You cannot transfer your own consciousness in that, you can only ever really make copies. I remember waking up in this body. The "real" original Nalariel stared at me, and I just remember..." They open the buttons to their completely flat chest, which is destroyed and damaged with bare mechanical components. "... them not being so happy with that idea. But from my perspective, I am still me, and they are the real Nalariel."
"Sorry about the experimenting you went through," Mara says somberly.
"If you want to leave this place," Vyn offers, "you can come back with us!"
But this elf, who has been using archaic vocabulary this whole time, says that they are just a construct, and would have a hard time updating to the outside world. This dark chamber has preserved them.
Oh well! Let's leave them there.
To be syke'd next session.
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Post by Liou on Aug 17, 2022 17:17:43 GMT -5
Uvina B: ☆⋆:*:⋆☆ Team Superstars ☆⋆:*:⋆☆ Session 11: Our Immortal - 28 July 2022
In brief: * Nalariel the clone reveals they may be in trouble with Shadowfell law and need to clear things up with the Raven Queen.
* Nalariel the clone is renamed Jasmine "Jazz". They gather up their favourite sword and book and join the party!
* Long rest -> Day 19.
* Jazz confirms that Maul does not contain a copy of Nalariel.
* We learn from Crackwick that Nalariel's brainboxes ended up in the hands of the Cathshi secret services, who use them to create artificial soldiers.
Recap:
Dungeon Master Gag:
After last session, Moni may have accidentally kicked a beehive and got chased by bees. She used the cartoon strategy of hiding underwater. It's been seven days and she's still stuck underwater, breathing through a pipe, making sure a bee doesn't come through. And thus, we had to recap the session for her.
*****
The party continues to enjoy the hospitality of "Nalariel", the mysterious cybernetic-looking elf copy of the bad Nalariel, in this underground lab far below some ruins.
"Do you have any connection with the other Nalariels?" asks Luna.
"If there is a connection, I haven't really understood it. My first experience with the Nalariel that you're probably chasing now is that when I was created, they were very angry for some reason and punched a hole through my chest, so I don't think we would like each other that much."
"I'm sorry, that sounds rough!" Luna comforts this Nalariel.
"I've been here for two thousand years. I'm not sure how much that changes me, but I'd like to think that I've changed, just a little bit."
"You seem to be a very nice person, I'm glad we met you." Luna speaks for us!
"I'm glad I finally have someone! I locked myself in here, and I'm surprised someone has found me after all this time."
Speaking of finding them, Vyn brings up the shadow moth that led us here in the first place.
A curious Mara asks, "Do you have a habit of creating shadow moths out of shadow magic?"
Nalariel is taken aback by this revelation and question, and spends a moment thinking about how to phrase this. "Shadow moths are... you seem like reasonably intelligent people to know that shadow powers are from the Shadowfell, but moths are usually symbols of the Raven Queen and her enforcers."
"Has this Raven Queen been Bothering you?" Mara asks, preparing an anti-bullying lecture.
"She has bothered me in the past! I'm not sure if she would bother me now. She's not very nice. If you break the laws of the Shadowfell."
"Are they codified in written form?" asks Mara.
Nalariel explains that objects from the Shadowfell don't tend to last. Mara argues that this would be very convenient for Shadowfell law enforcement and grumbles against darn cops.
"How would you know that you broke the rules?" asks Vyn.
"It's mainly about breaking rules of life and death, which is awkward for me," says the clone of a multiply-reincarnated shadow mage. "I have thought of this longer than most of your civilisations have been around, and I still don't know. Sure, before I made a copy of myself, I am technically the same person who broke these laws. I have never had the stomach to chat with her. But if she led you here, she must be aware of my presence, and if she wished, she would have sent an agent of destruction before."
So the Raven Queen doesn't seem to be actively trying to stir up trouble.
"Makes sense!" says Luna, before asking the real questions: "Also, do you have a nickname for yourself?"
This Nalariel considers it, and is, in fact, ready for a nickname now. "My new nickname shall be... for a flower that blooms in darkness."
This is Luna's jam. "I enjoy going out at night to watch the stars, there is a flower patch and lots of flowers bloom in the night. We call them jasmine!"
This Nalariel likes Jasmine! They shall now be known as Jasmine, or Jazz for short.
"Would I look unusual on the surface?" asks Jazz.
"Everything is relative," says Mara. "You would look unusual if you walked right into the village with the wood elves, but you would look less unusual if you walked in with our group. We could make your style look like high fashion."
Jazz rummages in the darkness at the back of this room, all we hear is a looot of broken glass. They unearth their prized possession, a sword! To the surface!
"What are your plans?" Mara thinks to ask before anything.
"To confront the Raven Queen and tell her I'm innocent!"
"Bad idea, dangerous? We wouldn't want anything bad to happen to you!" You know what they say about naming and what happens once you've named a creature.
Jazz sits down in their broken glass. They ask if anyone has knowledge of shadows and of nature, which happens to be half our party. Luna promotes the stars! Jazz has memories of the sky... but has never seen it. Luna! Is on her way!! To fix that!!!!
"Where are you planning to confront the Raven Queen?" asks Mara.
"The Shadowfell is like a shadow of this plane that trails it like a shadow follows an object. One cannot muscle one's way into the Shadowfell."
So... it'll take a bit more planning.
We adopt Jazz! We named them.
Just before leaving this lair, they go back to rummage in the broken glass-littered darkness, find a Tome (like a book but fancy), open their chest compartment and shove it in.
We go back up the secret tunnel! It's the same as before, but in reverse, and with Jazz. We run into a wee problem. As we reach the top of the staircase and try to open the door to the world above, it is blocked.
Those darn bandits were up to no good while we were in there!
Khitah smashes the door to bits, and we see that there is an entire boulder blocking it.
Mara asks everyone to step back and Thunderwaves! The big boulder that the bandits took the trouble to move in front of the door flies 10 feet into the air. We stroll out.
With the rock, the bandits left a paper with a juvenile taunt. This indicates one of two things: either they knew that the boulder would not stop us and that we would find this paper outside, or they forgot to slide the paper under the door before blocking it. Both mean failure.
Jazz flops down and stares at the sun and sky. So bright! The clouds are so cottony high up in the sky!
Although, like Hari, they have Barbie anatomy, they're not wearing clothes, so Luna uses Druidcraft to make flowers bloom over them.
In defiance of the bandits' fail tricks, Mara leaves a star logo to say we were here.
We go back to Calben's to introduce Jazz to Maul.
Calben gladly welcomes us in and offers us pepper toffee. It's like salt toffee, but with pepper. It is Maul who made the toffee! Maul still has their old leg, but has undergone prep work to get a new leg installed.
Jazz and Maul stare at each other curiously. They are definitely made of different hardware.
Mara cantrip-messages Jazz, who can tell Maul seems very thoughtful. Mara suggests Jazz cantrip-message Maul, and the two have a very silent conversation.
"Curious!" Jazz says after a while, "they have the same kind of brain that I do, but not the same memories."
"Good!" Mara says emphatically.
We tell Jazz about the brainboxmonger, Crackwick.
Jazz explains that Nalariel originally planned to destroy the brainboxes, the copies they had made of their memories, so that these copies would not end up as failures in someone else's hands. The copy of Nalariel's memories that was saved in Maul's brainbox was probably wiped out, it should not be a hard thing to do as these brainboxes, just like meat brains, are vulnerable to physical trauma.
We spend the night at an inn, paying for Jazz's accomodation. Jazz has a bag of two thousand year old money that we might be able to auction somewhere.
We decide to be the drama kid party and head to Tian's acting school. When we come in, Tian is busy seriously warning students against the dangers of method acting!
Tian accepts to teach us despite the fact that we look like outsiders and bad students, because it is her duty as a member of a bard college. She is still throwing us more shade than the Shadowfell.
Tian teaches us about monologues, to act with our voices first. We work on a monologue written by the local Shakespeare, spoken by a northern invader character from the northern empire locally known as Cathshi, which might be a culturally insensitive portrayal of steppe people.
Mara attempts the villainous gloating monologue with CRITICAL theatricality and dies hardcore, Tian actually compliments them, though not on the stage death.
Our dramatic urges satisfied, we return to investigating. Calben told us that Crackwick is a halfling who works at the docks, and that we will know him when we see him! Wow. Thanks Calben.
Luna attempts her super amazing hawk call and does it very well! Against all expectations, Gopal doesn't materialise here. A nearby birdwatcher is excited and then confused. Some birds are spooked, and a shady halfling is revealed, wedged between two crates.
Vyn uses her smol power and crawls into the crate dimension. Crackwick is a regular halfling with an almost dwarf-like beard, which may have been curated painstakingly over many years.
"Hello, who is this?" Crackwick says to the void crawling towards him.
"You're Crackwick, correct?
"Indeed - are you a cop?"
"I'm not!" says Vyn. "I'm just an adventurer, I want to help my friend."
"How do you want to help? I'm not running a charity here."
"I just have questions. I can give you food." Vyn still has the best bribing techniques. "I just want to know where you got the brainboxes, because my friend has - IS one of them."
"Interesting," says Crackwick. "Let them know that it's not slavery because if they're not hooked up to anything, they don't feel anything."
This sounds a bit more concerning than planned. Vyn asks for clarification.
"If they don't have a source of energy - I've tested this - they don't remember anything that happens. Pretty sure it's a switch. Anyway, you can get a brainbox with someone in them, I don't recommend it, but if you're desperate you can get one. They're really aggressive and keep screaming about being a superior being, that's pretty sassy for a box if you ask me."
That sounds very on-brand for Nalariel's ego and elf supremacist background.
"How do you find them?" Vyn presses him.
"I found a stash of them. Someone was collecting them, I relieved them of the burden. They're not very popular products, noone wants to buy them. They're not cute."
Any further information will need to be fuelled by Crackwick's favourite lunch, filet mignon. In this land, it takes us an hour to find this dish from a fancy exotic restaurant, where it turns out Crackwick is a regular. Crackwick grabs the filet mignon in both his hands and eats it like a sandwich. (Somewhere in the distance, Chef Paul feels a great disturbance in la force, probably.)
"The brainboxes are from Cathshi intelligence agents," Crackwick finally reveals. "They've been stockpiling them for years, they're good for creating durable soldiers."
"Where might their base be?" Vyn asks while the answers are still flowing.
"Presumably in Cathshi itself, but getting into Cathshi is difficult."
"Bureaucratically, or physically?"
"Bureaucratically. This is why I do business in Lar'uk, it's closer to Uvina, and there's less surveillance!"
Now Crackwick shoos us away because we're scaring away his many, many customers, especially as Jazz is busy taking apart a rope.
Vyn wonders if somebody could... show them the ropes.
And thus, after a happy mishearing, we end up in a robe shop, to buy robes.
We buy a lovely flowy impractical garment for Jazz. There is also a lovely local blue garment which would suit Regalia, but it's too expensive, alas.
We buy some yarn as enrichment for Jazz to unravel. We do some research.
Cathshi is an empire with vassal states, which tries to have a hand in the politics of most of its neighbours, even Uvina, though the mountains make a good natural barrier. Its administration is very bureaucratic, with a standardised form of written language, and elaborate social mobility through the ranks of government employment. Its trade secrets are intently guarded, they rely on a strong intelligence network to keep the peace in their land holdings. Some scholars say that even if the north had expanded southwards, the nationalism of Uvinians would make them hard to hold on to.
Cathshi termites are very invasive, currently going across the world, settling in a lot of different environments. Agencies have tried to stop their spread, their main weakness is that they need a lot of resources and reproduction is a massive undertaking. There is research into poisons to help curb their spread. Cathshi in particular strives to not spread these termites anywhere. So if somebody was hypothetically reported for spreading invasive termites, they might get in trouble with the scary secret services of the meddling and secretive empire.
Sirens are usually found in the open sea, being a nuisance to sailors, triton and merfolk. They rarely ever make into bays and towards the coast. Talking to them is difficult, they usually seem to hate you in general. There is only speculation on their life cycle, as they are very hard to observe in the wild, and not very nice when captive. |
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Post by Coaster on Aug 21, 2022 23:02:39 GMT -5
My Recap Of The Petting Zoo Squad's Back To Spooky Session 12 As Much As I Was Able To Process It - August 20 2022
We resume in Cadako. President did threaten us with a zoo last time, so we go to the zoo. It's a pretty nice zoo, apparently around the level of the Washington DC zoo (wide, nice cobblestone paths, nice enclosures, lots of animals including both local wildlife and more exotic species like turkeys, and standard zoo fare like giraffes and lions and stuff). They let us touch tha fishy (and feed them too). There's a stingray exhibit too, but we're more careful with touching them. Tsuki spots a lonely-looking gorilla who recently lost her gorilla husband and is sad despite the juvenile gorillas trying to cheer her up. Considering possible ways to help, he notices that there are nearby overpriced food places that sell fruit. Unrelatedly, a lot of the animals have "please give me food" on their minds, which Clara has no choice but to hear in cacophony. Fish in particular are just chanting "food! food! food!" and aren't very smart. There's even an insect exhibit which, predictably, has little going on in their heads. There's one lion that traffics in conspiracy theories about humans, though.
Lion: "The humans--they're hairless apes, they look so unnatural, are they aliens?! I think they're aliens."
Tiger: "Come on, how about elves? They have pointy ears, that's not like other apes."
Lion: "But elves are fey."
Gorilla: "How the heck do you know what a fey is??" (the gorilla is presumably fey-touched).
Anyways, that's the general vibe of the zoo for Clara, and also for Luna if she's turning her understanding animals antenna on (sure, why not). There's also a lazy alligator thinking about how delicious everyone looks, so maybe don't cross the alligator. Clara gives it a wide berth, thinking, "Nope, I'm too crunchy for you." There's a very exotic (not native to Uvina) Turkey, and it and the rest of the birds are shooting the shot as it were.
Turkey: "Oh my god, it's so easy to navigate nowadays--you guys should try leaving!"
Bird: "Why should we leave? This place is nice."
Turkey: "Well--yeah, but there are humans everywhere on the road; just gotta follow them and they'll lead you to population centers with the most food. Trust me, I have all this mapped out--"
Bird: "Shut up, nerd. I'm not flying all the way there just to follow a few humans around."
Luna realizes she can remotely pet the alligator using Mage Hand. (We have a petting bucket list. It is our mission. The deadlier, the better.) Tsuki asks how new the pens look; most of them are pretty new, with the turkey one being a bit older because nobody expects the turkeys to break ou--Tsuki tries to stealth his way over and open it. The party members notice the mischievous glint in his eye and metaphorically pull his ear to keep him from it, though.
Tsuki: "I need to set these flightless birds free!"
Nadyn: "They probably have it pretty cushy here..."
Tsuki: "They need a better exhibit at least, like the alligator's!"
Luna: "But then where would they go?"
Tsuki: "Anywhere!"
Clara resists saying that's not a good deed (though it may be for the turkeys), but gently grabs him by the shoulder and firmly joins in asking what he's doing (even though she knows).
Clara: "They're not native--they'll mess up the ecological balance."
Tsuki: "This isn't the forest, you don't need to worry."
Clara has oath of ancients nature oats, so she can't abide this.
Tsuki: "...Fiiine, but you have to come to church with me."
Clara: "Deal." She's gonna go to church. (To a chaotic god? Ehhhh, okay).
Back to the Mage Hand plan--worst case, the alligator bites it and Luna learns not to use her real hand. Luna casts Mage Hand, it materializes in front of the alligator, and in true alligator fashion, it lunges at the hand and tries to swallow it in one bite. The hand deflates like a glove as it does so.
Nearby zookeeper: "Ughhh--alright! No mage hands in the exhibit! I don't know who did that, but no mage hands okay? Or else I'm gonna slap you with my own!"
They conjure up their own mage hand, and it's making a shakey fist. (so yes please be responsible with your magic.) That went about as well as expected; no alligator petting yet, I guess. Maybe we could find some wild ones in the swamp and pet them while they're asleep. Or maybe find a friendly one and talk to it, since this one's just grumpy and not interested in being friends.
By the way, there's also a laid-back and chill elephant exhibit in the zoo. Clara wants to pet the elephants: inadvisable, says President, and the zookeepers will probably strongly object. But regardless, there are elephants and they seem to be chill. They're like "yeeeee" and they're having a conversation.
Elephant: "Eugh. Have you read the paper today, Mark?"
Mark (another elephant): "You know we can't read, right?"
Elephant: "I know, but I feel like reading the paper is something I should be able to do with my life!"
Mark: "We have this conversation every day. Of course I haven't read the paper. And why would I read the paper?"
Elephant: "Who knows what humans write about. Politics maybe?"
Mark: "I don't think these humans have politics or even a sense of internality. I'm sure they're like ants and function purely on pheromones alone."
Elephant: "I dunno, I think they're more complex than that..."
Clara: "Wow."
Clara laughs over the cute antics of the woke and well-informed elephants talking about current events. Surely there is no Animal Farm situation that will ever happen in this zoo. Or maybe it'd fall into absolute anarchy? Doubt the alligator would consent to any system of governance in any case.
Anyways, we leave the zoo, with Tsuki eyeing all the exhibit doors as we leave. On request, President assures us that Valeryl got off the train successfully, and in true Valeryl fashion, she's going to get a drink, relax, and say, "Whoo, I love this vacation. I could just sleep all day. What a great life." Uniformguy whose name we still haven't asked did make it off the train as well, but our characters have not seen him (dun dun dun). Nadyn urges everyone to come to the library. Tsuki doesn't want to read (despite urging from Nadyn that he could just read that new book he got again), and wants to go to the church instead. Clara did promise she'd go with Tsuki, after all. So the two head there first! Anyways, it's really a temple but let's call it a church. chumple. teurch. It's not the most popular place; people don't congregate there in a Sunday Mass kind of way, they just stop by whenever. It's more like a shrine; you come and do the rituals, there's a priest working there, but overall it's not a very ostentatious place. Clara and Tsuki enter the temple of Tokin. The rituals of Tokin are admittedly a bit weird, such as something that looks a lot like jump rope or burning a lot of things. There's a tiny little library of very specialized knowledge in the temple that we can just read from--not holy books or anything, just things that are important to followers of this god.
As the two party members enter and see all this stuff (and could walk up and say hello to the priest overseeing everything, or desecrate the temple for no reason, or any number of other things--religious places are very exciting, after all), Tsuki first asks about getting some holy water from the priest.
Priest: "Holy water? What ever--why would you need holy water?"
Tsuki: "Undead."
Priest: "Undead? Mmh." He's completely satisfied with this answer. "Say no more."
Behind him is a statue of Tokin with 3 heads, and from its hands water gushes out erratically all over the place. Priest tries to catch some of that water in a flask and gives it to Tsuki.
Priest: "Here you go, holy water. Good luck with your undead."
Clara: "Thanks!"
Tsuki: "There sure are lots of 'em."
Priest: "While you're here, would you like to partake in our rituals or make a donation?"
Tsuki participates in a ritual. He gets a rundown from the priest: Tokin is the trickster god of war, fire, twilight, and sometimes knowledge, this temple leaning hard on the knowledge and trickster aspects, less on the others for obvious reasons. Clearly this is Tsuki's favorite god. One legend associated with this god is that once upon a time, you'd light a fire, and it'd just stay a tiny fire rather than spreading; before then, the world was dark, and you could put a lit candle to gasoline and it wouldn't ignite. Tokin saw this, thought there was too much order in the world, and gave fire the ability to spread. From this came many mortal accomplishments. (Yes, the chaotic nature quickly becomes evident between the lines.)
Priest explains that the rituals of this trickster involve people putting their most sincere wishes on a piece of paper and then burning it in a fire. We can do that if we want, it's very simple. Tsuki does so. He's given a piece of paper and some charcoal to write with, and writes, "to spread more fire around to everything". Nope, he doesn't have any other wishes or desires; he just likes fire and chaos and disorder.
Clara: "That's greeeat! Absolutely greeeat."
Priest does not comment on this because he respects your privacy. The paper burns. Obviously Clara doesn't get anything out of Tsuki's ritual, just watching a normal piece of paper burn. Tsuki, beyond any spiritual feelings he may have, also sees nothing happen regarding Tokin yet. Most of the other available rituals also involve some form of destruction: one involves stepping over rope and then cutting it off, and a few involve un-mending things. Tsuki goes and does a couple. After a bit, the priest understands that Tsuki's a legit follower of Tokin, lets him do his own thing, and goes off to help out some others or explain to Clara what the heck Tsuki's doing (Clara definitely doesn't follow Tokin, as a Lawful Good). After Tsuki finishes everything, there's a point in the worship ritual things where he washes his hands (fairly common way to end a session among god stuff in this region). As he does this, he suddenly feels a presence, like someone is staring at him--a bit like his warlock patron, but it's not his warlock patron. Tsuki: "Another void in my head!"
He feels the presence of a feeling of intrigue, then it just leaves
Tsuki: "Ookay, that's kinda weird".
So that's Tokien. Before leaving, Tsuki donates 3 silver, and the priest thanks him. Clara has been listening to the priest explain stuff about the rituals this whole time, looking around at all the decor, and appreciating the knowledge bit (which is useful, she guesses, otherwise everything else is chaos--one good thing in the middle of it. Yeah, bring the exact opposite of Tsuki to the chaos temple. It's that or turkeys run wild). At least, she appreciates it a bit, and she doesn't melt or anything from going into a chaotic church. Now, an evil church, she'd just divine smite everything. Tsuki does want to see an evil church someday and might try to take Clara to it, which she assuredly definitely wants to see--though someone would have to hold her back from smiting everything like Mermaidman from Spongebob. Anyways, Clara watches and stays respectful to all the people congregating and doing their own thing. Thank you, Clara, for being respectful of other religions and not a bigot. Also note that unless you go to something like Tsuki's one old cult, the mainstream religions in Uvina are not going to be evil.
Meanwhile, Luna and Nadyn have a fun time at the library. As we enter, we see that it's a library. It has books on shelves. It's a very neat library, to the point that we get the impression that whoever organizes books here is a bit of a clean freak. Outside, it has an early-modern aesthetic, but inside it looks a bit like a modern Apple store: very minimalistic, nothing here but books and labels on books. Not even a nice painting, just books. Books and nothing else but the meditative white walls and shelves to help us focus. It's also extremely quiet--almost supernaturally quiet; we can see two people talking but still can't hear them. Note, however, that it's not an Apple store unless there's only one book per huge table, though, so maybe they're noobs who unfortunately have not evolved to the True Apple Store Aesthetic. We look for info about liches, starting with the library's weird magical bestiary/creaturiary section--specifically a whole subsection dedicated to arcane magic, which we guess is where the information's at. It's pretty easy to find a tome about liches, since they are A Thing. With Luna's 13 Investigation roll, we're able to ignore the "I SAW A LICH ONCE AND HE WAS LIKE BIGFOOT" level of quality in terrible anecdotes about liches with no solid info besides it being a raw compilation of scary stories. She comes across a more even-handed discussion of liches and skims the first few chapters showing the background and history of liches and culture and the lich as a metaphor for blah blah blah. The author may not think liches are exactly real or possible (acknowledged bias), but tries to treat the subject with some seriousness and gives the best case possible for what they know about liches.
So: liches are people who, in life, were very talented with the arcane and very devious, and arranged their death so that they are in a permanent state of undeath, but manage to fix their brains so they don't need to eat, sleep, drink, etc. Contrast with vampires, which are pretty known to actually exist but have hunger/thirst and are weaker than liches (which can also control other undead). There's some discussion on how the first lich (if they exist) may have studied vampires and somehow distilled the "secret" to becoming one without the drawbacks. The book then explains that liches, even if you destroy their bodies, can grow a new one using a phylactery--a container that stores their self-essence as it is called--and within a month they can come back. The author's ending note: if liches did truly exist and it was this trivial to become a lich, why isn't our world just ruled by them already? Clearly, something's not right with the myth, or their actual capabilities, or how fearsome they come across. But, again, the (non-binary) author's belief is that lich sightings are probably just exaggerated reports of vampires. Having read the entire context and discussion in the book, we get the impression that this is the common and most credible scholarly understanding of liches. Our own takeaway is basically that if bishie blue-eyes is a lich, his phylactery is what we'd have to target. That doesn't help us find him or the phylactery, but hey, it's progress!
President reminds us that major things in Cadako include: several temples, the primary residence of the Brautz family, the historical university, the IBC branch, some scenic farms and windmills, the military garrison, and the city zoo. We reconvene at a non-specific place that hopefully exists (it'd be weird if it didn't, though technically not a new experience for our party) to discuss our next move. Nadyn wants to practice banjo. Tsuki thinks we should find a place to stay and go from there. Luckily, there are a variety of places to stay, and because this is a college town, there are a number of extremely cheap places to stay that are variously up to code. Nadyn could kill two birds with one stone by invoking By Popular Demand--
Luna: "Wait, what's this about killing two birds?"
Tsuki eyes himself and Luna's raven.
Sure, we could perform at the college; Nadyn's a triton and could definitely contribute to the knowledge of triton heritage and impress people with traditional triton music, maybe even on a banjo. In fact, Nadyn has prepared a traditional song of her people and performs it at our venue of choice (a somewhat suspicious-smelling place on campus), dedicating it to her sibling (not the warmongery one). It's a cover of Ievan Polkka, and there was actually a track created for the players to listen to. It's traditionally triton because tritons have Finns. Coaster made the entire basis of the character with this joke in mind. President assures the rest of the group that they will regret this. Luna does the cat jam. Tsuki spins a leek that came out of nowhere. If Clara can respect chaos church, and her oat says she should appreciate the arts, she can certainly appreciate this music. In short: they're groovin'.
As we get to our room, it turns out we have a very stinky stoner as our dormmate.
Dormmate: "Duuuuuuuude. Woooooooow. I'm definitely tripping maaaaaan. Awwwwww, loooook, it's a giant croooow! Ahhh the mermaid with leeeeegs!"
Tsuki comes in with the plastic leg. (He thought he was waving the leek during the song, but I guess he was waving the leg.)
Dormmate: "woooooow. Ohh, did you kill someone???"
Tsuki: "Yeees?"
Dormmate: "Ohhhh, wowwwww, murder, that's liiike so aaawesome, liiike, oh my goooood. Sometimes I'm sooo angry I wanna murder someooone, but like, the societal expectations riiight? You can't murder people because society doesn't want you to! But what if they really deserve it?"
Tsuki: "Yeah, exactly!"
Nadyn: "Yeah, isn't that what adventuring's all about?"
Luna: "We are not a good influence on this stoner."
Clara (internally): "No, murder's bad! Don't murder unless it's for a good cause!"
Dormmate: "What I wouldn't give to become an adventurer. Yeah, I really wanna just murder the bad guys with the power of music."
Due to President's mic cutting out here, we assume our dormmate is trying to strum a guitar that has no strings. Tsuki stares at our fishy friend. Nadyn just shrugs. Anyways: this is our roommate as long as we're in Cadako.
Clara (whispering): "Don't trust any food that she gives you. Don't trust the stoner. Or, you know, don't trust, but respect the stoner, treat the stoner like... whatever, I don't know." This situation is testing Clara greatly.
Nadyn: "Hey Clara. Hey Clara all the cool kids are doing it."
Luna: "Yeah all the cool kids are playing instruments!"
Clara: "Oh, that's fine, the instruments are fine, but remember the last time we took drugs?"
President: "Yeah, if that was the last time I took drugs, I'd never want to again."
Tsuki: "I got a leg out of it!"
Luna: "But this is probably significantly less dangerous than whatever that rainbow water was."
Anyways. Home room. (No, Nadyn, not like school homeroom--you might not have attended since you signed up, but the education system is pretty relaxed here.) We run through the list of unvisited major places again (apparently the temples were just added for worldbuilding and President didn't actually expect Tsuki to go, but hey, free holy water!). Tsuki suggests the Brautz Bratwurst house or the garrison. The latter is probably harder to access.
Nadyn: "We could just ask for--wait. We still don't have his name."
So Bratwurst house it is. Sausage! Cannibalism? (Do not say this to an NPC. It will sound really bad.) We go to the Brautz family estate. As with any good rich people home, it's gated with a fancy gate, with a guard gatekeeper gatekeeping people from entering the house. It's a little mansion made up of multiple buildings spanning a few acres of land in the city. There's no law or anything else stopping us from just waltzing up to the gate, or we could jump the fence if we really want to (even though it's slightly illegal, but who cares about the law other than Clara? It's not like they can even call the police, there's no phones). Or we could invent artillery (which here would probably just be the warlocks spamming Eldritch Blast) and shoot it at the house for some reason. Or we could just talk to the guard at the place!
Clara: "Yes, we could just talk to the guard and not cause collateral damage..."
Tsuki: "Who'da thought?"
Clara (to guard): "Hello!"
Guard: "Um. Hello! Welcome to the Brautz estate! What brings you here today?"
Clara quietly confirms with the party that actually there is no Bratwurst at the Brautzes, and remembering who the two siblings we met were: Martha the high-level wizard, and Theodore who's some guy that gave us money. Tsuki goes up and explains that we know those two people, and Clara corroborates that we're friends with them. Namedropping Theodore doesn't grab the guard's attention, but namedropping Martha does.
Guard: "...who? Martha? Martha Brautz?"
Tsuki: "Yes, Theodore's sister..."
Guard: "Yes! Theodore's sister, of course."
Guard (getting his supervisor): "Uh, ma'am? These people claim that they know Theodore and Martha."
Supervisor: "Miss Brautz? Really? Right. I will go and see where Theodore is."
She runs back inside, and after 30 minutes of standing around in front of this estate (Tsuki munching honey candy while waiting), eventually they get Theodore (the guy who gave us the gold), and he looks pretty haggard for some reason--physically fine, very much not so in terms of mental state and sleep deprivation. He looks at us in recognition.
Theodore: "Oh my god! Yes, yes! I do know these people! You can let them in!"
The guard unlocks the gate and gestures for us to come on in. Note that Tsuki (fully feathered) and Luna (partially furred) picked up the drugs smell from our bunkmate. (Clara had been sitting in the opposite corner desperately not trying to pick up the drugs smell or yell at people that murder is bad. It probably just slides off actual college-goer Nadyn, meanwhile, presumably just leaving her smelling fishy.) Tsuki tips the guard with a piece of candy like that one scene in Home Alone 2. Guard looks at the piece of candy.
Guard: "Thaaanks, I guess?"
Nadyn: "Oh, wait! What's your name, mister guard?"
President: "Why do you guys do this to me??"
Tsuki: "Nameless NPC must have a whole backstory."
Guard: "My name is Elias." Yup that's his name. Now when he dies we have to actually care.
He leads us to the reception room or whatever and tells a servant to get us grape juice or something since it's in season. Fun fact, apparently Theodore likes to keep things family-friendly, so it's just regular grape juice, not wine or anything.
Theodore: "Ah yes! You! You are the adventurers I hired to rescue my sister! How has your day been?"
Nadyn: "I mean, today has kind of just started..."
Theodore: "Right, of course it has. I have noticed that you... smell like you have been around the college recently."
Tsuki waves a bit. Luna didn't realize that smell was notable to the college.
Theodore: "Oh yeah, it smells very... pungent, sometimes." He pauses. "Well, um. Who wants salmon sandwiches?"
Nadyn, Tsuki: "Sure!"
Theodore: "Oh, okay, salmon sandwiches please!"
When we met him in Bordeauriva, he wasn't this nervous--more "hi, I'm a noble", whereas now he's a bit higher strung. As he eats and drinks, though, his demeanor returns to its dignified-calm-guy original.
Theodore: "Well. Er-hem. I'm glad I have come across you again. You remember my sister Martha?"
Nadyn: "Yes; in fact, we were taking care of her pet mimic!"
Theodore: "...her pet?"
Tsuki: "I took the mimic out of her room."
Theodore closes his eyes and sucks in his lips briefly in exasperation.
Theodore: "Well... I have been trying to access her study because she's disappeared again, as is her habit. Unfortunately, there are a few things about the study that make it difficult to navigate, and this is one of those things that I would like the authorities to not get themselves involved with. So, if I may hire your services again, I would like you to go into her old study and deal with the poltergeist that has taken up residence there."
Tsuki: "...To pet?"
Clara: "Since when did her room have a poltergeist?"
Theodore: "Since three days ago!" (Which is when we were still in Bordeauriva, so at least it's not our fault.)
Tsuki: "Lead the way!"
We finish our grape juice and salmon sandwiches, which have some floofy vegetables in them too. Luna wholesomely feeds some of her sandwich to her raven. Once we're finished, Theodore leads us through and up one of the many sections and spiral staircases in the house and down a hallway, into a room that has been barricaded and boarded. We don't hear anything coming from inside, and Theodore slowly rips the barricades off.
Theodore: "Oof. Man. I... I am not good at barricades. These are not great barricades."
Putting the planks from the barricade into an orderly pile on the floor, he opens the door. We see what looks like a completely normal study: a desk, some paper, some ink (although there a few ink wells are strewn across the floor, a table with a few chairs around it, some bookshelves, a nice Persian rug defiled by the spilled ink, and a general vibe of being chaotic and having been overturned, but nothing we see raises any red flags.
Theodore: "Okay, well, poltergeist won't show itself until you try messing with her stuff. Sooo. Um. Good luck."
Since President ruled that Prestidigitation is usable for spot cleaning, Nadyn does so to clean the carpet, which does not stir up anything. Clara wonders what's in the papers on the table--just looking at the tops of the piles, we notice various notes. Tsuki picks up the papers to look at them. Of course, as he picks up the papers, the table itself shakes violently and does not do anything to Tsuki because he passed a Dex save. Nonetheless, it rumbles and folds into itself, and he sees a bunch of teeth coming out of the table. A mimic?? But wait, there's more! Not only is the table a mimic but one of the chairs right behind him is also a mimic! And the shelves and desk okay actually no but the table and two of the chairs are mimics, backed by what Tsuki sees as a faint outline resembling a poltergeist.
Initiative time! (President fumes at her failing Razer mouse, and unrelatedly we figure now's not the best time to test our +2 to animal handling for petting purposes.) Chair 1 turns into Not A Chair and swings at Tsuki with its pseudopod appendage. Tsuki blasts Chair 2. Luna mentally confirms (OOC with President) how far away the guards are: the closest is Theodore who's a giant coward or less nice terms. Luna sends out her raven familiar, has it fly to Theodore (marked on the rodeo as a dragon), and speaking through it, asks him to get the guards because there are multiple mimics in the room along with the poltergeist.
Theodore: "Oh dear."
We hear the shuffling of footsteps as he rushes to get some guards. Luna hexes Table and Faerie Fires the region that conveniently has all the enemies in it and none of the allies; Chair 2 and Table are affected. Chair 2 says "I love eating" and then goes and attacks Tsuki with prejudice i.e. with racism and stuff.
Tsuki: "But I like mimics!"
Clara: "Well, this mimic doesn't like you!"
Anyways, Chair 2 hits Tsuki. After much math, Clara hits and divine smotes Chair 1. Tsuki slowly looks at the poltergeist and back at Clara. Nadyn mocks Chair1 successfully and inspires Tsuki. What will the poltergeist do? Give us money? We sure do love money. Anything but donuts, please. No, poltergeist goes up to Clara and successfully hits her. Also, there's a shuttered window on the north end of the room, which might be useful information. Table, despite being dumb as rocks, flanks Luna--Tsuki hitting with an opportunity attack in the process--and tries to ram her, but misses. Chair 1 is on its last legs (ba-dum-tss) and foolishly says "If I'm going down, I'm taking this paladin down with me!" and actually hits--nope, Nadyn barbs it into a miss and boosts Luna. Tsuki heads to the closed window and blasts Chair 1 critically, obliterating it and reducing it to a bunch of splinters with the force of the blast.
With Chair 1 defeated and no longer a threat to anyone except small children, Luna blasts Table, but her shot falls between the table legs. Chair 2 crit-misses Clara, slipping on a portion of floor that was still a bit ink-wet and falling on its chair-butt (not prone, just flavor). Clara hits Chair 2, which now looks like it has seen better days, the sort where it could make a living by getting people to sit on it and then eating them, but today that strategy has failed. Nadyn cures Clara's wounds and inspires her. Poltergeist walks up to Nadyn, says "Hey, I'm a poltergeist!" and telekinetically thrusts her into a bookshelf, knocking books onto her head for slight damage because books are buttholes. (This is progressing a love-hate relationship with books.) Table attacks Luna but misses thanks to barbs (which again buffs Luna). Tsuki blasts the shuttered window successfully (yes, he had to roll) for 9 damage (which he did not have to roll), so the shutters are now very gone. Sunlight trickles in. Feeel the power of Sunny D. We see the cone of light entering the room, which poltergeist is not happy with; it's still invisible, but we can see a tornado of garbage that marks its location (it has more of a gender than goblins do, but right now it is a ball of rage). Fun fact: each round of combat is only 6 seconds, so it's probably not going to be long enough for the guards to come and help. Luna blasts Table again, which now looks pretty bad and is upset and angry. Chair 2 attacks the Giant Clarab because rodeo auto-naming Clara but misses. Clara hits Chair 2, bringing it down to a sliver (ba-dum-tss). Nadyn tries to slash-bop it with the rapier, but misses. Wait, no, it's faerie fired! And she actually crits instead! This extremely potent silly bonk breaks the chair. It is dead.
Poltergeist (no, not polter-mouse) doesn't want us to get to the desk. It goes up to the window and tries to push Tsuki; they both roll terribly, but Tsuki is the one with a -1, and rather than using his bardic inspiration, he accepts his fate of being pushed... but doesn't even get far enough to hit the far wall. Table now has two tasty warlocks in melee range, though, and Table likes chicken... but rolls terribly and does not hit Tsuki. Tsuki Chill Touches the poltergeist (still disadvantage--the trash tornado is just visible enough to target), and it takes no damage (immunity presumably) but takes the other effects. Luna blasts Table one more time; it's still standing, but its feelings are hurt and stuff. Clara attacks Table too, but trips and misses. Wait, no, faerie fire! With bardic inspiration (6!) she trips, but gets up again and pummels the table! For 3 damage, but hey. Nadyn goes and stabs it hard enough to turn it into a heavily damaged and technically dead now but functionally still usable as a table. Seeing as Poltergeist is immune or resistant to 50 types of damage and President doesn't want the combat to go on for another half-hour of 0's, Theodore makes it back into the room with the guards to try to wrangle the trash tornado. He stretches out a hand toward another spot to attack (not where the poltergeist is currently) using divination magic. Both guards (and Nadyn and Clara) go up to that spot and wail on the poltergeist; Luna misses a blast and Tsuki hits. With our powers combined, the trash tornado eventually dies down, and from the poltergeist within, we hear "Noooo, don't touch the journals!" in a voice that is very similarly annoyingly high-pitched as Meep but is not Meep.
Clara: "For a second, the poltergeist sounded like Key..."
Theodore: "Yeah, poltergeists do have an annoying high-pitched sound when they decide to speak. Similar to a goblin."
We pick up the papers and Theodore inspects them with us. There's a stack of stuff in a notebook; Martha doesn't have the best handwriting, but not so bad that she wrote it in Doctor. Maybe more like Nurse. Nurses have readable handwriting, right? Anyways, she writes, and because her handwriting is usually not the worst in the world, we can tell that her recent entries are written in a panic and the entire gist is just that something really bad is happening. "I should not die, I'm going to lock myself away, and if you read this, go away! I'm going to lock myself in"--she mentions a location beneath the estate--"Don't follow me, just leave me alone, I'm gonna go there." Her handwriting becomes unreadable from there, though clearly frantic.
Theodore: "She's locked herself in... not really the catacombs, though the catacombs are inside them--she's in the tunnels underneath the estate. That's where she is, and that's not a good sign. I really need to find Martha, but I am not really the adventuring type. I will pay you even more money if you find her for me, please?"
Nadyn: "Wait! She's already been down there for 3 days at least, right?"
Tsuki: "Well, we know where we're going to go next--"
Nadyn: "Yes, the inn, because we need to rest. 3 days, one more won't make a difference." (to be fair we wasted time at the college, and the zoo, and bonding with our stoner roommate who actually we could ask to come along, which would absolutely in no way mess up our mission)
As we get back to the dorm, the stoner is producing an even more unpleasant weed-smell than usual; she stashes her apparatus quickly.
Dormmate: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry--the midterms are just so stressful, man, okay? Ugh. Ugh. And the government doesn't want us smoking! Man, this sucks!"
Tsuki: "We just smoked a poltergeist."
Dormmate: "Ohhh, how was the high from that?"
Tsuki: "...Eh, coulda been better."
Dormmate: "Right, that's why I got this good stuff."
Nadyn: "Wait, what's your name? I'm trying to be better about that."
Dormmate: "My name is Marg. It's short for Margaret."
Tsuki: "We're going to the catacombs tomorrow..."
Marg: "Woooord! I love dead people! Well--I love looking at dead people. You look at them and it gives you so much artistic inspiration, like, man, we're all gonna die someday duuuude." (The stoner is also goth, apparently.)
Tsuki: "Soo, wanna go on an adventure?"
Marg; "Awesome! We're gonna go to the catacombs! WOOOOOOO!"
Tsuki: "Sounds like a plaaan." (Nothing bad will come out of this plan. Though we are assured that whoever participates will be part of who's being paid, since Theodore is a man of honor, so this splits the pay... though Tsuki doesn't expect her to make it out alive.)
Luna: "...Can you fight at all?"
Marg: "Ohh, I am great at fights, okay? Let me tell you, one time this guy was totally getting on my nerves, okay? I mighta started a bar fight? I don't remember a bunch of it, but I did smack him good!"
Tsuki gives Marg a honey candy, which she eats because she has a serious case of munchies. Marg's major is apparently art history. This is probably about as useful in combat as Key was.
Tsuki (mentally to us and not Marg): "Nothiiing baaad will haaaappen."
Tsuki (internally): "Operation Meatshield."
Anyways, we sleep in the dorm and end our session for the night.
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Post by Coaster on Sept 15, 2022 23:16:55 GMT -5
My Slightly-Belated Recap Of The Petting Zoo Squad's Spooky Slapstick Session 13 As Much As I Was Able To Process It - September 10 2022
We resume our adventure to find Martha Brautz in the Brautz family catacombs in Cadako Cadakombs, with our new friend Marg from the extremely rusty dorm room. We're all rested and it's the next day. We stretch and yawn and stuff. Marg wakes up wearing some bed sandals (sandals never leave the bed, just for wearing while asleep) and changes into her regular shoes as she gets off the bed.
Marg: "Aw, man! It's crypt exploring day! Aw, man, that's the Brautz family, right?"
Tsuki: "Yup, family of no sausage."
Marg: "Maybe sausage is, like, a metaphor for the fact that now they are eating vegetarian? But like, it's like socially vegetarian? Sooo"--she trails off--"it's like them being downgraded from nobility to just a merchant class like everyone under capitalism. Aw, man. Yeah, that's why they don't eat sausage. That's a very intelligent observation to make, Tsuki."
Nadyn isn't really following but nods sagely. Tsuki zoned out entirely. Clara is--NOT beating up little kids, Tsuki, that's a bad deed. No, she's probably just out training and stretching and looking for someone to help, possibly thinking of tidying up the dorm room but afraid of upsetting some natural order of the chaos, cause Marg would be like "no that's exactly where it should be". Clara does, in fact, offer to rearrange stuff, and Marg declines.
Marg: "No, no, I need my art history textbook to be right here, okay? It's my lucky textbook. It carries the rest of the room together; it's like a fixture. Okay, guys, crypt time!"
With our new NPC friend, we go to the Brautz estate; Elias, the guard from before, lets us in. It has an entrance near a little graveyard on the estate--obviously underground--and he leads us there. When we go down, it's not a super creepy crypt (it's pretty nice and well-tended), but the guard seems a bit glad to just leave us there and run.
Nadyn: "Are there, like... ghosts and stuff?"
Elias: "Yeah, and they kind of don't like each other, so I would be careful with who you befriend and who you don't befriend."
Nadyn: "Okay, so the correct answer is to tinkle off everyone equally!"
Elias: "I would try to avoid angering everyone's ancestors, for the ones who are still here at least? But, you know, I can't control what you do... Okay, bye, I'm not spending any more time here than I need to." He legs it away.
As we take in the sight of the stone crypt, full of mini statues of gods interspersed with graves, we hear some metallic footsteps approach, and a bronze construct, much like C-3P0 but better at walking, looks at us.
Construct: "Hello, visitors. Please refrain from disturbing the graves of the dead. Thank you." It nods and walks away. We notice literal eyes in the back of its head watching us. Tsuki waves at the construct, which then nods backwards at us.
The crypt has many rooms; we start in a central room having four doors, one leading to the staircase we descended down from and the others lead to adjacent rooms. In this central room is a very austere plaque saying, "This is where the members of the Brautz family rest; may each member of our legacy continue to push us forward," and all that good stuff. (So there are four doors but no Theo-doors/Theodores, alas. Tsuki: "Coward.") We go through door #2 unsure if it's the one with the goat or the million dollar prize. (President says it's the goat door. We immediately ask to pet the goat.) Actually, no, it just means we picked the door opposite the entrance staircase door.
The next room is very plain and has two exits: the one we came from and one to our right. This room has nothing that interesting, just "here lies a bunch of last-generation family members". No goats. Clara leads us into the following room, which has three exits including our entrance. There's a statue of a man with a large eye on his head with a plaque saying, "Here is the great sage Karl, who invented this divination spell wherein you can kind of predict certain probabilities about like basically it's like a probability math solver but it like reveals to you hidden information you may not have known before. that's what this guy is known for." There's also a skull on a pedestal. Tsuki walks up to the skull to examine it. He gets a feeling of dread and needs to make a WIS save; passing it, as he approaches the skull, he sees what remains of its eyes light up, and he sees impressions of real eyes (not just eye sockets). It looks at Tsuki and, noticing that Tsuki passed the saving throw, says, "Aw, man, you're no fun at all!" Tsuki pokes the skull. The skull monches on Tsuki's hand; Tsuki quickly retracts it but is still damaged (psychically, for the fact that the skull somehow floated and decided to bite his hand).
Skull: "Kids these days, they have no respect for the dead!"
Tsuki: "I like skeletons..."
Skull: "Well, maybe you should ask before touching someone, hmm? Have you considered how the skeleton feels when you touch it?"
Tsuki: "They don't usually talk back..."
Skull: "Well, maybe they SHOULD. Well. Who are you? You don't seem like one of my relatives."
Tsuki: "We're looking for one of them."
Skull: "Are you one of them? Did one of them marry a crow or something? What are you?"
Tsuki: "I am Tsuki!"
Skull: "You are Tsuki. Noted. Yes, the powers of divination always tell me when visitors are coming to this crypt, but I never know who is coming to this crypt. Ugh. Well, why are you here, then? Are you janitors?"
Tsuki: "Looking for someone."
Skull: "I may be able to help you."
Nadyn: "Does 'Martha Brautz' ring a bell, or was she after your time?"
Skull: "I have two cousins with that name. Why? Oh, but I heard really bad rumors about one of my cousins--that she ran off with a stupid Montero. Ugh I hate the Monteros."
Tsuki: "We're... unsure if that's the same one. Her brother just wants us to find her."
Skull: "Ah, so her brother wants you to find her--so she's still alive?"
Tsuki: "Well, the one we're looking for."
Skull: "Yeah, I might have seen her here; she didn't want to talk much, though. Ugh. Kids these days! Back in my day, our religion stressed family values, not that 'all your worldly possessions will be extinguished' crud. Look at me! I'm dead, and I'm fine! I want respect!"
Tsuki: "Piece of candy?"
Skull: "Yes sir, piece of candy!"
Tsuki puts a piece of candy in the skull's mouth, which it accepts. It goes crunch very loudly, as you would imagine from pure teeth doing the crunching with no saliva or softening or anything. Just CRUNCH, and bits of candy fall beneath the skull, but he's happy about receiving candy.
Nadyn: "By any chance, would you be the one this statue is commemorating?"
Skull: "Who, me, Karl? No--hate that guy, living in his shadow. Few centuries ago, whatever, he stopped talking to me--just left. Butthead."
Nadyn: "What is your name, then?"
Skull: "My name's Leon."
Tsuki: "Sounds better than Karl."
Leon: "I know! I could swear my parents loved me more than anyone, even Karl, even if he was one of the greatest wizards and sorcerers who ever lived."
Nadyn: "Wait--wizard or sorcerer or both?"
Leon: "Well, everyone in the Brautz family line is a sorcerer, but it is often prudent to supplement your studies. He wanted to show off that he was better than me, so he was also a wizard."
Nadyn: "I... guess that makes sense."
Leon: "Yes, well. I do see some alive people here, but seeing as this alive person who came before you was part of my family and yet has not shown me any due respect, I don't know if you guys are going to show me my due respect, so I must ask you to prove yourselves to me."
Nadyn: "How would we go about that?"
Leon: "Well, you know my brother over there, Karl?"
Tsuki: "We need to punch him?"
Leon: "I wish you could still punch him. But I heard he had a stepdaughter, and she's still here! Luka! Luka lives on the other side of the crypt. I want you to punch her real good."
Nadyn: "...Do you want to come along and watch?"
Skull: "YES! I would love to watch Luka get punched!"
Luna: "Wait, but why do you want us to punch them? Just because they're a descendant?" Leon: "Ugh... well... yes. My brother is no longer here, but someone has to pay for him leaving me like that! Used to be that I'd wake up every day in this crypt, and he'd be here, and I could just tell him off for how bad of a brother he was. And now that he's gone, just left--haven't been able to do that anymore."
Luna: "What made him such a bad brother?"
Leon: "Man, you know, when we were kids, he always made fun of me and told me that he was better than me, and that I was lazy, and that I would never live up to him, ugh. Hate him so much."
Tsuki: "Let's punch his descendants!"
Luna: "I mean, his descendants didn't have any say in the matter of him being a butthead, I guess. Maybe we could desecrate his grave or something else, so someone innocent isn't harmed?"
Leon: "What use is desecrating his grave if he isn't around to see it?"
Tsuki: "Where did he go, exactly?"
Leon: "He said something about going to the great beyond or whatever. I dunno what happens to people after they just LEAVE. And they don't come back, their spirits are just gone."
Nadyn offers Leon's skull to Marg.
Marg: "Oh, sure, yeah, I'll carry him. Wow! A member of the old aristocracy! Ah!"
She asks him a bunch of art history questions, which Leon clearly isn't that interested in, but he's happy for the attention.
We move on with the skull to the top exit. The room has one other exit besides our entrance; for some reason it has a table with a chair and a rug. Nearby is someone's grave, but unfortunately, the writing is faded and we cannot read it unless we come closer.
Nadyn: "Sounds like schmuck bait--"
Tsuki: "I'll cast false life (in case it tries to bite me too) and then go check it out!".
He swipes the tombstone to read what's on it, and instead of the words actually becoming clear, he hears a voice narrate it: "Here lies Hannah the Trickster! She is known for her multiple funny pranks!" We then hear a very, very long fart noise. Nadyn (willingly) starts giggling uncontrollably. Additionally, we see eyes pop out of the chair, the rug suddenly slithers upright and erect, we hear the sound of laughter, and it's time to roll initiative, even though we're assured it's not technically a combat.
Tsuki goes first. Seeing the chair with eyes and the rug moving around, he decides to fall over on his butt and make the fart noise again. The chair, which goes next, has anime-happy-eyes, waddles up to Tsuki and stomps its leg as if it wants something. Clara's next: seeing the rug that's taller than all of us, she reaches up as far as she can and pats the rug saying "good rug! who's a good rug?" We can't tell its emotions except that it does the cat anime face. :3 In the distance we see some bowling pins or balls or something picked up from the ground and swirling as if someone is juggling them. Nadyn starts playing Yakety Sax on the banjo. Luna is at a loss and stands there watching in confusion. The rug envelops Clara and tries to knock her prone. She's grappled and being non-lethally smothered by this playful rug. Tsuki stands up and walks towards the happy chair next to him. Since he doesn't do anything with it, it gets frustrated and taps one of its legs again. It also tries to grapple Tsuki: the back of the chair bends in a way that reminds him of a bending human back, and it tries to step on him, but he dodges it. Clawrap Supreme rolls to get free and fails. We can probably guess it's a poltergeist since we've encountered one before. In fact we get the chilling sensation that this is the same one that attacked us in the mansion! The juggler is still juggling, Nadyn is still Yakety Saxing which they approve of, but since Luna is just standing there confused, she is pelted by one of several juggled tennis ball equivalents. Still playing, Nadyn goes up to the chair and makes as if she's going to sit down on it. The chair seems excited. She goes to sit down. The chair scoots away at the last minute. Nadyn: "I KNEW it." She falls on her butt, comically on top of Tsuki, and the chair is delighted that it finally managed to pull the prank off. (All part of the plan.)
After being hit by a ball, Luna says, "Ow! That was rude!" and we hear canned laughter. She walks up to wrapped-up Clara and asks if she needs help in any way.
Clara: "YES. The rug loves me too much. I shouldn't have petted the rug. I regret."
Luna: "Do you have any idea how we can get you out?"
Clara: "Is it possible for you to unroll the rug? Is there magic to magically unroll a rug?"
Luna: "...Is there? I'm not sure."
At President's advice, she reserves her action to perform Help during Clara's next grapple save so she can roll out. In the meantime, the rug goes up to Luna and slaps her with one of those fancy tassels on its edge. Tsuki, with a bard fallen on top of him, struggles to get out from under her and makes a fart noise again. Nadyn waves her hand in front of her nose as if it was an actual fart. The chair is really happy and moving as if it's really excited, as this is the first time in a long time it's been able to do something like this. The chair manages to step over Nadyn, the seat of the chair bends towards her as if it's going to sit down, and it ends its turn. Clara manages to get free of the rug with Luna's help, and she rolls out onto the floor like when you undust a bedsheet. She looks up and says, "Thanks." There is canned laughter in response. Tsuki adds to it. Clara considers it a good deed for helping make the poltergeist happy. Said poltergeist, still juggling, decides that since Marg is here just patiently holding the skull and doing very weak laughs at what's happening, it will pelt Leon the skull. So Leon is knocked out of Marg's hands (Marg apparently has slippery fingers) and goes headfirst into the ground to canned laughter.
Leon: "darn it HANNAH I HATE YOU SO MUCH"
Yet more canned laughter in response.
Nadyn smacks the chair on the underside of its seat. The seat goes right back up and the chair is embarrassed in a cartoon Hanna-Barbara way not a weird way. The chair just wanted to try sitting on a person, but it's been slapped back into place. Luna goes and picks Leon up off the floor, dusts him off a bit, and gives him back to Marg.
Marg: "Oh yeah, thank you; I'm sorry I was too busy watching. You okay there little guy?"
Leon: "I AM NOT LITTLE! Although I am a guy."
Rug's turn: it notices that Luna hasn't been a good comedy participant and tries to slither under her feet. Successfully pushing her onto it, she's now on this flying animate rug. So that's neat. Tsuki tries to join Luna on the rug, taking a running jump for it and... not having the strongest of legs, he flaps his little wings and would not make it, except that the rug lowers itself a little bit so he can get on. The chair looks at Nadyn, sad that it couldn't do the reverse chair sit like it wanted to. Clara, evaluating what's going on and recognizing that nobody's actually getting hurt, notices the drooping sad chair. Since it's less likely to turn Clara into a burrito, she pats it on its back. The chair seems to cheer up a little bit, back to showing two little anime eyes. She also loosely hugs the chair, saying, "There, there, chair." (Chair just got carried away and tried to do the reverse sit. Clara's now a chair-hugger. Which makes sense because chairs are wood which used to be trees.)
The poltergeist stops juggling things, and from who-knows-where, we see a tiny portal, and a banana peel comes out of it. It throws the banana peel at Luna's feet. Nadyn turns over to be on her elbows and knees, a stepping stool sort of position which is more stable for sitting. The chair makes to step; Nadyn does nothing; and Nadyn feels the weight of a chair on her. The chair is amazed, thinking, "This is what it feels like to be a person!" and then feels starstruck like "Aaa, I can't believe I'm one of the cool kids now." Luna, having a banana peel stuck on the bottom of her shoe, carefully lifts her foot up off the banana peel on the rug, and shakes it to put the peel on the ground. She then tries to step off of the rug, but fails the strength throw so she does not successfully get off. Now the rug's turn, carrying both Luna and Tsuki, it curves and whips and straightens itself, and they roll off it and onto the ground. (Cool, a trampoline! Except nobody is hurt, just mildly annoyed.) As this happens, there's a canned love track laugh track. The rug is self-satisfied over getting to roll two people off of it. Tsuki's turn: the rug seems happy, the chair seems happy. He finds the banana peel on the ground and runs towards the rug, but making sure to slip on the peel in the process. Slamming into the rug, it gets surprised and Tsuki rolls up into the rug, but he feels that the rug didn't plan to roll up, so its eyes are kind of confused and weird, and he's not grappled. The poltergeist pulls out two gloves from the portal and claps them together from the wrists. The canned laughter reaches a climax and suddenly stops. Comedy Battle Complete!
We see a ghost materialize in front of us: it's a middle-aged woman with a really weird hairstyle.
Ghost (laughing): "That was the best fun I've had in ages!"
Nadyn: "Firstly! I didn't get a chance to have a juggle-off with you, so we need to rectify that later. Second, you gotta teach me how to do that portal thing!"
Ghost: "Yes, if you come back in your downtime I can teach you. It's a pocket dimension--it doesn't carry much, but it can carry a few things."
Hannah looks at Leon the flaming skull, who does not look happy to have been dropped.
Leon: "Hannah, ugh. Hey. You happen to know where Luka is?"
Hannah: "Do you STILL want to punch Luka?"
Leon: "Listen, I need to do it okay? Karl's not here anymore"--Hannah nods, she's heard this entire story already--"He's not here anymore. He left without even apologizing the stupid JERK." He rants a while longer at Hannah in that vein.
Hannah: "Welp, uh, yeah, um, anyways, thank you for the laughs! A spirit like me--obviously, it's kind of boring sitting here for who knows how long; after a while the days and years blend together. Also, it's not only Nadyn who can learn this magic spell--if we have some spare time for a few regimented classes, I can teach any of you this spell. I was a great teacher in my time, you know."
Luna: "I'd love to learn it!"
Hannah: "Well you know who to ask for: Hannah Brautz."
With that, we have the ability to learn a whole new spell during downtime!
We're still in the crypt. Tsuki wants to explore some more but also kind of ignore Leon a bit. Leon doesn't get around enough to know the layout of this place, just where he's carried--he can float on his own, but only if he's really angry.
Hannah: "Oh yeah, over there it's--they're like, my parents, and... well, Leon was actually supposed to be buried in the west wing of this place. But if you continue on past my parents and grandparents, it loops back, and there are all the founders of our family in the west wing. Leon's side of the family is over there. But, maybe for various reasons, he was moved, along with his brother."
Tsuki: "Have you seen anyone living go by lately, besides us?"
Hannah: "Ah, yes, there was a... Martha. At least, that's what I heard when I asked her. I tried to do a comedy routine, but she almost blasted the chair over here!" Sure enough, the chair does have a bit of a chip in it. "Completely irresponsible, and she has no patience."
Tsuki: "Sounds like her."
Hannah: "I know! (sigh) But she had some kind of spell that made us regular ghosts not be able to see, so it's really only embodied things that could see her, and I'm not embodied in anything, as you can see here. And I'm pretty sure one of the only people who knew where she went is Leon over here,"
Leon: "That's right."
Then right it is! Tsuki asks what Hannah suggests.
Hannah: "Welll, this place is kinda magical. There are secret passageways, but they shift every so often and are controlled by the construct. They're based off the constructs of the deep ruin--not nearly as powerful, but they pack a punch, and I wouldn't suggest bothering them that much. It would probably make Leon happy. But Leon's family situation, well--I was before his time, but from what I've heard, you might want to check that out. Or you might talk to my folks! My folks are fine, but I don't think anyone's really embodied."
So basically either sidequest or main quest.
Since we're planning to come back here eventually anyways, we backtrack to the central room to enter the west wing. The first western room also has four entrances (one of which was our entrance). There is a construct tending to a variety of graves in this tomb, and once again it has literal eyes in the back of its head.
Construct: "Hello, may I be of help?"
Nadyn: "Hello! Uh, have you seen any other living people pass through here recently?"
Construct: "Yes, Martha Brautz."
Tsuki: "We're looking for her."
Construct: "Ah, yes indeed. who are you?"
Tsuki: "Her brother told us to try and find her."
Construct: "Ah. I see. (thinks) Your word does not have operative presence over Martha's, and she does not wish to be found. I cannot help you."
Nadyn: "That's alright, we have other goals here too. Have you met Leon?"
Construct: "Ah yes, Leon. I moved him and his brother, how many years ago--70 years ago. They were troublesome and perhaps benefited from removal from their family."
Leon: "HEY. HEY. TROUBLESOME? What do you mean? Do you know who you're talking to?!"
Construct: "Yes. I am talking to the embodied ghost of Leon Brautz."
Leon: "Alright, listen here. I don't know who you're joking with, mister, but I think you're asking to be decked in the face."
Construct: "Which one, sir?"
Leon: "Well, BOTH of your faces! I'm gonna punch you so much your stupid neck will have a loose bolt in there!"
Construct: "I am aware of your empty threats. Please be careful with this one and make sure its tenacity does not cause anyone any trouble."
Tsuki: "We'll try."
The construct returns to tending the graves, and we take the north exit to a room that has other exits to the north and weast(?).
It's full of tombs, with a highlight being an old ceremonial sword on top of a family member whose name has been scratched out: "Here lies -----, who rebelled against King Tobias". Tsuki and Clara, being locals, know that he ruled about 500 years ago and is remembered as a great king by some and a tyrant by others, but most known for ruthlessly putting down a peasant rebellion (so not a nice guy)--but this family member rebelled against him, and (her? their?) name has been stricken from the records. Tsuki says the sword looks cool. Nadyn says we'd probably be safe to interact if we demonstrate we're on the peasants' side. We decide against it and go back to the construct. Clara asks nicely what's in the room to the north, and the construct suggests going north through the hallways. Tsuki then asks the construct where Luka is located.
Construct: "Oh, yes. Luka located is two rooms west and one room south of me."
Tsuki: "Thank you! There we go."
So we proceed with that plan.
In the immediate western room, we mostly see more graves and a bunch of torches. One notable family member buried here is Nea Brautz, who apparently had the most beautiful singing voice, and that's all the info we have. Nadyn immediately looks for a way to summon this ghost. Probably by singing. Probably polka again. She sings polka for a few minutes and nothing happens at first, but then she hears the most dramatic opera rendition of polka she's ever heard in her life. So now we have a dramatic operatic voice singing polka with us. Nadyn claps a little and continues the song. We see a ghost of a very old lady and she claps back.
Nea: "Thank you! I have not heard someone sing in such a good while, and your music reminds me of the tritons--oh," she adjusts her spectacles a bit, "you ARE a triton." Nadyn: "So I am!"
This looks like a sweet old lady who apparently still has some singing spirit in her.
Nea: "Well, young ladies and... bird,... when I died, I couldn't see very much except the future. Let me try..."
She adjusts her spectacles again, and projected onto them we see images of all of us standing against Ricardo the lich (yes in retrospect it's a silly name).
Nea: "You have such an interesting future. Do your best to fulfill it." She disappears.
Nadyn: "Thank you, miss Nea!"
We feel an approving presence.
Nadyn: "Now, off to punch one of your family members!"
We exit to the west into a room devoid of tombs, but containing a statue of an austere nuclear family with very stern expressions: a mom and dad, and six adult children who are slightly scaled down compared to the parents. On a plaque with their names, we see two of the children are Leon and Karl.
Tsuki: "Well, we found where they USED to be buried. Hey, Leon?"
Leon: "Yes?"
Tsuki: "What would you think if you got buried in Karl's grave?"
Leon: "Tsuki, I swear if you bury me in Karl's grave, I can haunt you for the rest of your life, you know. It's not good to disrespect the dead."
Tsuki: "I'm not serious! And people would think you would be Karl!"
Leon: "Yes, but I don't want to BE Karl, I want to be my own person!"
Tsuki: "Okay moving on."
We enter the room to the south, where we were assured Luka is. It's a pretty big room--bigger than most of the ones we've been to--and has a lot of different little tombs, and for some reason also tables with chairs set almost as if someone is still living here. Most of the furniture is simple and hastily constructed--probably not even by a carpenter--though a couple are fairly ornate. In the corner we see someone sitting on one of the chairs, twiddling their thumbs, not doing much of anything. Their hair is floofy as if drawn upward by reverse gravity, and very long. They turn towards us with all-white eyes and stare at us, waiting for us to speak. And we end the session there. (With an intent to go for reconciliation first next time rather than immediately to the punching.) (And yeah, the catacombs are understandably a pretty crowded place. Family's been around for quite a while.)
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Post by Liou on Sept 21, 2022 4:58:45 GMT -5
Uvina B: ☆⋆:*:⋆☆ Team Superstars ☆⋆:*:⋆☆ Session 12: Outdoing Odysseus - 11 September 2022
In brief: * Long rest -> Day 20.
* We take the fairy ferry back from Lar'uk.
* We fight and capture the siren from the ferry's route.
* We return to Luna's village.
Recap:
Dungeon Master Gag:
The other day Moni had some onions but it turns out that she is now allergic to the entire Allium family and not just garlic because she is a vampire, remember, a mosquito vampire, and she got really bad stomach problems, but it might just be her period though so don't be alarmed! Anyways, she was so unwell that she forgot what happened last session.
*****
Long Rest!
After successfully investigating the roots of the evil sorcerer Nalariel, we are ready to head back from Lar'uk. Since the ferry goes through the hunting territory of that pesky siren on the way back, we try to strategise a way to deal with that creature.
Ear protection seems like a good start. Mara uses their large brain to spot an acoustics store, and surmises that people who sing a lot use ear protection for concerts. We go in and see a variety of wind and string instruments, some confrontational singing guides for morons. The DM educates us on tone deafness and the exaggerated use of that term and how it really works in the brain. Back in the store we find very cheap mass produced earplugs, which come in 20-packs for humanoid, Leonin and Harengon ears. Jazz experiments putting their fingers in their ears for the very first time in two thousand years of existence!
We seek Faereigh, the Ferry Fairy. On the dock, there is a tiny lighthouse, one story tall, with a little bell, and the gnomemade boat moored near there. Luna rings the bell.
Faereigh jumps off the boat and flies to us, wearing one of their many Gandalf cosplay outfits. "Oh hi, fancy seeing you again, I mean, I just saw you."
Luna: "Fancy seeing you too! We have done our business and we hope to go back. What time does the ferry go back?"
"In two hours, I am taking my beauty sleep."
We decide to help by braiding Faereigh's very long beard, but since fairies are smol, it's a brief and delicate endeavour.
Khitah manages it dexterously. "I'm pretty good at braiding things, see how long my braid is!"
Mara uses this break to ask Jazz if they have means of defending themself, especially in case we run into Nalariel the Elder. Jazz does, they have their fiery spear to fight with.
Mara also asks Jazz about the memory wiping magic that was used on Khitah's tribe, when they nearly forgot about tribesmember Zaran when he disappeared as they were staying in Lanszu, the land of Jerkelves. According to Jazz, it's not exactly magic, but when one changes things in the Shadowfell, it can have an impact and reflect on people on the mortal plane. If only there was an expert on the Shadowfell that we could contact somewhere in the world, like a professor! As for wraiths, Nalariel was experimenting to keep souls from passing on and under their control.
Faereigh successfully completes their beauty nap and we're off! We spend four hours sitting in this regular sized boat with tiny fairy sized equipment and lots of empty space, with Jazz pointing at every thing to ask "What's this?" and accidentally inflating a lifevest. We take note that Nalariel knows how to swim, so there is no point in trying to trick them into drowning! Elimination.
The party has a heartwarming conversation on how much they appreciate travelling of their own volition in each other's company, and how much nicer that is than fleeing a besieged city. Luna adds that she did not travel much before, everyone in her village may be friendly but she had always been an odd one out, and she appreciates us being similarly peculiar - which she means as a compliment.
Before Jazz met us, the last person they talked to punched a hole in their chest, and we were the first people to be nice to them. Khitah is shocked, Vyn gives them a "That's rough, buddy."
We reach the waters where Sadako the siren first attacked us with her charming song, so we prepare by putting on the earplugs of diverse shapes.
"If anyone sees anything, the signal is to flap your arms widely," Luna says, anticipating our silent communication.
"Sometimes I do that just for fun, can we have a more complex signal?" asks Vyn.
Khitah comes up with a special anime hand signal from a certain bizarre adventure.
Sadako the siren pops out of the waves. None of us can hear her through the earplugs! Faereigh is ready and starts to play the deepfry fairy flute to counter the siren song, which we also can't hear, blessedly.
Mara cantrip-messages the siren, and only hears angry screeching - "AAAAAH" - in response. Then they ask if Sadako is hungry and get a "YAAAAH". Jazz has a huge smile upon seeing a siren for the first time.
Slippery Sadako manages to dodge a sparkly Magic Missile (fairy edition) by Faereigh, Vyn's Frostbite, a raging Khitah's greataxe, Luna's Guiding Bolt, an unlucky Jazz's fiery spear, a net thrown by Vyn, the same net thrown by Luna and a Sleep from Mara.
But she also gets hit by a still raging Khitah's greataxe (the sequel), a mind blast by Mara, an itsy bitsy teeny weeny polkadot blowdart from Faereigh, a standard fairy-glitter-less Magic Missile by Vyn, a mild shudder from a Ray of Frost, and then the net properly thrown by Luna! Luna signals to us and we all pull her in together.
We have captured an angry screeching siren that hates everything, wants to eat us and will charm us if we take out our earplugs! Wow! Wow! Now what!
Faereigh clearly has a long history of dislike between them and the siren who frequently attacks their ferry. They quickly put together a proper gag to silence this siren, so we are at least able to take out our earplugs. How to relocate her?
With the right kind of trebuchet, we could lob her over the border to Vanecia so that she could be a problem for people who deserve to have her as a problem! For that, we'd have to drag an angry captive siren all the way back down the mountains towards the actual front. In a cauldron of water, Vyn suggests? Could the gnomes contrapt a special water-filled vehicle? Maybe it could be enchanted to fly by fairies? Luna says that the sky is as vast and beautiful as the ocean, and the siren could discover its wonders!
After the fairy trip, we make it back through the fairy forest and stop at the 120 foot tall cliff. We send Vyn up with the party's two grappling hooks - purchased previously by Khitah and Vyn herself. She finds a very sturdy rock that tests well and seems like it has a good rockord. It becomes leverage for us to pull Sadako up the cliff. We first test it with Luna. The rock rolls well enough to handle Luna, so we send up Sadako in the net. She is very grumpy.
Once we have all clambered up with various amounts of ease, Jazz casually strolls up the cliff with their special roboty adaptations. They just didn't want to bother us with their super strength or anything while we were so busy with our makeshift pulley system.
At the gnome village, the first person we meet is Pan, who is announced long before we arrive by the sound of cast iron pans being tested by a sledgehammer. Pan greets us, and Jazz joins in the pan resistance testing. What a good thing we still had earplugs.
We then greet Tinker the gnome, who thinks to ask for the siren's name. We ask her through cantrip. She is actually called Saka!
We discuss possible options for a water-filled vehicle with Tinker, who raises the important other question of how to feed this extremely voracious humanoid-eating creature over a week-long trip. Tinker refers us to Tibil the steampunk baker gnome for further discussion of the matter.
Will the Superstars continue with this plan, or do the boring sensible thing and release the siren in some not too inconvenient part of the sea? Stay tuned to find out!
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Post by Coaster on Sept 29, 2022 23:48:54 GMT -5
My Recap Of The Petting Zoo Squad's Concussive Therapy Session 14 As Much As I Was Able To Process It - September 24 2022 Last session we ended on the party entering the room where Luka is sitting at a table, kind of in a body (not a pure ghost), but rather ethereal (some parts seem to vanish into thin air or are close to it), fiddling with a quill pen, and they look up at us. Luka: "Hello. It's not often we get visitors here, especially not visitors with Leon here." Leon (still carried by Marg and now on fire): "There's Luka! Punch 'em and I'll tell you where Martha went!" Luka stares back expectantly. Nadyn: "Hey! Uh. I think we got off on the wrong foot. As Leon mentioned, we're looking for Martha. Have you seen her around?" Luka: "Yes, we've seen her. Everyone's seen her. You need something from her?" Tsuki: "We need to find her for her brother, who's lost without her." Luka: "Yeah, her brother, Theodore? He brought me this piece of paper, but I don't know where it is now. But yes, that makes sense." Leon (interrupting): "Luka! You must pay!" Luka: "...What am I paying for, Leon?" Leon: "You're paying for Karl leaving here!" Luka: "Oh my god... Why did you move him? Why didn't you just leave him where he was? I don't want to deal with this..." Nadyn: "We were hoping for a bit of... family reconciliation. This is a therapy session now!" Clara looks around awkwardly. Luka: "I appreciate your help, but it has been how many hundreds of years we've all been here? And nothing is right." Leon: "It was okay! And now I'm all alone because Karl left! And you're still here for some reason! And--god, you're so, so boring!" Luka: "You're my uncle..." Leon: "Your ADOPTIVE uncle, Luka!" Luka: "You didn't like me when we were still alive because we never even met when we were alive. I don't know what your problem is with me." Leon: "Mmmmh. PUNCH LUKA. They don't deserve anything!" Leon is a skull, all talk and not able to punch on his own. Clara stands between the two anyways. Luka doesn't even register that Clara went between them and Leon, and just stares at Leon through Clara as if they can still see him. The two talk back and forth. Leon's doing his best to convince us that "Luka is stupid and boring and talks extremely slowly, and if you talk with Luka they'll just take forever to get to the point because they always take forever to get to the point you should just punch 'em!" Nadyn: "You wouldn't happen to know anyone in Bordeauriva, small lakeside town, slow talker, confiscates weapons?" Luka: "I haven't been outside this crypt since I died." Luka is not as slow as that lady, but they are approaching that slowness level. Luka: "Yes, well, you see, ever since I have taken this form, time is a lot faster for me. You are speaking very fast, I am not speaking slow." Clara steps away from between and goes back to awkwardly standing at the side like "oh. guess that didn't do anything". Now that the party is bent on actually talking like adults, Leon turns to Marg for help. Leon: "Hey! Hey Marg! Throw me at that thing! Throw me! Throw me!" (Tsuki was thinking just that.) Tsuki (to Marg): "Yes, do it!" Marg, a bit sharper than she appears, looks straight at Tsuki, nods, and raises her hand to throw Leon. Nadyn notices first and says, "You know, he can actually start blazing if he gets mad enough." Marg immediately tries to throw him because she doesn't want him blazing while she's holding him. (Nadyn was hoping for a double entendre--or maybe Marg is just well aware from looking in the skull that the skull has no drugs.) Luna casts Mage Hand and tells Marg to just put Leon in the spectral hand, and Marg quickly obliges, transferring Leon over. Leon: "Man! I had to try!" Luna's spectral hand discolors in a way that suggests Leon is getting hotter. Tsuki: "Okay, one of you has to know where Martha is." Leon: "I'm not telling you until Luka gets a good beating and gets punched in the face!" Luna: "I'm not going to be beating them up! They didn't do anything wrong! (As far as I'm aware.)" Leon: "How am I supposed to punish? Karl's gone!" Clara: "I can't do that because of my Vows." Tsuki uses Ward of Radiance on Leon, but Leon passes the saving throw. Leon: "I am the mighty Leon Brautz! You cannot contain me!" Luka: "Ugggh. He is unquenchable in his desire for misplaced vengeance." Luna: "Why do you say misplaced?" Luka: "Misplaced... It is true that my father did not quite treat Leon in the best way possible, but my father was not a bad man. I have heard tales of my grandparents and how they pitted them against each other. Leon, you will not believe this, but I believe during his time here, my father realized what had been done, and in doing so his spirit simply..." Luka makes a hand gesture, "became untethered to the material plane and into the Shadowfell, and then wherever things go after that. He didn't leave, Leon--I think he is truly well and gone." Leon: "No. No, he LEFT. He left me. All through our lives he treated me like garbage, showed me up every single time, and then played nice with me here, and then just as I was starting to get to like him, he just left." Luka: "Leon. Uncle Leon. I am his daughter. I think I would know of any plans he would have made if he'd left; he would have told me." Leon is still extremely grumpy. Nadyn asks if it's possible for a spirit, with the power of sheer malice, to will itself out of existence and thereby move on. Luka: "If that were possible, he could have gone through 10 lifetimes by now..." Leon: "Hey! I don't have a bad temper! You disrespectful little brat! I am like 29 years older than you!" Luka: "29 years is not a lot after a few centuries, Uncle Leon." Leon (grumbling): "Well, I still have more life experience!" Luka: "What life experience? We've all been in a crypt since we died." Luna: "Luka, you don't happen to have any family members who are therapists around here? I feel like one of them could help Leon." Luka: "Well, therapy was usually not a very noble profession, but Hannah's still around, and certainly being a stand-up trickster was not a very noble profession either. She's quite a disappointment to the family, according to what she said. But, I don't believe there is a therapist per se--but perhaps you can meet someone who is better with people than I am. Though obviously, the problem is that if you were a therapist with a clear mind and you were able to solve problems like this effectively, perhaps you would be more likely to have already passed on than the rest of us." Nadyn is at a loss, brings out the banjo, and starts playing Kumbaya. Tsuki is just glaring at Leon at this point. Leon is stewing in anger and his eyes are now on fire. Nadyn: "Perfect! Campfire songs!" Tsuki: "Cool off! Chill touch!" Leon takes the necrotic equivalent of cold water. Doesn't really do much if any damage, but the flames do die down a bit, and he does seem calmer. Leon: "Hrm. Well. This SUCKS. I got all excited that I would punch Luka for no reason!" Luka's just staring at us while Nadyn plays banjo. Luka's bobbing their head up and down at the music, and Marg seems to really like it too, saying, "Hell yeah, sister!" Leon is just being a bit grumpy, not flaming but also not ready to change his mind yet. We functionally take a short rest. Marg sings along and is actually pretty good at it (being one of the IBC students, except for having somewhat different interests). Clara offers candy; Luka takes some, and Leon is extremely upset still. Nadyn: "Would a punch in the face even feel like revenge if our hearts weren't in it?" Luna (to Leon): "I understand that you're pretty tinkled, and I think that for some reasons it's understandable, but your brother's not here, and I guess you need to accept that you can't talk to him or I guess punch him if you're angry, just like people had to accept when you died. So I understand that you're tinkled, but there's no point stewing in the anger when it's not bringing anything helpful." Leon takes these words and thinks them through for the rest of the hour. Leon: "Hm. Are you saying people wanted to punch ME in the face when I died?" Luna: "No, that's not what I'm saying--just needing to accept that someone's gone. They had to accept that you were gone, you have to accept that your brother's gone." Leon: "Hrm." Luka's happy about hearing any kind of music (wait, isn't she next-door to the renowned performer?). Tsuki refreshes False Life just in case, but has nothing else to add. Clara distributes more honey candy. From the direction of Nea the old lady musician's room, we hear a bunch of pretty flutes playing in the distance and accompanying Nadyn's banjo. (Maybe the musician is happy she gets to play in an ensemble again.) Nadyn asks if anyone wants to borrow her drum--maybe Leon can get his rage out by headbutting the drum? Marg: "That's a great idea! I also play the drums!" Marg goes to the drum and gently introduces a drum rhythm using his skull. Clara isn't musically inclined herself but as part of the oath appreciates the arts. At the end of the hour, Leon says, "Fiiiiiine. I think Luka had a point. It's not their fault that Karl is gone and that I didn't have a great relationship with my brother like I wanted to have in life. You know whose fault it really is? It's my parents'!" Nadyn: "...I mean, are they around?" Leon: "My parents. I'm gonna go punch my parents!!" Tsuki: "I'm for it." Luna: "I thought your parents treated you well?" Luka (calling after him): "Waaaait, mister bird man, it's not where you came from! They've actually been put into the other room by the construct!" Nadyn: "I mean, I'm up for some correctly placed revenge." (Better than punching your niece.) Clara: "Punching is not a good deed unless you have a very good reason for it." Luna repeats her question about Leon's parents treating him well. Leon: "...That might have been a lie... You know, they always sort of liked Karl better. And everyone liked Karl better." Nadyn: "...Well, if you find a therapeutic solution to that problem, let me know." #HardRelate Leon: "For now, I'm going to try to punch them in the face. Marg, come on! I require an escort!" Marg: "Excuse me, excuse me, okay? I don't know who you think I am, but I'm not that kind of girl, okay?" Leon: "NO! Not that kind of escort! A regular kind of escort! God, kids these days!" Tsuki hands the head back. We go to the room Luka helpfully pointed out as being Karl and Leon's parents' location. As we enter the room, which is slightly lit like the others, we see several coffins with different descriptions, and on one end of the room is two ghosts conversing with each other on what we intuit used to be a sofa but is so eaten that only its wooden frame remains. We don't know what they're conversing about, it's in a language none of us know. But wait! Luna has Comprehend Languages! She uses it and determines that they're talking about a very boring theory of magical spells, but they seem to be speaking in a very haughty language--perhaps designed as a secretive sort of language--about the details of this spell and how it works, and how Karl, even though he figured out most of the spell, still left a few holes in it. We approach them. We never got their names. Nadyn: "Psst! Leon! What are their names?" Leon: "Rocco and Adela." Nadyn: "Excuse me, are you Rocco and Adela?" They look at us as if offended that we would interrupt such an important discussion between superiors. Rocco and Adela: "Ugh. That is Sir Rocco and Sir Adela to you. I don't believe we've ever met." Tsuki points at the annoyed skull. Adela: "Leon, it's been ages since you've visited us, hasn't it?" Rocco: "Yes indeed, it's been so long since you visited here. You know who else hasn't visited? Karl. Oh, Karl. Karl probably has many things he's accomplishing right now, but you, I mean--you were probably just sitting there; I mean, what can you even do in that form?" Nadyn: "We can show you!" Marg shares a meaningful glance with Leon, nods at him, and yeets him at the parents. As he flies through the air, he gets fire in his skull. She didn't throw too well but still (barely) smacks Leon's mom in the face, and she says "ow." Nadyn cheers. Rocco and Adela look at each other; they don't seem very happy. We roll initiative. Leon goes first. He's finally getting his sweet revenge and is super angry. He continues attacking his mom because he has issues that need to be worked out, but he misses, charging at her and faceplanting into the ground (or bellyflopping?). Nadyn viciously mocks Rocco and inspires Tsuki. Rocco charges at Marg, missing his first attack but hitting the second. Marg: "Ow, that hurts." Tsuki chill touches Rocco. Adela: "Well, that was rude!" She takes Leon's skull--her son's skull--and yeets it at Tsuki, saying, "Take him back! Don't throw our son at us!" (Only we can throw our son!) Tsuki gets hit. Luna casts Faerie Fire, succeeding on Adela. Marg initially appears unarmed, but pulls out a switchblade! Clara: "She's got a sharp object! She's got a knife!!" Marg tries to hit Rocco with this knife, and actually hits! But it doesn't do much damage. She realizes she's out of her league and turns tail. The opportunity attack from Rocco misses, thankfully. Marg: "Bye bye, nerds!" She nopes out into at least the next room over. Nadyn thanks her on the way out and says, "Thanks for all the help, see you in class!" Clara attacks and divine smites Rocco massively. He's pretty shocked by that burst of damage. Leon's turn again: he looks at Tsuki, says "Sorryyyy," and rolls on his side and shoots lasers out of his eyes, trying to aim them at Rocco. The first hits for 10 freaking damage. The second completely misses due to the recoil from the first. Nadyn viciously mocks Rocco again, but he passes. Rocco (fancily): "This paladin is a paaaain!~" He attacks Clara. It misses. Nadyn uses Silvery Barbs for the second, but it still hits. Tsuki moves between the two ghosts and uses Arms of Hadar. Rocco got a nat 1 and is now extremely low on health. Adela somehow also rolled a 1. Tsuki misty steps outta there afterward. Adela is unhappy with Tsuki, runs up to him-- Tsuki: "Hi!" --and tries to attack, but misses. Tsuki: "And now you're close to me where I want you--" --and hits with the second attack, oops. Luna backs away a little bit and eldritch blasts Adela. Marg's still noping out in the next room. Clara attacks Rocco again but misses. Leon tries to laser beam his mother, missing the first time but hitting for 13 after readjustment. Nadyn heals up Clara and inspires Luna. Rocco tries to attack Nadyn but misses both times. Nadyn: "You don't have a ghost of a chance, bwahaha!" Tsuki pulls out The Leg club, Shillelaghs it, and hits Adela with the Shille-Leg, aided by bardic inspiration. Adela didn't like that and tries to attack Tsuki--crit averted by silvery barbs, but still hits twice. Luna blasts Adela again, hitting with the bardic inspiration. (So anyways, I started blasting--) and that's actually enough to down her! She disappears into thin air. Don't worry, she's not dead for real. Wait, wasn't she already dead? Yes, but not like dead dead. You can't kill an already dead person. She's fine. Anyways! Marg's turn. She cheers, "Go guys! You can do it guys, you can do it!" from far away and then runs even further. Clara hits Rocco, doing literally 2 damage but still enough to dispel him. Adela and Rocco aren't gone-gone, but we don't know where they are--but at least they're not here anymore. Leon's still on the ground. Leon: "Well. That actually made me feel better!" Luna: "I am very glad to hear that." Nadyn: "Made US feel a bit worse." Leon: "Can someone pick me up?" Tsuki obliges. Nadyn gives Marg the all-clear. Marg: "Hey, no more killer ghosts! That's great!" Tsuki: "Can we take a rest on the couch?" Leon: "Let's do it; I haven't been on a couch for two hundred years! Aw, man, you guys are hardcore. Glad I'm on your side." We rest and recuperate, giving Leon time to think things over. Leon: "Well, we may not have punched Luka, but we punched someone a lot better, and that's my parents. Kinda crap. Ugh, man, hate these guys. Alright, you've done your part of the deal, so I'll tell you where Martha went and how to get there." He tells us that next to the room where we found Hannah, in the room where her extended family is, there's a secret location we have to unlock by casting any divination spell on it, and being a Brautz sorcerer, Leon knows a few of them. He leads us there, and we pass by Leon's family's original room on the way. Within, we see his parents looking grumpy, and they say, "Leon! Ugh. We expect nothing else from you. Why would you even do something like that?" They're not happy about getting their butts beat. Nadyn: "Hey Leon, want to take another ride?" Leon: "Man, honestly I didn't really like rolling on the floor, but the next person that comes here, or if you guys come back, I think I'm gonna blast them again. I really want to do it though." He readies his eyes up with rage, and his parents run away. So that's that. We continue on past Hannah, who says "Hi guys!", and the chair and rug and poltergeist throw rubber chickens at us. Tsuki bats them off with the Leg. We hear canned laughter. We go through her extended family's room, and there's a bunch of ghosts but they're minding their own business, casting a glance at us but then just going on their way, chatting about random stuff like, "Did you know, that construct told me that I was displaying inappropriate behavior for a ghost? And like, I think he's displaying inappropriate behavior for a gravekeeper am I right?" so that's going on. Anyways, Leon shows us the spot. It's a very unassuming coffin, other than its name being scratched out like with that other coffin we found down here. Leon whispers a divination spell near it; it creaks open a bit, but not like a normal coffin: the entire coffin twists upward, and there's a hidden staircase beneath it going deeper. Leon: "Martha's over there. That's where she went." Nadyn: "Thank you very much! Uh, where would you like us to put you?" Leon: "Actually, I think I'll spend some time in this room. Lots of people here, might be nice to not look at the statue of Karl wondering where he is all the time." We stick him on a table with a few ghosts. Leon: "Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey descendants! Descendants? Ascendants? Either way, hi! I'm here!" And so he socializes in a very Leon-esque way. We, having kinda helped Leon through his issues, descend deeper into the crypt. At this point the crypt doesn't really have a lot of light--up above it was tended to by a construct, but this part is completely dark. We can hear things moving around, but it's very dim even for the folks with Darkvision. Marg definitely does not have Darkvision, but it's spooky and aesthetic so she wants to join us, and it's complete darkness for her and Clara at least. ...Tsuki resolves the issue by pulling out a torch. That helps everyone. As we walk, we notice there are patrolling constructs; they look at us for a moment (two of them, rotating their heads 180 degrees), say, "You may pass," and go about their business patrolling. (Cool beans, we didn't sequence break. President mentions we actually could have sequence broken it and been in way over our heads.) The hallway's a straight shot ahead. People would have needed some extremely deep-seated issues to still be kicking around in here, thus we can tell there's not much activity. (We at least know they moved Leon.) We eventually come across a stone door that opens by sliding upward, but it's extremely heavy. Clara attempts to open it (with the noodly-armed party members helping grab it alongside, not like it was needed), and using her mighty Meep strength, she pushes this extremely heavy stone door up long enough for her companions to quickly pass through, followed by herself as it shuts behind us. Her muscles kinda hurt after that, but it's a nice workout I guess? She flops on the floor afterwards (take a break between sets and whatnot). We continue to an area that seems refurbished as far as crypts go: there's a light, a desk, a bed, a table for food, and all that stuff. At the desk, reading a book, we see Martha. Just readin'. She's so focused on what she's reading that she didn't even notice the loud sound of Clara dropping a very heavy stone door. Nadyn: "Hey, Tsuki! You should impersonate Theodore." Tsuki: "I was just thinking that!" He does so, impersonating Theodore's voice saying, "Hey, Martha!" Martha recognizes the voice and is like, "What the hell--Theodore??" She looks up in surprise and sees that it's just us. Martha: "Oh, right. It's you. Fancy meeting you again." Nadyn: "Hey, I know your note said not to follow you, but your brother kinda told us to, so..." Martha: "Last time my brother told you to follow me, I wasn't in danger, although... actually, that's a lie, I was in a huge amount of danger, I just didn't know it. Oh god, anyways--tell my brother that I am fine; I have everything I need here; the constructs bring me food and water and cleaning supplies and all that stuff. I'm not going out of here. Bye-bye." Luna: "What are you doing down here anyways?" Martha: "Well, I'm reading books to figure something out. As one does. I'm a very accomplished sorcerer, so I often have to figure stuff out." Nadyn and Luna, having high perception, can tell she's not being upfront and is just trying to stonewall us until we leave. Nadyn shows her the banjo and says, "Hey, I got a new banjo! I'm going to school now!" Martha: "Yes, education is quite admirable. I don't suppose you came down here to tell me that, so bye." Tsuki: "You know what might be educational?" Martha: "What would be educational--" Tsuki: "Leon! We could bring Leon down here!" Martha; "Please don't... don't bring him down here..." Tsuki: "We had to put up with him to find you." Martha; "I appreciate it, but I am staying right where I am." Tsuki: "...we don't get paid if we don't bring her back..." Nadyn: "Whatcha reeeading?" She goes up behind Martha's shoulder and peeps at the book. Martha shows it: it's authored by Doctor Alphonse, the guy who told us about the weird plants and wanted us to come to Albaiin. The book is about the various findings in the shallow ruins beneath Uvina in general, an overview of what scholars have found, and what they think xyz finding means. Nadyn: "You wanna talk with the book's author? Or--I assume you've already met him." Martha: "Yes, he was in Bordeauriva. Kind old man. Does NOT know what he is sitting on." Nadyn: "...is he sitting on a mimic chair?" Tsuki: "We had to deal with that too.  " Martha: "No, but there are things even in the shallow ruins that perhaps should not have been found." Luna: "Like what?" Martha: "You remember what happened when we met Mister Ricardo?--you know, that guy, undead, bright blue eyes?" Tsuki: "Yeah, Bright-eyes." Martha: "Bright-eyes. Ricardo." She internally debates how much to tell us. "Well, I knew him in life--well, when he was alive--and... let's just say he was very interested in research about the deep ruins. One day after this crushing defeat at Warau--the Vanecian armies took it, lots of people died--he became obsessed with an idea of a superweapon or something. When we met him, he tried casting a spell on me; what you did, bringing me to Bordeauriva, could have been disastrous. That spell was the final thing he needed to transform me into something like him." Tsuki: "Aaand that's not a good thing" Martha: "No. You are extremely lucky that for some reason I was able to catch it in time, and was not transported--you should have left me," she says, "first off. But second off, now that you are here, you need to leave me here. I can't meet with any of his minions. I can't. I can't die, something can't happen to me, because if that happens, I'm going to turn into the exact same type of thing. I don't know what it is. It's lich-like; I don't think liches exist, but it's lich-like, and that'll be really bad. And I don't want to die, and I don't want anything to happen to me, and as long as I am locked in here, barring some weird freak heart attack accident which I can't resolve in the first place..." Tsuki: "Can we have something written for Theodore?" Luna: "Do you really want to live the rest of your life down here being scared of that?" Martha: "Well, I can't risk it. Right now, if Ricardo can get to me, by any means, and he has an entire undead army--" Tsuki: "We're in a crypt..." Martha: "--all he needs is to do some magic buffoonery to get to me, and he will want to do that. I don't know that I could avoid the spell again, and I can't--I have to say here until he is no more or I can find a way to reverse whatever he did while we were researching together." Nadyn: "Is the spell like... an extra arm growing out or something? We found a baby dragon in the woods and took it to this demon celestial lady of the lake who cured it--there was something about the deep ruins. We could try and call her up right now if the reception is decent down here!" Martha: "It's similar... It could be worth a try." Clara tries to contact the Lady of the Lake with the Meep crown. Clara: "Excuse me, miss Lady of the Lake, are you there? I hope I'm not interrupting anything--" You know when you have a phone open, and there's some crap happening in the background, and you can tell the person is really distracted by said crap? When lady answers, there's a lot going on in the background: lots of screaming and glass breaking and whatnot. Lady: "Hi! Ah, yes, Clara, Clara! How are you?" Clara: "Yes, um, hi--am I interrupting something?" She hears another glass breaking sound, and something that sounds like metal music were it not for the fact that metal music hasn't been invented yet. Lady: "Uh. You know, just a little family get-together! But it's always nice to hear from you; how can I help?" Clara: "Yeah, okay, so we're in a crypt right now, and--miss Lady, if you're not busy, remember the dragon we brought to you that one time? I'm really sorry for interrupting anything." Lady: "It's fiiine!" Someone in the background of the call: "Hey (Lady's unpronounceable real name), whatcha doin', who are you talkin' to?" Lady: "Mind your own business! Yeah, sure, I can see if I can help her. She has to come to the lake, since I can't do long-distance magic or leave the lake"--she flinches at the noise around her--"and you might have a rocky reception here if you come, you know--hey, no! No! No! Let Mimi go! LET MIMI GO. Come back here!" And Clara hears a dial tone from the connection loss. Clara stands awkwardly staring at the phone-crown for a moment. Clara (to the group): "Oh, she hung up. Yeah, she said yes, but Martha will have to come to the lake because long distance magic doesn't really work, and it sounded like the lady was very very busy. Really really really busy. Something was happening." Tsuki: "How's Mimi?" Clara: "Yeah, about that--she mentioned Mimi, oh gosh." Tsuki: "We must go!" Clara: "There was a lot of crashing and yelling and someone--I don't know if someone took Mimi or I misheard something? But yeah, something's happening at the lake." Martha looks at Clara, concerned. Martha: "Um, what kind of things are happening at the lake? Uh, this doesn't really seem very safe." She's very partial to staying here unless someone presents a Persuasive™ argument. Clara's not feeling up to trying but does kinda want to go there right now. Tsuki: "Honestly, it probably would be a good idea to go see her, because she's a demon celestial thing, and she's taking care of a dragon or wyrm thing and the mimic that we found. So it'll be safe!" Nadyn: "Yeah, maybe she has family over?" Clara: "Yup, Lady said she had family over." Martha: "Great, demon celestial family, that sounds... wonderful. But by the sound of this, the Lady of the Lake can take care of herself." Nadyn got a nat 20 and total 27 persuasion on the "family over" argument. Martha: "Alright, I guess I won't be much good down here, and I'm sure my brother needs reassurance in person. We can always take the horse bus or a more private vehicle, that way no one will know where we are--I think that's great! That's great. Alright, let's go!" Nadyn: "You don't have any of those fancy teleportation runes this time?" Martha: "I could make runes; teleportation does have a magic signature--I could, I'd just need some time to prepare them." Tsuki: "Should we go see Hannah first? See what she has to teach us?" We know that would take a few days while Martha needs only like 8 hours, but at least we can get a few lessons. The problem with Hannah, which we notice very quickly, is that she's a very scatterbrained teacher: she starts explaining one thing, comes up with something related, then the other thing, and so on, and also backtracks across every node she visits, explaining it in full. Overall, a very confusing teaching style. Maybe this is the reason she needs a few days to teach us one spell? On top of that, as we're doing this, the chair rug and poltergeist wave hi and try to make funny faces while she's explaining. Luna waves back and chuckles a little. They're very happy when they make people laugh. (Good for them.) So yeah, next session after learning this bit from Hannah, we can go meet Theodore, get paid, and yeet ourselves out of here. Yes, we are once again taking all our problems to the lady of the lake! But this time she'll have problems to throw on us! it's a symbiotic relationship! It's our unofficial base! Tsuki: "Maybe we should expand the lake!" Nadyn: "Clara might not be fine with flooding the forest... but then it's a wetland! Conservation!" Clara: "But not everything can survive a flood in the forest." Tsuki: "They'll adapt!" Clara: "Not this generation, they won't." Tsuki: "The bear dogs will learn to swim!" Anyways, for next session.
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Post by Coaster on Oct 17, 2022 23:35:13 GMT -5
My Recap Of The Petting Zoo Squad's Early Family Reunion Session 15 As Much As I Was Able To Process It - October 8 2022 We've been resting in a guest room at the Brautz estate in Cadako while Martha prepares the spell to teleport to the Lady of the Lake. A butler is around and says, "Master Theodore says congratulations on finding Martha and wanted me to issue you these!" He offers one of those fancy serving dishes with the dome lid, and inside there are 5 pouches of 100 gold. Yes, Marg gets one too! Marg: "Yeah man, this is gonna help pay for my stuff! Yeah! I buy a lot of Stuff!" Nadyn: "...like tuition, right?" Marg: "Yeah like tuition, riiiiight!" (And other things people usually spend money on, like dried flowers! Lots of different types of flowers!) Butler: "Yes, you cannot be an unpaid intern. Master Theodore ensures everyone is paid what they are due. He also told me that while Martha is working on her teleport glyph spell, I am to cater to your whims." (Yet he shuts his eyes like "ugghhhh" internally.) Nadyn: "I don't know if we have any whims, but I know someone in the crypts who would LOVE to have your company." Butler: "Who is this crypt person who would like my company?" Nadyn: "...Honestly, any of them, I think." Butler: "Well then, today I shall go visit the crypt! I will see you later!" He just walks away. That was fast. He's like, "bye nerds". He'd rather hang out with dead people than with us. Have fun? Nadyn remembered there's a potential upgrade to our light armor we can buy. Clara also remembered that we can buy soap... but the guest room has soap we can yoink! Like a hotel! But Clara asks permission anyways. Butler (before leaving): "Sure, you can take the soap, why not?" Clara: "Thank you!" Yoink soap. (She got permission, it's fine!) Meanwhile, Tsuki takes his time and loots every bathroom of soap, but the guards eventually catch him. Guard: "You cannot go into every bathroom and loot all the soap. What are you even going to do with all that soap?" Tsuki puts a bar of soap in his pocket. Luna: "Are you trying to bribe him with soap??" Tsuki: "Reverse sleight of hand." He rolls. 11. The guard notices. Guard: "Are you trying to bribe me with a bar of soap??" Tsuki: "Nooooo." Guard: "Then what are you doing?" Tsuki: "I think you should pass it around to all the guards." Guard gives the longest sigh, like professional vocalist sigh, of exasperation. Guard: "I assure you, all guards in this estate have immaculate hygiene." He smiles with a full set of teeth. Nadyn prestidigitates a spot of filth onto the back of his trousers. Clara looks on in horror. Guard: "Alright, stop horsing around! Please, please do something else!" Tsuki salutes and bird-attempted-smiles. Clara quietly asks if we can just go shopping now. Everyone agrees to that plan. (Clara had nothing to do with the harassment of the guard, just stared in horror, unsure if she should interfere if it was just a prank.) All in all, Tsuki got away with 5 bars of soap, and Clara got the one with permission. Armor shopping time! We all go to the blacksmith Tsuki went to that reinforced The Leg into a proper weapon, and we ask for studded leather armor; it costs 45gp unless we get pretty stuff which costs 5 more--Nadyn interrupts to ask for exactly that and gets custom blacksmith bedazzled studded leather armor, as does Luna with her own design, while Tsuki gets the basic variant. Clara, meanwhile, barely doesn't have enough gold for splint mail, but the rest of the party offers to cover the 11g difference. Clara offers to issue an IOU. Luna: "It's not much--you at least don't have to pay me back." Nadyn: "You can pay us back in blood, sweat, and tears, because you're the tank!" Tsuki wonders if it's possible to get enchanted armor... alas we are DEFINITELY too short on funds to afford that. And now Clara's broke other than 5 copper and a Meep crown. We consider selling some of our old gear as well. Regarding Clara's chainmail, the blacksmith says, "It's a bit beat-up, but I can make something out of this... I'll buy that off you for 37.5 gold." For the dagger Tsuki was given when we helped out Sleepyjoe way back, the blacksmith says, "The dagger isn't worth much itself, but the gem in the middle could be valued--hey, Derek!" The blacksmith lady calls out in a voice so incredibly loud it pierces the walls to the building next door, and after five minutes, a man walks in. Derek (presumably): "Yes?" Blacksmith: "How much is this worth?" Derek: "I'd value it at maybe 15 gold, but extracting it might take a bit of labor, so I'd only buy it for about 12 gold." Blacksmith: "Great! Derek will buy it for 12 gold." Derek looks at it, nods, and says, "Yes, 12 gold." Unfortunately, they aren't gonna buy the leather armors. We can find a use for it later? Nadyn: "We can give it to Marg!! All three sets!!" Okay, maybe we could donate it to the college for theatre props, but we've been through enough abuse wearing it that it's probably worthless. Done shopping then! And there's not much we can afford at level 3 anyways. Tsuki would just sneakily look at something and think about stealing it, but wait for now. Nadyn wants to go to class, but she doesn't know what subjects there are! She's Lore specialty, so she could learn about history, mythology, political science, poetry/literature/lyrics... She starts with some history because it seems practical. Per president's random roll, they go over the history of Cordova, one of Uvina's neighbors. Cordova, like Uvina, is nestled between much larger nations; it's basically equivalent to real-world Switzerland, maintaining its independence with a bunch of shady finances and by being sandwiched between a bunch of mountains. The pattern of history in this region is that two really large powers in the east and west use the different factions of Uvina as a proxy war; we get the impression that something like that might be happening between Corroza and Vanecia, as the professor keeps hinting, "Hmm, that might explain some current events, huh guys?" but doesn't elaborate because he assumes everyone understands already. Nadyn decides to be That Person to ask for more backstory and annoy everyone else in the class by making them learn more and stay longer. As it turns out, one of the neighboring powers is Yem to the west, a very naval-ish empire, big with a lot of cultural stuff going on. They're in essentially a cold war with the eastern nation of Calach, which borders Shandeg, so Nadyn knows a bit about them--they like asserting their borders, which causes conflict with the tritons who already claim the waters. Professor: "Oh yeah, Uvina's very valuable because of all the ruins it contains; it's kind of unique in its density of these old ruins, and everyone wants a piece of it. And y'know, sometimes in history it goes wrong, unleashes a plague that kills many people, and people never learn! So. Y'know. Some things are not meant to be discovered." Lacking other paper, Nadyn scribbles all this down furiously on the political pamphlets after bumming a pencil off a classmate that said classmate will presumably never see again. Clara's interested in doing a good deed for someone around! Seeing that it's a college campus, maybe donating blood isn't an option, but there's a food drive of canned food for the homeless, volunteering to heal or entertain the sick for those knowing any healing spells or magic tricks, a home for the infirm to visit, lots Clara could conceivably do. Wait, Clara can heal, she's a paladin! She volunteers to heal a bit, so she's a bit tired by the time she gets back, lying down in bed by the time the rest of the party gets back home. (Mechanically, she's used up her lay on hands, but we get a long rest anyways! She's lying down and everything!) Tsuki tries to find the hidden black market in town, but he doesn't know thieves' cant, so it'll be hard. Investigation with disadvantage yields 13, not enough to find the black market, but a suspicious stall in an alley where Marg gets her Supply, which he can tell because he's catching Marg in the act this very moment. He stands there staring briefly and slowly walks away. Marg stares back. Tsuki nods a little as he continues walking away, deciding to pretend he didn't see anything. (Tsuki's not a narc.) Plus the guy seems to be doing pretty well, leveling up from a street corner to a stall. We will hope and pray that Marg does not spend all her money on this, but she might. Luna... is nearby and also interested in buying some. Seller: "Aw man, I got Stuff. I got some with a magically spiked level of the psychedelic compound. It's really strong--it's really good." Luna: "Uhh... do you have any stuff with a high level of the relaxing compound, instead?" Seller: "Oh, I do, I do--hold on." He produces an appropriate variant. Seller: "Yeah, it won't give you as much of a high, but it just makes you very calm, if you want to take it." Luna: "Uh, sure! I dunno, how much for 2 grams?" Seller: "Half a gold, five silver." (There's not a lot of demand for that type by comparison, so it's cheaper.) Luna: "I probably won't see you around again, but thank you!" Seller: "Cool! Tell your friends, but don't tell the cops!" Tsuki finishes slipping away around the corner. We rest up! The next day, we wake up to the sound of arguing and a door slamming. Martha (sarcastically): "Well! That was informative! Thanks, Theo, very helpful!" Theodore (dignifiedly): "Well, you know what, may your fortunes burn in ash or something!" (Which is kind of a terrible idea to wish on your own family, but hey, it's a generic insult and they're siblings; they'll get over it.) Martha (to party): "Ughhhhh, Theo never listens to reason. Well. Okay then. We shall see this Lady of the Lake that you speak of. I think I am ready." We prepare for the teleport. Its effect is just within a certain range; we don't need to hold hands. But Nadyn asks if we can all hold hands. Martha: "This is unnecessary, but if you wish." Tsuki shrugs. The others are alright with it too. Martha activates the glyph. We do the anime fade to white, and when we fade back in, it's almost exactly right in front of the lake at the submerged house where Lady lives. It's familiar, except we hear a bunch of grumbling from above our heads. Nadyn looks up. Someone's hanging by their neck, but they look completely fine, not dead or anything. It's a guy who looks hawk-ish and elephant-ish, having the eyes and wings of the former but the trunk of the latter. Hanging guy: "Hey! Hey! Get me down from here!" Tsuki waves and walks away. Nadyn: "Uhh, how well do those wings work?" Hanging guy: "Pretty well, I'd hope." Nadyn: "What's your name first, because I'll be writing all this for posterity?" Hanging guy: "It's , but you can call me Jake!"
Clara: "Hi, Jake!"
Jake: "Hello!"
Unfortunately, there's nothing Nadyn can really do, since she can't exactly mock him out of a tree. But an eldritch blast might work! Tsuki gives it a shot, hopefully it'll be easy to hit a stationary object... nat 20. He expertly hits the tree branch, and Jake falls down. The rope is still tied to his neck, though.
Jake: "Gee, thanks! Who knew [Lady of the Lake's infernal name] could be sooo inhospitable?"
Oh. maybe we should have figured out who he was before we let him down. (Tsuki already figured as much though.)
Jake: "Aha, I'm free!"
He does the elephant trunk trumpety thing.
From the water, then, we see Lady pop her head out.
Lady: "Ughhhh! wWho freed Jake?!"
Nadyn points at Tsuki. Clara points at Tsuki. Tsuki points at Clara.
Lady: "Do you know how hard it is to lasso your annoying cousin and hang him in a tree??"
Clara: "Wait, that's your cousin?"
Lady: "Yeah, that's my cousin."
Clara: "Oh. Good thing I said hi!"
Tsuki: "Based on his name, I assumed he had to be related somehow and up there for some reason, but everyone wanted him down, so..."
Lady: "He was up there because he wasn't supposed to be here yet! For family reunions, you're supposed to show up together!"
Jake: "But we're baaad, we're deeemons."
Lady: "But that's not bad, that's just rude! You didn't cause a murder or anything, you're just annoying!"
They argue in this vein. Martha is sitting there staring.
Nadyn: "Oh, right! We found evidence of the lich guy, and we need you to do what you did for the dragon!"
Lady: "Fiiiine, hold on a sec."
She gets a new lasso and nat 1's the throw.
Lady: "darn it, come back here, Jake!"
Jake (taunting childishly): "Haha, you can't exit the lake! What are you gonna to do me, huh, miss Laaady of the Laaaake?"
Nadyn goes and splashes him abundantly. Lady of the Lake uses that water to drag him back into the lake.
Lady: "Sorry guys, one second."
She ties the rope around him again, and throws him up into the tree again.
Lady: "You know, sometimes family members are just like this, I'm sorry, the get-together was meant to be a week from now, but you know, someone came in early. Anyways, yeah, I can look at this person for you! Hello! I am [infernal name], but you can call me Lady of the Lake! And you are?"
Martha: "I am Martha Brautz, of the Brautz family."
Lady: "Ah, interesting. Well, you don't look like you're infected... but yeah, just step into the lake."
Martha looks at this like 'is this a good idea, is she gonna hang me like her cousin' but then 'well if she does anything to me I'm sure I can get out of it cuz I'm a high level wizard' as Tsuki shrugs. She goes into the lake until she is submerged from the neck down. Lady joins her, stares at her for a while, and prods at her with what appears to be a stick; after a while, she goes back to us.
Lady: "Welp, it's similar to what the dragon had, but not quite."
Nadyn: "How so?"
Lady: "Well, the dragon had all these spores, and the purpose for the dragon was to alter his brain development and make him very servile to a select few people who had the same... hmm... let's just say, living markings. Uh, for Martha, it's a similar sort of thing, but it looks like it misses that servile-ness and instead, uh, let's see here--makes her part of a type of creature that could control the servile subclass. If that makes any sense."
Nadyn: "Okay, yeah, that tracks with what we know."
Lady: "Hmm. Can I help her? I don't know, much like I didn't know if I could help that dragon until I tried. It seems to be kind of progressive though--it will eventually turn Martha into this other thing if you don't do anything about it, though it seems like death would accelerate it quite significantly. Still, there's no harm in trying something."
Martha (nodding): "Ugh. Great. I shall stay and study the source of this affliction."
Lady: "Acceptable. It might be easier if the person who I am treating also has an idea of what's going on."
She then looks at us and continues.
Lady: "Oh yeah, speaking of which: good thing you got here as early as you guys did! You should hear some of the stuff I'm hearing out of Bordeauriva. These military horses, they're talkin'. Yeah, I heard it through the actual forest vines--because I'm Lady of the Lake, of course I do--but yeah, current military strategy seems to be to let Ricardo the pseudo-lich do his thing! Can always count on miltiaries to try to get an advantage out of everything, even if it isn't the smartest thing in the world to do."
Nadyn: "Or is it just laziness and status quo?"
Lady: "I don't know, man. Well, horses are not the ideal source of information, but I might have known someone--just theoretical--who might have kidnapped a soldier, again theoretical, I don't know who it is--nobody related to me, because I am not related to a bunch of other demons--and I don't know how much you know this, but Corroza is currently losing the war. If you're faced with an existential threat, I dunno, allying with a lich who seems to hate your enemy might seem logical. I mean hey, deal with the devil, but..." She shrugs. "I wouldn't call it laziness."
Tsuki: "...Sooo, burn the forest down!"
Luna: "NO!"
Clara: "No, we are not burning the forest down!"
Lady: "Yes, of course, burn the forest down and provide no cover against undead armies..."
Tsuki: "It'd take the undead with 'em!"
Lady: "You realize if we're dealing with something like a lich, they'd simply resurrect who ever we kill?"
Tsuki: "...Okay, keeping it on the back burner just in case."
Jake: "IT WAS ME! I kidnapped the guy! I deserve some credit here!"
Lady: "I didn't ask you to kidnap him, Jake!"
Jake: "Well, what were you going to do?"
Lady (sighing): "Nnnngh. Gotta love family. Can't stand them. But, this interesting change of military strategy does mean that I have to get right to work on seeing Martha before maybe other interested parties get to her. So, um."
Lady (to Martha): "Don't worry--you do have a spell for water breathing?"
Martha nods.
Lady: "We'll go to my house. If you guys want, you guys can help me out by putting some signs up for my family--do any of you speak Infernal?"
Nadyn: "I think Luna can speak or write just about anything? Luna, can your bird speak infernal?"
Luna: "Not my bird. I can check my spell... no, it doesn't let me write it."
Tsuki: "I speak Deep Speech, not Infernal."
Lady: "That's fine, how about Abyssal?"
Tsuki: "Nope."
Nadyn: "Just Primordial."
Lady: "Fine, Common should do. Put some signs out saying, 'Come to the lake if you want to meet [Infernal name], which is me'. And, you know, there might be the odd zombie in the forest. I've... mobilized the goblins... to form an army to attack them. Clara, if you would please be a dear and check that they didn't get themselves into trouble? Alright, buh-bye!"
Lady yoinks takes Martha and puts her in the underwater house.
Jake: "Guys. Guys, you know what? [Lady's Infernal name] used to be the baddest of all demons, and now look at her--she's pathetic! She does not cause fear in the hearts of men as she used to!"
Tsuki: "I could feed you to my pet mimic?"
Jake: "Hahaha. You cannot feed me to a pet mimic. I am quite sure I would cause indigestion to your pet mimic."
Tsuki: "Only one way to find out..."
Jake: "Only one way--well, YOU KNOW WHAT YOU STUPID BIRD, I'm not afraid of any mimic! Go feed me to the mimic!"
Mimi's underwater. Tsuki looks out at the lake to try to spot Mimi. Mimi is currently an underwater chest, eating all the invasive fish nearby. Clara appreciates Mimi rendering a service to society. The dragon, meanwhile, is on top of the roof of the submerged house; currently he's just sunbathing. Luna waves to the dragon.
Luna (shouting): "Hi, friend!"
Dragon: "Hello! Hi! You are the nice people that rescued me!"
He looks a lot better--a lot fewer things growing out of him.
Dragon: "Yes! [Lady's Infernal name] is so nice! She gives me treats, and she told me that I should not eat the goblins, and also I should not eat humans or tritons. Or elves. Or gnomes. Or dwarves..."
He iterates through all the humanoid species.
Dragon: "She did say mind flayers were good and taste like calamari--she said that was okay to eat. Also someone named Ryan? Well his real name is [Infernal]. I think he's like her ex-boyfriend or something. I'm not sure what a boyfriend is. What is a boyfriend?"
Nadyn: "It's when you've got a really bad headache."
Dragon: "I see. Well, I don't think I can eat headaches. Maybe I can?"
He thinks a moment. Baby dragon: not the smartest tool in the box, but it does seem to be regaining some linguistic functionality back.
Luna: "I'm happy to see and hear that you are doing well, and you definitely look a lot better!"
Dragon: "Thank you, I am happy to see you too!"
Luna: "Yes, it is great to be able to check in again, and I hope next time I see you you'll be even better--and perhaps a bit bigger, who knows?"
Dragon: "Yeah, I want to be bigger than this house! And then I'll build a bigger house! Although, I don't think dragons live in houses. So maybe not."
Tsuki: "They could if they want!"
Luna: "Yeah!"
Dragon: "You know what? The Lady reads to me every night, and she says there are things like castles--I could just take a castle!"
Tsuki: "Yeah, it's a big house!"
Dragon: "Yeah! You know, just get rid of all the annoying humans in it."
Nadyn: "Maybe not for right now, but I know one in the forest that would be perfect!"
Dragon: "When I grow up, I'll take that castle!"
Luna: "Will you be able to visit then?"
Clara: "Yes, we'd like to visit!"
Dragon: "Yeah, I'll be in the greatest castle, and I'll have some goblin butlers--they're great, they bring me treats and food every day."
Luna: "Aww! Well, I'll look forward to that."
Dragon (nodding happily): "Yes, that is my plan."
Nadyn asks its name.
Dragon: "Ah, yes, I had a dragon name, but it's, y'know.. for black dragons, apparently, your parents just leave you to fend for yourself. So I'm not attached to the name they gave me. It also translates to something like 'disposable garbage', so I don't like it very much."
Nadyn (to group): "Okay, so what's the opposite of disposable garbage?"
Tsuki: "Useful item?"
Luna: "I'll just ask if there's any particular name he wants to go by..."
Dragon: "I want to be known as the owner of a castle. I think that shall be my name. Castle-owner."
Tsuki: "Or Castle for short."
Dragon: "Castle. Yes."
So his name shall be Castle-owner. He says that in Draconic and we think it sounds a little better than in Common. Though, if we were to cast Comprehend Languages, we'd just hear "castle-owner" being his name. That's just how dragons name themselves.
Luna: "Named after his goals, I guess." He's really dressing for success.
Clara: "Wow, he's got style."
We briefly check on Key and their goldfish plushie. Key's helping out their goblin-mates, goblin friends. Good for Key. Doing good deeds as well, inspired by Clara to do good deeds! We put up the signs as instructed, and it's just as boring as we thought it'd be. Writing and putting up signs. Rinse and repeat. Jake is being extremely annoying, as he is. Tsuki puts one of the signs on Jake. Jake is not very happy, but he's still hanging by his neck and can't do much about it--doesn't seem to be a big deal to him, though; not very hurt by it, just kinda there. He's definitely his nuisance self. Anyways, we finish putting up all the signs, which say, "If you're looking for the Lady of the Lake, this way to the Lady of the Lake. If you're not looking for the Lady of the Lake, GET OUT. Signed, Lady of the Lake." Nadyn notes to self to take a class in Infernal next time she's at college.
We get to the goblin habitat with the help of Clara talking to the vines, which sing like a church choir, "The Meeep, the Meep is coooming; all hail the Meep." Clara is awkward about having fanfare now, but since we can't hear the vines, we just see her face scrunched up. Nadyn starts singing Welcome to the Forest to cheer her up (Clara: "No, that's worse!!") and some of the vines start singing along, so it's now a mash-up of the two.
Clara (to Nadyn): "You just encouraged them--now they ARE singing Welcome to the Forest!"
She's suffering from success, as they say. But eventually we get to the goblin village and see Key.
Key: "meep! hi! welcome back meep!"
Clara: "Hi, Key! How have you been?"
Key: "Good!"
Key raises a wooden sword with a bronze edge to it and says, "this is my sword spear! sword spears are good! we are building a barricade! if we build a big enough barricade the bad guys will be stuck on the barricade!"
Clara: "Oh, that's great! Sounds like you're making progress! Who taught you how to use a sword?"
Key: "well! I asked the lady and the lady said, 'well if you want to use a sword, make sure it's a spear sword, because a spear sword is easier to handle! you just poke people with the spear sword!'" She does a spear motion from behind a shield. "It's called formation! it won't do much against the humans, but against zombies they run into your spear! I think!"
Clara: "Yeah, that sounds just about right."
She inspects Key's shield. It's literally a slab of wood. Goblins are not very effective, guys. Clara wonders if she should say something about the shield or if she'd be impolite. Nadyn suggests offering our old leather armor. There might be some goblins as close to an armorer as a goblin can possibly be that could restitch it--not for pay of course, since they'd just pay us in leaves. Just for the good of the cause! We could make the shields marginally better! As we discuss this, Key nods.
Key: "also! we are growing food for bear dogs! bear dogs love to eat zombies!"
Tsuki: "Well, that's a plus."
Key: "yes, lady of the lake told us to feed the bear-dogs and make them like the zombie flesh taste!" (So bear-dogs are Minecraft villagers. Key: "I don't know what a minecraft villager is.")
Tsuki: "What are you growing?"
Key: "well. lady--" (whispering) "lady told us not to fight so much. lady told us that bear dogs could do most of the fighting. but bear dogs, we should not get in their way. bear dogs are very vicious."
Clara: "Oh yes, they are. Where do you keep them?"
Key: "oh we have a bear dog right here in the village!"
Sure enough, there's a cage, quite a bit more structurally sound than most goblin-made structures, steel-reinforced, with one bear dog. It does look literally just like a cute dog, but it's also a bear, and it doesn't really seem happy, and it's growling and barking.
Bear-dog (for the people who understand animals): "stupid. stupid lady. lady put me here. I want to destroy! I want to destroy stupid zombie! but hate these GOBLINS ARE SO ANNOYING. I wish I could eat them."
Clara now feels even more awkward. She's torn because she has to be nice to goblins and also be nice to nature, and here's a piece of nature saying they want to eat the goblins--but yeah, better to not hear that. To be fair to Clara, the bear-dogs are only dubiously natural (remember: the Lady said she created them because it was funny). So Clara doesn't question the Lady's motives right now, but considers petting the bear-dog. It... may be possible, but probably isn't a good idea; even as the Meep, she might merely lose a finger as opposed to an entire hand. So she just respectfully looks at the bear-dog.
Bear-dog: "hmm. zombies are out. the lady using us means that she's expecting something. hmm. hey. hey hey. wait. you look like you can understand me! hey! hey free me! free me! free me! I'll show you where a big undead encampment is! better than zombies, more powerful than zombies! come on! free me! free me!"
Clara stares at the bear-dog very intently, thinking very hard about whether to pet the bear-dog while listening to it telling her to free it. Luna, also hearing it, does not have an obligation to protect the goblins but does not want them hurt regardless; she walks up to the cage (not super close but within like 10 feet).
Luna: "If we freed you and you took us to show us the undead encampment, would you promise to not eat any goblins?"
Bear-dog: "if eat goblins lady will be upset. I will not eat goblins. but I will eat zombie!"
Clara: "That's fair. That's very fair! I like this arrangement."
Bear-dog: "good. free me."
Luna: "Okay, shall we free this little friend?"
Nadyn: "Maaaybe we should give the goblins a bit of a warning saying we're going on patrol."
Clara: "Right, we should ask permission. Any goblin authority we should ask for before doing it?"
President: "You're the Meep; you can just tell the goblins and they'll listen to you."
Tsuki has no idea what's going on but he has been considering breaking the cage open. Luna inspects the cage to find out how to open it. The only goblin in the vicinity of note is Key, who seems to have some authority in this village. Clara asks Key about the plan.
Key: "oh okay!" Key gives us the key to the cage. "we will all hide! buh-bye!"
And so Key just goes and hides and tells the other goblins to do likewise, and Clara's satisfied when there are no more goblins outside their houses.
Clara: "Alright, we can release the bear-dog".
Bear-dog: "I will not let you down. I will give you large--well not large but important! very important! extremely important undead encampment. yep. follow me please!"
He puts his nose to the gorund and starts sniffing. Bloodhound bear dog. Keen sense of smell. Makes 'em a bit dangerous. Nadyn keeps singing Welcome to the Forest until we get deep enough that there's a legitimate risk of encountering zombies. The bear dog stops, and doesn't bark but does speak for those that understand it.
Bear-dog: "here it is! here it is! there is one of the boss men inside!"
He points us to a spot about 200 feet away; the trees make it hard to see, but we do see fairly large skeletons and a little tent.
Bear-dog: "there's a boss-man inside that tent! and they're his personal guards! do with this information what you will! I look for zombies now!"
Luna: "Thank you for your help!"
Bear-dog: "no problem. I now eat delicious zombies"
Clara: "Feel free; thank you so much for your help!"
Luna suggests talking to the Lady of the Lake before charging into battle. We could walk back in person or just message her--no, the Meep Crown does not have texting.
Clara: "Hi, Lady!"
Lady: "Hi, Clara! Are you guys still working on the signs?"
Clara: "We put up all the signs now, but that's not why we're calling, we got all the signs--but the bear-dog said there's this encampment of the undead."
Lady: "Ah, an encampment of undead? Well, that's... how big is the encampment?"
Clara: "Bear-dog told us it was big."
Lady: "...well, bear-dogs are bear-dogs. I wouldn't necessarily trust the word of one beardog; I'd potentially do some scouting of my own. If it was a large enough encampment, I would have heard about it."
Clara: "Alright, that's fair. Well then, we'll just scout and check that the bear-dog isn't messing with us or anything like that. We'll get back to you when we're done! Bye!"
Luna, recognizing that we're within about 200ft of the encampment, has an idea: if we can get within 75ft of it, she can send in her birb friend, it can go invisible, and she can see through its eyes and hear what it hears--basically, we can have it scout for us. And the bird would be happy to in its familiar form!
Bird: "Oh this is really interesting! An encampment, you say, of undead?"
The bird flies over the encampment, keeping its distance. It doesn't seem to be very populated: there's with tent two minotaur skeletons guarding it. The bird tries to get a closer look into the tent without being too obvious; there are two figures in the tent, one which we may recognize as being a wight (which we faced with Lucine earlier), and the other does not look undead and is restrained somehow, but that's all the detail Luna and bird can really see. When her familiar comes back, she relays all this to the group.
Luna: "It might be a good idea to see what's in the tent once we do decide to attack--maybe there's someone that needs help?"
She also thanks her familiar for scouting and gives it a tiny pat on the head, which the familiar appreciates.
Bird: "Good luck!"
Luna: "Thank you!"
Bird: "No problem!"
We (okay, just the healer bard) have more spell slots than last time, but we'd still rather not take on two minotaur skeletons AND a wight at once. It also feels a little dangerous for how lacking in powerful abilities we currently are. We discuss as a group. We could try stealthing up (Tsuki glares at Clara's lack thereof) and freeing the person and hoping they're good with combat? Or we could go back and recruit the goblins? Or just mark down the location and come back later? Goblin distraction sounds like a good idea. President confirms. It's not walled in; it's an open camp just relying on the choke points of the trees. So our tentative plan is to go for the wight and the tent while the goblins lead off the minotaur skeletons.
Tsuki: "Don't tell Clara."
Luna: "How many goblins are going to die in this plan?"
Note, goblins may not be good at fighting, but they're really good at disappearing into the forest if we recruit some smart ones. Maybe not use them as fighters, since that would definitely get them killed. But yeah, our plan is to get some goblins to distract the skeletons. Alternatively, we know the Lady is using bear-dogs and they've gotten trained on undead, but we let the one we met walk away. So anyway, we go to Key and explain the situation.
Key: "hm, an encampment. well, we have a super good distraction team and we are great at running away! we very bravely run away! the lady taught us that whenever there is trouble you should run away! you know, why take the hard way if there's an easy way?"
Tsuki: "Exactly!"
Key disappears briefly and reappears with two friends, who have bad stitched armor and say, "operation distraction is a go!"
Nadyn: "...can we get their names for their headstones?"
President: "No, they're fine. But the names are Lee and Ree. Yes, Key does have friends! They're just as annoying as Key is!
We've got Key, Lee, and Ree in the forest.
Key: "on my signal you make a lot of noise and run into the trees!"
Key tiptoes--like kids do to try to be stealthy but it's not stealthy at all--and goes up to the minotaur guards who stare at her.
Key: "I bet you didn't see meee! Come on!" Key does the butt slap 'ha ha you're an idiot' mocking gesture and runs away to her friends, who are starting to make a lot of noise. The loud noise, incidentally, is the melody to Welcome to the Forest. The noise also helps muffle the unstealthy paladin, though in-character for Key, that was probably not intentional. Anyways, the skeletons are chasing after the goblins, and now that they're gone, we sneak over to the tent. Clara gets a super bonused stealth roll with all that noise, ending up with a respectable 16. We successfully sneak up and look inside. The wight is a bit different to the one we've seen before: obviously it's a different undead person, not the same literal wight, but we can tell the motions are jerky as if under control by a puppeteer, and their eyes are a really really striking blue. HMMMM. Across from them is this human in Vanecian armor.
Wight: "I am not going to ask again. What became of this Jabin?"
Nadyn motions to the tent peg so we can try to entangle the wight when we strike. We do so; Tsuki, having the best Survival, rolls a nice 21 and with his help advising us telepathically, we loosen up the tent poles so that Tsuki can have it crash down on whoever's inside. We mentally map to make sure we keep the wight (south) and the prisoner (north) in mind and not stab the wrong one. 3. 2. 1. We pull the tent and wrap up the wight. As we try to smother the wight with the tent, the human inside senses an opportunity and escapes through the tent when the wight is surrounded.
From our end, we see a figure barely escape and hear a bolt of fire come from the wight's hands and start burning the tent. We're not rolling initiative yet because we're at the end of session. but as the tent burns away, the wight looks at us with those very familiar (especially to Tsuki) blue eyes again.
Wight (smiling, amusedly): "Ah. There you've been."
(Tsuki: "He did not like our burrito." No, he did not like the tent burrito. But we can thank Hannah and her rug for teaching us that one.)
We once again wonder what would happen if Clara got bested in combat (but hopefully not die). Would the wight become the Meep? Army of goblin zombies? They'd probably sabotage the undead army, who knows--they're not the most formidable fighting force, especially since zombifying them would get rid of any potential cleverness they might have. Don't wanna delete what few brain cells they have left. Yes, President's mean to goblins, but in fairness, apparently they do have a rather primitive society. Maybe they have lots of brain cells but they're just entrusted to whoever's in charge. ...But the Meep is Clara. Why did we give the brain cells to the muscle of the party?
(Luna: "Mom said it's my turn with the brain cells!")
Anyways, time for President to sleep.
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Post by Coaster on Dec 4, 2022 23:39:31 GMT -5
My Recap Of The Petting Zoo Squad's Humanely Torturous Session 16 As Much As I Was Able To Process It - November 12 2022
The tent is on fire and there's an angry wight possessed by that lich we've been looking for. Right off the bat, Tsuki misses an Eldritch Blast. It's unfortunate that NPCs hate the bird so much. The wight attacks Clara, hitting twice (despite Silvery Barbs on the first, which didn't help other than giving Clara advantage). Luna disengages for a bit of range. Nadyn runs around to the other side of the tank and gives Clara a Cure Wounds and some Bardic Inspiration. Yes, go to town on Bobbert Blueeyes over here. It's Clara's turn next anyways... with a nat 20. It seems regular damage doesn't do a lot to this guy, but there's also 28 damage from a Divine Smite. So he's not doing too good. Just kinda smacked him once and he does not like it. Tsuki backs off a bit more and misses Eldritch Blast again. Extra Angery Puppeted Wight also runs behind the tank and attacks Tsuki, and Cutting Words make it miss! But the next one absolutely hits. Instead of sword slashing, the wight uses its other hand to try and touch Tsuki, and when it connects, he feels a bit of coldness; he has 5 less max HP until next long rest. Luna hits with an Eldritch Blast! Nadyn tries a Vicious Mockery but it does nothing. Clara smacks the wight with her sword again and barely manages to hit, but even just the poke is enough for the wight to say "eff it" and fall over in a very undignified way. As it dies, we see this blue mist detach itself from the wight and say, "Huh. Well, that's interesting." Then it just leaves.
Nadyn: "Bye, Mister Rodrigo!"
(President: it's Ricardo)
Nadyn: "--Bye, Mister Rick!"
Perfect timing: we hear tiny little screaming noises from behind us. It's Key, Lee, and Ree all running away, with some heavy footfalls further in the distance: the minotaurs we chased away earlier are back, along with the goblins who run right past us and for understandable reasons will not help us right now. The first minotaur (henceforth Minnie Taur) goes like "raaaah our lich guy is dead" and runs over towards the tank and tries to hit with a greataxe and President is extremely confused at how it only has challenge rating 2 since it does 12 damage after nerfing it. Also we note that the bones of the minotaurs are slightly cracked, almost as if killing the wight weakened them! Tsuki successfully hits a Chill Touch on Maxie Taur (the other one). Wight's turn! Wight is dead. Not decomposing. Just an edgy skeleton about to be engulfed by the flames on the tent. Luna backs off a bit closer to Tsuki and uses Armor of Agathys. Nadyn uses Vicious Mockery on Minnie Taur, successfully ("You're not all you're cracked up to be!" Key: "yeah, go get 'em nadyn!"). Clara hits Minnie. Maxie Taur does the thing where he stomps the ground 3 times and then charges at Luna to try to gore her, but he misses! Minnie tries to hit Clara, but misses too. Tsuki uses Dissonant Whispers against Maxie, failing but still doing some damage. Wight's still dead. Luna hexes Maxie Taur with disadvantage on Wisdom, then Eldritch Blasts but misses (having disadvantage from being in melee range). Nadyn uses a Level 2 Dissonant Whispers. Maxie Taur is terrified because Ricardo only gives pamphlets and stuff. It runs off. Luna gets in a dagger opportunity attack for 3 damage. Maxie's like, "Wait a second, am I more afraid of pro-democracy pamphlets or Dissonant Whispers? I can't read, the pamphlets scare me more, I'm coming back and will try hitting this person again."
Maxie swings at Luna for 6 damage but doesn't knock her prone, and Maxie takes 10 cold damage from her armor--so as it hits her, it looks really proud for a second like, "Yeah, I missed last time, but got it this time! I'm so proud, I can't wait to tell my frieeee--" and the Armor of Agathys lashes back, and the skeleton minotaur freezes in ice and falls down in a very cartoony way. So Maxie Taur is no maur. Clara tries to attack Minnie but misses. Minnie hits for 8 damage in return. Key says, "meep you can do it meep!" which is helpful? or something? (she really needs healing though). Tsuki uses Dissonant Whispers on Minnie Taur, and Minnie Taur fails spectacularly. Minnie runs past the goblins, which fire slingshots at him but miss. Nadyn and Clara miss their opportunity attacks too. Wight is now engulfed by the blue flames. Luna blasts for 9 damage including the hex bonus. Nadyn stands in front of the tank (great idea lol) and uses the free Gust of Wind to blow out the tent fire. The goblins cheer for us. They do a cheerleading chant. They're trying to spell out a sentence but it's like "G O G Y O U S C K exclamation point!" and that's their cheer, over and over again. Clara Cure Wounds herself. Maxie is peacefully dead, but Minnie Taur shouts angrily and charges back to try to gore Clara, but misses. It's an inconvenient truth. Tsuki Eldritch Blasts Minnie Taur and misses again. Wight's still dead and just hanging out. Luna blasts Minnie Taur for 13 damage, enough for it to die!
Just for fun, Nadyn swings around the gust of wind Avatar-style and it hits the minotaur skeleton's corpse. The bones fall down. Nadyn plays xylophone on it. It doesn't sound very good but she does it anyways. She takes its ulna bones as drumsticks and also takes its skull. We rename the wight Dwight due to a vocal slip-up. Tsuki tries to loot Dwight. It has a pouch of 234 copper coins, surely the most useful way to transport currency. The pouch is hilariously large, and we're excited to open it initially, but yeah, it's all pennies. (At least it's better than electrum.) We have SO much spare change now. We can go to a fantasy arcade! Master Wang would probably know where one is. Tsuki's stealth is good enough that he could eat them while stealthing and they won't make a sound even while jingling around in his stomach. That's the real eldritch power. There's more loot though! The wight's staff has an emerald on it. On his person there is another gem, which is nice and blue and gemlike. Totally not cursed, right? Tsuki picks it up anyways. He needs to make a wisdom saving throw and, surprisingly for a bird that did that, barely passes (19 vs DC 18). He feels a presence prying to grab or possess him, but he's a warlock, so he's kind of used to that--already has voices in his head--so with the help of his patron, he braves it and pushes it away. Now it's a shiny gem that he can tell tried to do something to him. He just puts it in the pouch of all the copper. It'll definitely never get misplaced! It'll definitely not lead to a pleasant surprise to someone we try to bribe with a bunch of copper! Anyways, the emerald in the staff is just a normal emerald, but it's good to loot. It's not cursed--just the blue gem is, which Tsuki keeps for reasons.
As Tsuki's doing this, the goblins are still cheering. They say, "you guys rock," but spell it out and also say "exclamation point" out loud again. Nadyn joins in with her drum. She starts singing Hollaback Goblin. They attempt to sing along. Also the fire burned up the wight's cool cloak unfortunately, so he's naked now, but he's basically a skeleton anyways so we don't have to rate this NC-17. The goblins say, "you should come back to our village! all of us will love you!" Key has hands clasped and is looking at Clara with puppy dog eyes like "please come to our village. you are our ruler. we love you." So we head back towards the goblin village. Key takes Clara's hand and tries to show her around the village.
Key: "oh and this is the market, we exchange things with these coins"
The goblins are possibly the only people in the world to use electrum as their currency.
Key: "ah yes your money is unfortunately not accepted here, this is new money, we are still in the old system."
(in-world knowledge: the old system is thousands of years old and these short-lived goblins have not updated.)
Clara wonders if it's polite to ask why they haven't updated.
Key: "well, it's prettier! you know? humans have no sense of aesthetics."
As Key says this, in the background we see some questionable goblin paintings that are not ugly per se, but very Modern Art™. Like Goblin Picasso. This is the goblin mastermind of generations. Clara has to appreciate art as part of her oath, no matter how vile, so she goes to look at it. (It's not JUST the oath, but she's probably having to challenge her ideas of what can be art--and also trying to be polite to the goblins and not wanting to be disrespectful since saying "your art is weird" would be not a good deed.)
Key: "oh yeah by the way I heard you were hurt in your last battle! my friend ree is a doctor!"
Ree: "Yes, I have a medical degree!"
She pulls out a leaf which says "Ree M.D." in very bad handwriting.
Ree: "Yes, I am very good at healing people, ask Lee!"
Lee: "Yes, one time my child got sick with the polka dots, and Ree saved him! Yes, it's called polka dot disease, it makes you have polka dots on you!"
Tsuki: "Yes, I heard of that. Very dangerous."
Ree: "Yes, very. But I healed him, and only got polka dots once! You all want to try my amazing healing soup?"
Clara just looks around helplessly. Nadyn wonders if that's the rainbow slurry again.
Ree: "No, it is not rainbow colored."
Key (helpfully): "it is grey colored!"
Luna: "I think from past experience I'll skip on trying unknown soup, but thank you very much."
As we go through this goblin village, we meet two familiar goblins: they are very angry at us because they were the first two goblins we ever met.
Old Meep (as high-pitched as always): "usurperrrr!"
Clara: "Umm. You left the crown. You left it behind. We just picked it up."
Old Meep: "burglarrr!"
Tsuki: "I was gonna blow you up."
Key: "we went over this! this is the law of the meep!"
Old Meep: "yeah, but that's a human, not even a goblin!"
Key: "that's insensitive! you can't--listen, just because the meep is not our same species and not from around here, and she doesn't really understand our customs, doesn't mean she can't be the meep!"
Tsuki: "The other option was me, so..."
Key: "yeah, do you want this bird to be the meep?"
Old Meep (angrily): "at least he's our size!"
Tsuki is basically a bird goblin.
Key: "well, you know what? clara is the most brave most big person I've ever known!"
And they start having an argument. Clara stands there awkwardly in the middle.
Ree: "Hello. I have talked to the humans before. The humans say that in human world the monarch executes those who disagree with them. Is this true?"
Tsuki: "Sometimes."
Luna: "Usually."
Ree: "Clara, will you execute the dissolvers?" (She means 'dissenters', but doesn't know the word.)
Luna: "Is the Meep a monarch?"
Tsuki: "Basically."
Clara: "What did your previous Meeps do?"
Ree: "Depends on the Meep."
Tsuki: "That one just threw a crown at us and ran away screaming."
Old Meep: "excuse me, my life was being threatened!!"
Tsuki's hands crackle with eldritchness. Old Meep screams shrilly and falls on her butt.
Tsuki: "See?"
Old Meep: "that's not fair! that wasn't a duel! you just did that in cold blood!"
Tsuki: "I didn't even cast anything..."
Old Meep: "meep! meep! he threatened me! you must lay down the letter of the law!"
Clara stares blankly trying to think of what to do. She wasn't expecting to suddenly have to act like a monarch.
Tsuki: "If they want a duel, they can have one. It just won't end well for them, most likely..."
Clara: "Is dueling a common thing in goblin law? Do they settle their differences by dueling all the time?"
Key: "hmm. not usually. usually we just find a person who can read a book without getting bored, and then that person makes a system of government out of that book. the last meep read--" a very pulpy novel. They also had the Master Wang pamphlets, but that doesn't describe a system of government and is very generic like "learn the northern values of focus and discipline", nothing about fighting to the death, which means the previous meep didn't get that idea from those pamphlets. Key hands us a very slim novella/short story that has fairy tale themes, with a king and a queen that can execute people. Knightly duels are also described.
Key: "yes it's form here, from this human tome of wisdom."
Clara: "This is a storybook. It's a story, not our law and stuff."
Tsuki: "Don't tell 'em that!"
(You know clara, she WOULD tell them that.)
Key and Ree are surprised.
Lee (tearing up): "you mean--it's not real??"
Clara: "Yeah, um... Are there any other goblin laws that say whether you guys hand down stuff over the years? Like, you're still using electrum instead of silver and gold and stuff."
As Clara asks this, Lee is crying in the corner. Nadyn considers passing around the history class notes about civil war and stuff to destroy the goblins' fantasy of monarchy. Tsuki suggests telling them that it's real but we don't do the killing part. Tsuki points out that Clara's in a paradox by doing bad deeds for the forest people by doing the good deed of telling the truth. She did not foresee this happening and still feels bad. Tsuki says that as the Meep, she could technically just make stuff up. Clara doesn't want to make stuff up, hence asking if there's anything else they could base their government on. All they have is Tsuki's book of shadows (NOPE), a pulp fantasy book, or history notes on civil war. Clara leans over to ask Nadyn if she knows anything about goblin culture. Nadyn's History check surprisingly gets a 19--she doesn't know a lot about goblin traditions (understandably; universities don't focus on them much because, y'know, goblins), but there was one legend of a goblin king, and according to the goblins, he was fair and just. He's sometimes described as being a goblin queen, but historians are pretty sure they're the same person because goblins don't have the strongest sense of gender. One of the most fun parts is the Great Battle of Goblinsburg. A fun tradition they have is... (President doesn't have a lot of goblin traditions in DM notes...) that this king reunited seven of the great goblin tribes with... candy. And sweet things. And according to this, goblins invented candy and sweet things. Before this, candy did not exist. This is the origin of candy. It's associated with goblins? Really?? (President is incredulous).
President: "...I guess?! Why did I write this down?! Okay, yes, the great goblin king did candy diplomacy. With candy."
Clara: "That's a nice way to do diplomacy."
President: "And his weapon was made out of candy."
Clara: "Is it a candy duel?"
President: "You can suggest that. You also have a whole bag of honey candy--this can work!"
Tsuki has a bag big enough that it could probably crush a goblin. He takes it out. Armed with the knowledge of the goblin tradition of the great goblin king/queen who defeated his/her opponents with candy... what will Clara do? She puts on her best Meep voice.
Clara: "I, as the Meep, uh... hereby decree that from now on, all duels are to be fought by making candy weaponry and fighting with them!"
Key: "you heard the meep's decrees! all duels shall be fought with candy weaponry!" Clara: "...That you made yourself!"
Key: "you have to make it yourself!"
Tsuki drops the bag of candy on one of the goblins, specifically the screaming ex-meep. This is goblin politics. Somehow, it's still more intelligent than the average American political discussion. Ex-meep gets knocked out like a cartoon, so Tsuki wins the duel. He takes a handful of the candy back and pockets it. He then decrees that the candy belongs to the people of the village. As we take our short rest, Tsuki now has a bunch of fans who know him as the great and brave adviser to the Meep who is very powerful. And Nadyn is the erstwhile scholar. This is the mythology the goblins are forming around us. Luna is the Disney princess, complete with talking bird (which isn't Tsuki). The raven familiar is just observing all this--she hung out with Luna to see how societies go, after all.
Raven: "These goblins... are very unlike humans, wouldn't you say?"
Luna: "Oh, definitely."
Raven: "Yes, I have never seen anything like them..."
Tsuki: "Luna and the raven are the only sane ones between us at the moment."
We take a short rest with our goblin fans, since we don't want to make our characters hang out with all the goblins for 7 more hours. Tsuki can live without a few HP for a bit! The warlocks get spell slots back anyways! Honestly, Luna's the only one of the group who's pretty happy right now. (Tsuki's initial plan for the duel was Leg-club Shillelagh, so this turned out very differently than he was hoping.) We then go back to Lady of the Lake. Strolling up to the lake, the Lady takes a minute to register that we're here, but she splashes out of the water very dramatically.
Lady: "Ah, hello, you're back! How was the fight? I heard there was a fight."
Clara: "It went well!"
Nadyn: "We found a camera! We don't know what a camera is, because it's medieval times, but we got a camera."
Lady: "The vines told me..."
We hear "fight fight fight!"
Luna: "Yeah, it went allwight." (ba-dum-tss)
Lady: "Ugh, yeah, there are so many wights nowadays. I can't believe undead armies are so unoriginal. I mean, why don't they have an undead dragon?... oh."
Tsuki: "They tried!"
Lady: "Yeah, that's right. Anyway, I hope that didn't inconvenience you. Your friend Martha--"
Martha (rising a bit from the water): "I wouldn't really call them my friends--more like acquaintances."
Lady: "Yeah, uh, good news and bad news. Good, we can halt the process of Martha becoming a lich! Bad news, her magic is greatly weakened and she can't help us out. Yeah, that's the catch-22."
Nadyn: "As long as she's safe and rich."
Lady: "Yeah, but Ricardo's not a complete imbecile--he did see this extremely powerful wizard and decide to neutralize her, after all--so that's fun."
Tsuki: "Speaking of Ricardo," he takes out the pouch and hands it over, "there's a cursed thing in here."
Lady: "Cursed thing in here--okay, thank you for telling me this. Hold on a second... hmm, cursed thing. Let's see what it does, shall we?--HEY, JAKE. Hey, Jake."
She lowers him from his hanging branch with a vine.
Jake: "Oh, so NOW you want me, when I'm of use to you. What happened to greeting your family with a dead corpse? What happened to our traditions? Do you not have any honor?"
Lady: "Y'know what? I agree. I think for your trouble with trying to help me, I will give you this."
She hands him the pouch.
Lady: "It's human currency! It's great! Human currency! You should take some!"
Jake (taking the pouch): "Ugh, you know human currency is nothing to me!"
He takes handfuls of copper and throws it to the ground, trying to demonstrate how worthless it is to him. All Tsuki's copper is now on the ground. At some point, he grabs the blue gem from this pouch and needs to make a WIS saving throw... and he rolls a 10, so that's not great. Jake is about to throw the cursed gem away, but then he grips it and can't throw it (his hand is clasped onto it), and all of a sudden his demeanor changes. His eyes turn blue. He looks around, then looks at his hands.
Ricardo possessing Jake: "...Seriously?"
Tsuki: "......Yeah?"
Ricardo: "I cannot believe I am in an imbecile like this. Okay. I don't know whether I should be scary or offended--" he's muttering to himself like "how am I supposed to be intimidating in such a form", and continues after processing this for several seconds.
Ricardo: "Ah, yes. the mythical Lady of the Lake. We meet again."
Lady: "...Do I know you?"
Ricardo: "Hm. We have met before."
Lady: "Yeah, okay, cool. Um. You? Are. What's his name? Can someone tell me his name?"
Tsuki: "Ricardo."
Lady: "You are Ricardo. Riiiight. Wait. Waaaait. Are you the same Ricardo Martha told me about?"
Martha sinks back into the water, clearly not wanting to have this conversation.
Ricardo: "Maybe."
They have this back and forth of "maybe maybe like I mean do you know Martha how do you know her where do you know her I find it very unlikely that you managed to do all these effects on such a powerful wizard in like a few things" and we see Jake's ridiculous hawk-elephant body facepalm.
Ricardo: "Okay, fine, fine--I knew her in life. Are you happy now?"
Lady: "Hmmmmm... ah, ah ah, I understand. I think I understand. Anyways. So, uh, pretty nice possession spell you've got going on there."
Ricardo tries to move, but Jake is still bound by this vine around his neck.
Ricardo: "Indeed. Listen, you cannot use these pathetic little adventurers forever. My strength only grows while yours... grows. May grow. But at a slower rate than my strength does, because I command an undead army, and the more enemies I fell, the stronger I become!"
Lady: "Um. Yes, that is a problem."
They sit awkwardly, because no one can really take Ricardo seriously while he's possessing Jake.
Tsuki: "Dude, you failed to possess me."
Ricardo: "O-o-okay, listen, THAT was a fluke, okay? That was because you have, like, so many things going on in your stupid little bird head."
Tsuki: "Did you like the screeching one?"
Ricardo: "No, I don't like the screeching one."
Tsuki: "Nobody really does."
Ricardo: "How do you live with that, man?"
Tsuki: "You just do."
Ricardo: "You just do, huh?..."
Tsuki: "Do you want back in my head?"
Ricardo: "...No thanks, I will take my chances with another being. I think I would rather take over the body of a mouse. At least mice can do good recon, unlike this RIDICULOUS FORM." He raises his arms ineffectually. "What the hell am I supposed to do with this?... Welp, nevermind that. I will take over everything and destroy Vanecia, every last person living there, and if you stand in my way you will be destroyed too! ...But it takes a second for the possession to fade. So I'm still here but I'm not gonna talk to you anymore bye!"
Tsuki: "Wanna go back in the pouch?"
Ricardo-Jake puts the blue jewel back in the pouch and crosses his arms and taps his foot waiting for the possession to end.
Tsuki: "I think that was a good talk!
Lady: "Um. I expected a lich to be more... otherworldly? But he seems to be just some guy."
Tsuki: "He must be a new lich."
Lady: "He is actually a very new lich. He died not too long ago, so that would make him not very accustomed to these sorts of things. You know, like--I'm a demon who's lived for thousands of years? And it takes a while of cultivating your presentation to be supremely intimidating, but some people are A: not very good at it, and B: completely new at it, so like, they're even worse. Isn't that right, Jake?"
Jake: "Hey, I'm not bad at being a demon, take that back! I kidnapped a guy for you!"
Lady: "Yeah, yeah, but you didn't even torture him or anything, dude. Like, what demon just kidnaps a guy and doesn't torture him?"
They argue in this fashion for a bit.
Tsuki: "Jaaake, can you take out what's in the pouch?"
Jake: "I hope--ugh, fine."
He takes out the jewel from the pouch again. He has to make a WIS saving throw and fails again, so Jake is back to being possessed. We see blue eyes looking back at us, but Ricardo doesn't really want to talk to us at this juncture.
Tsuki: "Just put yourself back into the bag."
Ricardo tries to aim it straight at Tsuki's head. It uses Jake's muscle memory (i.e. statblock), so... it hits. Tsuki is hit smack-dab in the middle of the forehead, and it really hurts. The jewel is a lot heavier than it looks. He takes 1 point of damage. (At least Jake won't touch it again.)
Jake (returning to himself): "Okay, PLEASE stop doing that."
Tsuki: "I had to try."
Nadyn: "Okay! Now that everything's out in the open, what are we doing?"
Jake: "I can't believe this! This is not how you treat your own brother!"
He grumbles as the lady of the lake puts him back up the tree. Martha's hand comes out of the water.
Martha: "Well, fun fact about the Lady of the Lake's spell: I can ONLY breathe water for the next hour. Thanks, by the way."
Lady: "You're welcome!"
Nadyn walks in and sits next to Martha to keep her company.
Martha: "Thanks. It's nice to speak to another--ugh, I can't believe I'm saying this word--mortal, I suppose, after being surrounded by undead and the Lady of the Lake. Ugh. It's just nice to be with someone normal--"
Nadyn starts singing Welcome to the Forest.
Clara: "STOOOOP"
(Hey, it's underwater.)
Clara: "Okay, fine. That's fine."
Martha listens to this serenade. It's a really annoying song, but also a pretty good cover of an annoying song, so she's kind of vibing.
Martha; "Hmm. That's a nice song. I imagine this is the backing to a wonderful opera involving goblins."
Nadyn: "...Essentially, yeah."
Martha; "Yeah, that's what I imagine it to be. But, um... anyways, if I were you people, I would probably, well... I guess you people can't do that, but I should probably make it a point to interested parties not to ally with Ricardo over there."
Tsuki: "Pretty sure he hates us."
Martha: "Yeah, he hates you, but you have to understand: Corroza is losing this war, and you know, a free army of undead helping your side is a hard bargain to turn down. You'd have to make a mighty powerful argument as to why that is not the best idea in the world."
Tsuki: "Very true."
Nadyn: "I feel like 'you don't join them as undead afterwards' is a pretty good argument..."
Tsuki: "I don't want to fight Martha, she'd just blow us up."
Martha; "You know, I wouldn't join as undead until afterwards, but you know how it is--a war is an existential threat to your country; either we burn or the world burns sort of mentality, you know? It's not that simple. Ugh, I hate politics."
Tsuki: "Oddly, the screeching one in my head likes politics. I don't listen to it, though."
Martha: "What does the screeching voice in your head say?"
Tsuki: "Mostly just screeches, but every now and then says something. I try and tune it out, though."
Luna: "Does he have any hot takes?"
Tsuki: "It says, 'invest in electrum'."
Luna: "Oh no. Good that you're not listening to it, then."
Martha: "Well, it could be worse: it could convince you to invest in a multi-level marketing scheme where you invest in a contract to a painting but you don't actually own it."
Tsuki: "The voice says he came up with that, but I doubt it."
Martha: "What would you call such a practice?"
Tsuki: "Stupid."
Martha: "Indeed. Well, ugh. Since I cannot deal magically with this army, I must instead leverage my money to influence the politics and elections, and Theodore is so much better at this stuff than I am. Say what you want about him, but he understands that money rules the world."
Tsuki: "True."
(President: "Right, this is the early modern era which is kind of the beginning of capitalism.)
Martha: "As for you, he seems to have taken a special interest in you since you took the Vanecian away, which--if you could, you should probably check that he's fine in Bordeauriva. He might evade detection for now, but if Ricardo sees him, he'll recognize him. Ricardo never forgets any face, I know that much about him."
Nadyn remembers the guy that ran from the tent earlier and isn't Dwayne the Brick Johnson.
Martha: "If it was a different Vanecian, then maybe Ricardo started capturing more of him, which is not the greatest fate in the world. We should at least check on the Vanecian in Bordeauriva, since it might not be safe for him anymore. I would go, but I cannot. If Ricardo and his goons manage to complete the spell, well, you deal with lich me, and frankly I don't think it is worth the risk."
Tsuki tries to push the gem back into the pouch with a stick instead of leaving it on the ground. Nadyn suggests feeding it to Mimi. But that might just possess Mimi, which would be very dangerous. But which is stronger, a cursed object or a mimic's digestive tract? Lady pipes up as we say Mimi's name.
Lady: "Oh, you wanna see Mimi's progress? I am quite pleased with her!"
Tsuki: "What's she up to?"
Lady: "Okay, look at this, look what I taught Mimi to do!"
She takes an electrum coin she got from one of the goblins.
Lady: "Hey, Mimi! Mimi! Alright, Mimi--"
Mimi, instead of being rambunctious, is now very polite and looking at the lady's electrum, panting like a dog.
Lady: "Alright, Mimi; do a backflip, Mimi!"
Mimi grows legs, does a mimic backflip, and lands with a bow. The Lady of the Lake throws the electrum over.
Lady: "Good job, Mimi!"
Mimi eats the electurm. Tsuki and Nadyn clap.
Clara: "She's trained!"
Lady: "Yes, she's trained--she understands a lot of commands now actually! Yeah, less wanting to eat human flesh, although you guys should still be careful."
Tsuki: "Yeahhh, just in case."
Nadyn imagines MImi going on patrol with the bear dogs.
Luna: "How's the little dragon doing?"
Lady: "Ah, Castle-owner is doing alright! He hasn't really changed within the past few hours from when you saw him last, but he's pretty happy I think?"
Luna: "That's good!"
Lady: "He's currently in my house, pretending it's the castle he owns. That might be a problem. But that's a problem for future me to deal with--why deal with problems today when you can deal with them tomorrow?"
Nadyn: "Thousands of years of wisdom, right there."
Lady: "Right, when you've lived as long as I have, tomorrow will always be around because you will never die."
Wisdom of the immortals. This just makes Tsuki consider becoming a lich--he'd make a great one. (Maybe a bit better than Ricardo who's doing evil things but not very charismatic about it.)
Clara: "Eeevil, eeeeevil!"
Anyways, we have a few options for next session: go see what's up with Dwayne The Brick Johnson, go to one of the military installations we've seen and figure out what's going on over there, troll Ricardo some more by putting the gem in random people's hands (Sleepyjoe!!!!) and see how he reacts to it. (As long as we tie him up first. Annoy him because he can't do anything. Slowclerk might be the most powerful being in the universe, but thankfully the gem isn't a weapon. Also she might just not be affected by it. DMV workers are powerful and boss material. She's so powerful that no one even thinks about crossing her. Like those video games where you attack a random NPC and they turn out to be godly despite literally being named NPC #1.)
Later in the post-session rambling, we consider what would happen if Ricardo's gem touched a still-twitching undead finger. Would he possess just a finger? Could we get him to remove the curse on the gem just by annoying him enough with it? He's absolutely going to hate Tsuki worse than everyone else. He's gonna do that dead-to-the-world "I hate you. I hate you. Leave me alone." spiel. President also confirmed that when possessing someone, it's potentially like Luna's familiar sight and we could deprive him of senses while we fight him, but we're not sure (and he probably has better control over that). Mage Hand would come in handy for that regardless.
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Post by Coaster on Jan 9, 2023 1:55:50 GMT -5
My Scattered Recap Of The Petting Zoo Squad's Zomberrific Session 17 As Much As I Was Able To Process It (which was less than usual) - January 8, 2023 Last session, we discussed a few courses of action. Undead are now in Bordeauriva, and Dwayne "The Brick" Johnson (Jabin) may be in a lot of trouble. Also we threw around the idea of messing with the military, always a great idea, or just trolling Rick more until he-- Nadyn: "We should make him possess Jake again, then roll him down a hill, so it would be a Rick roll" Lady of the Lake wouldn't have any objections to that. She is literally tying him up in a tree and all. Tsuki: "He might get away though..." President: "I mean, what's he gonna do though? He's a demon, he might eat some people..." Kat: " Might?" Tsuki: "That's okay!" President: "Is that a good deed, Clara?" Clara: "That depends." Tsuki: "We get to feed a demon who's hungry!" Clara: "Well, if the demon is out to eat many people, you know..." Anyways. Back to the session! What do we want to do? Tsuki: "Last thing I remember was deciding to go back to the city." Luna: "I do like breaking into military bases, but I think the best course of action would be to go check on The Brick." Lady of the Lake: "Have fun! You know, just, if you need help, HEY JAKE. Jake?" Jake: "What?" Lady: "Well, it's gonna take a while for mom and mom--well, parent 1 and parent 2--actually there's also parents 5 and 6..." She counts the number of biological parents she has. "It's gonna be a while until they all show up. How about you go with them and y'know, help them out? Maybe you can hit a few undead with that trunk of yours?" Jake: "Nnnnngh. My job. My job is to encourage people to get arrested for public urination. I feel like my skill set is not very good for this job." Lady proceeds to berate him for being a loser. "Maybe if you'd push yourself more, instead of calling ME a do-gooder, okay Jake? You should maybe step it up and encourage someone to stab someone else. I think that'd be good for you." Jake: "Fine." Nadyn: "I mean, you've got Tsuki here, so you're already halfway there!" Thus, Jake joins the party: normally an odd-looking demon guy, but he transforms into a more regular-looking guy other than having hilariously out-of-place clothing. Tsuki and Luna recognize that it's very medieval-style, which is a bit wacky in a Renaissance-style world, as if someone in the modern world was walking the streets dressed like a 19th-century LARPer. We don't say anything negative about it. Clara: "...is Jake wearing armor?" President: "He doesn't need to wear armor! He's a demon! Just typical medieval dude-wear. Monty Python-esque, very peasant-like. Would have been nondescript 300 years ago." Clara: "...Nice outfit." Jake: "I have studied these mortals for quite some time. I think I've nailed it! Look at me, I'm a mortal, I can die if someone shoots me in the heart with an arrow. (Pathetic.)" Clara says nothing else, just smiles and nods. Tsuki: "He gets to do what he wants to do." Jake continues to mock his idea of peasantry, saying things like "I can't reeead," overacting but also without a lot of passion. Regardless, he tags along with us as we go to Bordeauriva. We kinda just show up at the gates. Gate time. We see that the guards aren't looking so good. They're super on-edge, and we can tell they maybe have some things on their mind. Guard: "Oh. You guys. Welcome. Do you still have the talking box?" Nadyn: "Oh, no, the box is gone." Guard: "No other boxes? No pet undead weasels?" Tsuki: "Not yet." Guard: "Welp. I really wish you didn't say that, because now we have to search your stuff." Nadyn (aside): "Maybe we should hide that cursed gem from the armed guards." Tsuki: "I mean, it's in the bag of coins and junk--not like they'll want to touch every single one. Could pour it out onto the table or whatever..." Guard: "You have a very random assortment of things... Wait, 'electrum contract to own'? What is this?" Tsuki: "I like to collect things!  " Guard: "I see... Well, that seems pretty normal to me." The guards nod to each other a bit too enthusiastically, kind of like human bobbleheads. Guard: "Yup, you go in now. If you see something, say something, preferably to someone else. Buh-bye." Tsuki pushes everything back in the bag (using the coins to avoid handling the gem). Clara: "Caution, handle with care!" Tsuki: "If we had sticky notes that'd be on there." We go into the city. For a bit it sounds like everything is normal-ish, but as we go in we see what's up. Usually the military is concentrated just outside Bordeauriva--we didn't interact with them much, but there were some scattered military police. Now we can see they're in every corner watching things, and a lot more people are in the city: a lot of people who we can guess were refugees, somehow kept away from the tent area, for some reason. We still need to find Jabin, but we don't want to resort to talking to the military yet. We don't know Sending so we can't exactly remote message Koala, though we could talk to random animals and find out what happens. So Clara tries talking to a big, fluffy, and surprisingly very clean rat. Clara: "Greeat, we're back in the petting zoo business." President: "Congrats! Only took you 24 minutes." Clara: "Is that a new record?" President: "I mean, you've been off for a month and you just got to petting zoo shenanigans. What do you ask the rat?" Note, we remember what Jabin looks like: the deserter with the pet rat Koala, who we used our noble reputation to forge papers for so he could start a new life over here. Clara: "We'll use a rat to find him, it's perfect!" Clara rolls animal handling. Her armor clanks a bit loudly so the rat's a bit spooked, but it sniffs her hand. Rat: "How filthy!" Clara (aside): "Wow, what a picky rat." Rat: "Don't you ever wash your hands?" Clara is taken back by the rat having a prim accent and insulting her hands. She has soap now and everything! Rat: "Well, if you have soap, you certainly aren't using it." Clara: "I use it, just not every 5 minutes!" Rat: "Well, as you know, I only frequent the cleanest of places. I have no cause to speak with a human as filthy as you." Tsuki: "That's a stuck-up rat." Clara gasps, taps Luna on the shoulder, and asks if she can try talk to the rat instead. A couple other things are happening nearby other than the immediate rat conversation: Nadyn and Tsuki are presumably doing things to make people not stare as we try to communicate with a rat. Tsuki is also glancing around at areas getting road work done, because Dwayne was supposed to be a bricklayer. A lot of construction was happening in the refugee area, because the city was kind of expanding in that direction anyways. Not a lot of repair work to be done, by comparison. We do see a few construction folks, and Tsuki heads over to ask if they know A Guy. Tsuki waves and opens his mouth, but uses his telepathy instead of trying to mimic speech. Construction worker: "What the hell--did you just speak to me?!" Unfortunately, Nadyn had to AFK briefly at this point, but comes back to Jake mentioning that his parents invented homophobia, and Nadyn has no idea what's going on. Tsuki: "Jake's job is basically to make people pee on the floor." President: "Currently Jake is reflecting on the fact that he's never going to live up to his family, one of whom invented homophobia, so he feels like he isn't causing enough evil in the world." Nadyn: "...And how did the construction worker talk go?" Tsuki: "Pretty well. People love Tsuki." Clara: "Better than talking to the stuck-up rat." Tsuki: "Apparently he might be on the other side of town doing some easy work. He was not good at bricklaying." Nadyn: "That's surprising." Tsuki: "Well, the only brick he laid previously was on my face, so..." President: "Well, Jake's at a bar to fulfill his demon niche of making people pee in public. He also talks like a complete psychopath who everyone thinks is insane, which, to be fair, is kind of what you do when you're drunk at a bar." Tsuki: "And he might get bonus points for encouraging extra drinking!" President: "Exactly! If he starts a bar fight, that'll be good." Clara's all awkward right now because this demon guy's encouraging everyone to pee wherever they want, but he's in a bar, and that's kind of the one place someone could be excused for doing that. President: "Maybe helping him achieve his life's dreams is a good deed." Clara tells that to herself over and over. Anyways, Jake has a drink. We ditch him for now. He's on his own. President: "I'm sure that if something goes wrong, Jake's a perfectly rational demon and will deal with it in a perfectly rational way." Clara: "As demons do." Regardless, we apparently have to go across town, which means a visit with the slowest DMV-esque lady, who currently has a pretty long line waiting for processing. She sees us coming. DMV: "Fiiiinalllllyyyyy. Someone who's not rotting... yet. Mind the undead. Please sign this waiver. I'm not responsible for losing my job if you guys die to undead or become undead. In the event that you become undead, you will not be allowed passage back." Nadyn mentions aside that she was curious about what would happen if DMV got her hands on the gem. Tsuki puts the blue gem on the table and asks DMV to touch it, and she obliges. It vibrates with magical energy, and she stares at it real hard. DMV: "...I'm taking this with me. it will be nice to complete my collection of confiscated items." She opens a closet behind her, and it's just a straight-up dimensional portal. She throws in the gem and closes the closet. Tsuki: "...I'm sure it'll be safe there." DMV: "Yes." Tsuki: "Better than having it in a pouch." DMV: "Was there anything else you wanted me to touch?" Tsuki: "No, not really." (She apparently rolled a 30. Will of absolute steel, apparently. Rick should be terrified.) DMV: "Good. Please sign the waiver." Tsuki signs without hesitation. And a second one too, just in case. Clara follows (it's legal paperwork after all), as do Nadyn and Luna. DMV nods along and takes the paperwork. DMV: "NEEEEXT". This is what she decides to do with her life. We're now at the other side of Bordeauriva. While the safer half of town had a lot of military police, it was still kind of organized. This side, on the other hand, has a long line of people waiting to get in, guarded with proper military formations, not even pretending to be a civilian peacekeeping force, but a full-on military checkpoint like you'd see in an actual frontline. We see Sleepyjoe and his friends around this line, as well as a commander standing there and staring at the troops. Commander: "I don't care what the other people said; you are staying here until every last person is through that gate!" Some troop: "But I kind of don't want to fight my 20th wave of undead in a row!" Commander: "Too expletive bad, you're fighting!" So that's a situation. Tsuki walks up to Sleepyjoe, who narrows his eyes as Tsuki approaches. Tsuki then stares at him. Tsuki: "Okay, what happened while we were gone?" Sleepyjoe (sighing): "Well, the undead problem of the forest turned out to be not a small problem so much as a big problem. They are acquiring large amounts of brains from the Vanecians and are demanding that we give up some brains that they suspect belong to Vanecians here. And, you know, it's pretty bad?" His friend (also sighing): "They're not eating brains, they're just converting people into their undead army! Or, you know, maybe--I don't know what their goal is, but they want people from Bordeauriva, and we don't want that, so we are fighting them to make that not happen." Clearly, the lower-ranking guards and troops don't know much about the general situation, just that there's a bunch of undead. Tsuki: "Well, good thing we stopped them from having a zombie dragon." Soldiers: "WHAT" Tsuki: "Yeah, that was a thing. Don't worry, dragon's safe." One of the soldiers surreptitiously shushes Tsuki. Tsuki: "We did stuff in the forest." The soldier doesn't directly talk to us, but beckons us over urgently. Soldier: "I have heard some things about you people. There is this issue of National Kingdom Enquirer..." He produces it and thumbs through it. "There's this reporter named Gale Garson. She wrote about you and how you were so rude to her." They stare at the article a bit. Soldier: "Well, that's not what's very important about you, though. I understand you did something for the Brautz family?" Tsuki: "Yep." The soldier rubs their temples. Soldier: "Listen, I don't know what you came here to do. But, quite frankly, don't tell me what you're about to do, because if I don't know, then I can just say that I didn't know what happened. But I would like you guys to not impact the morale of the troops, and not disseminate any information that may lead them to abandon their post." Tsuki: "...Okay?" Soldier: "Glad we could come to an agreement. As you were." The commander is back to doing commander stuff. Commander: "Ugh, okay--when you throw this firebomb at the undead, right, you gotta throw it like THIS, for the maximum area spread." Tsuki (to Sleepyjoe, just for fun): "If you see goblins, scream out 'for the Meep' and they might help out!" Sleepyjoe: "Ah, is that the goblin god? Tsuki: "Sure." Sleepyjoe: "So they worship this 'Meep'..." Clara is looking more awkward by the minute, having just been apparently promoted from King Clara to God Clara. Tsuki: "The goblins will either help, or do goblin things and not be very helpful but at least won't attack you." Now that we're on this other side of town, we try searching the long line of people for Dwayne. Unsurprisingly, because things aren't that easy, he's not in said line of people waiting to get in. Clara: "Are there no more animals to talk to?" Rolling a d10, she sees a songbird on a tree minding its own business, singing (not Welcome to the Forest, because we aren't in the forest)-- Clara: Thank goodness." --it's singing, " What's in this tooooown, in this tooooown, zo-m-bies, zo-m-bies, ey ey ey ey--" Yes, it's alerting everyone to the fact that there are zombies in the town. Clara: "Excuse me, Mr./Ms./Mx. Bird?" Bird (after turning its head to look at her): "Oh! Hello!" Clara: "Hi, I know you're looking out for zombies, but can we ask you if you've seen a certain man?" Bird: "Certain man? All humans look the same to me." Nadyn (guessing the context): "You could always ask about Koala the rat?" Clara: "Have you seen a man with a rat? He really loves the rat." Bird: "Oh, there is a man sometimes with a rat, I see him every morning! He sings to the rat, and also carries these rectangles." Clara: "Do they look heavy, the rectangles? Does he put them down somewhere and tile them up?" Bird: "Yes!" Clara: "Where did you see him last?" Bird: "I saw him due east of here." Clara: "How far east?" Bird: "A little bit east!" Clara: "Okay..." Bird: "If I flap my wings for... a lot of minutes, I reach there!" Clara tells everyone else that the bird has seen Dwayne east of here. Nadyn: "Okay, like 'three towns over' east or 'just outside of town' east?" Clara: "The bird said it takes many minutes of flapping its wings east." Clara (turning back to the bird): "In the place east where you saw Dwayne many minutes away, is there anything you remember? Any big trees, or weird buildings?" Bird: "It is near a bridge!" Clara: "What does the bridge look like?" Bird: "A bridge is a structure that humans build to traverse a river!" Clara: "Does it look sharp? Does it look like it's made of those rectangle things he was carrying?" Bird: "Yes. Rectangle bridge." Clara: "Okay, it's a bridge made of rectangles." She turns back to the party. Clara: "He's near a brick bridge." Tsuki calls to Sleepyjoe real quick, "Where's the closest bridge to the east?" Sleepyjoe gives directions to the closest bridge to the east. Clara: "Thanks, you have been very helpful." Tsuki leaves with a thumbs-up. Clara has nothing she can really give the bird for its help. The honey BBQ chicken wings would probably be inedible now if they weren't consumed long ago (so thankfully, it's not like the time Tsuki left an eye to rot in a sack. Your poor party members, dude!) Tsuki: "It coulda been useful!" President: "Useful for what?" Tsuki: "Who knows? You never know until you need it." (At least he still has the finger.) Clara: "And at least the plastic leg is just plastic." President: "It's now reinforced into an actual weapon." Tsuki: "I have it down as a club." We make for that bridge due east. Sleepyjoe: "Hey, you probably don't want to go to that bridge, it's filled with a buncha stuff. Like walking dead people." Sleepyjoe's friend: "Come on, we've been doing zombies for like a few days now, they're not that scary, they're very slow. What's the worst thing they could do?" Tsuki: "Would it help if we cleared them out?" Sleepyjoe: "Actually, yeah! We're guarding these people, so we can't leave, but if you make a dent in them, every little bit counts! You bring us proof of every zombie you kill and maybe we'll have something for you!" Joefriend: "Like what, Joe, your stamp collection?" Joe: "Well, I'm not giving them my stamp collection. That's really important to me." Tsuki stares with excitement. The soldiers go back to watching and making sure there's nothing there that will try to eat the brains of the people trying to escape. Great. (Tsuki casts False Life on himself on the way over, just in case.) As we head over, we see soldiers on the streets, but they're busy searching structures and dropping pamphlets everywhere telling people to get out and leave, this particular route, if you take any other route we can't guarantee your safety, etc. We see a guy being pushed by a soldier and rambling about how the government's corrupt and we shouldn't trust them since they're going to corral us to become mind slaves and feed us to mind flayers. But if you're not a well-known adventurer, saying stuff like that just gets you tackled, so it's a good thing we aren't just average joes. At some point, Luna with her sharp eyes notices a group of people walking in a suspiciously zombie-like way, and not in the way Marg walks, but in the way that the zombies we have seen before walk. It's probably zombies. She asks her raven to take a flight around so she can get a better view of the situation (especially since ravens are fairly inconspicuous to begin with). As it turns out, there are some zombies, they aren't very smart, and they're patrolling the streets. Further along, in a place we couldn't really see from our spot on the ground, there are some higher-rank undead who move with a bit more purpose, and the raven didn't take as long as that songbird to get to the place Dwayne/Jabin is. There's not a huge crowd of undead there, but there is a guy who has a uniform not unlike the uniform of the officer that we met during our stay in the village of Din right before we fought the pseudo-dryad-people, and next to him is a massive, hulking undead. Not the best thing in the world for this guy, but it seems like they're waiting for something. Inside is a building that kind of just isn't being built; it looks like it's rather run down and might need repairs, perhaps by an apprentice of some sort. So that's all what raven friend sees. Once she gets back, Luna relays the most notable information to the group, mentioning the higher-ranking bigger-looking undead that will probably be a problem, and the person (or people) that might be in trouble. Tsuki suggests sneaking up and attacking. The only constraint there is the very clanky paladin. (She was a noble as a kid, why would she need to sneak?) Tsuki: "Obviously Clara is bait." (Clara's actually fine with that.) Tsuki stays low and hides, which isn't difficult since cities have lots of places to hide and zombies expect people to run away rather than sneak towards them. His intent is to get as far as he can by sneaking, but still within 120ft of Clara so he can still be in shooting range if something goes wrong with the bait. Luna volunteers to go with Clara, forming Not Seal Team Six the bait team, so Nadyn goes with Seal Team Six the sneaky team. Clara immediately rolls a 2 for stealth, so as Tsuki and Nadyn are sneaking, Luna and Clara get spotted almost immediately because Clara's armor is really thick and she cannot stop the sound of the armor clapping against itself. Like the seagulls from Finding Nemo--when they see a fish, they turn all their heads at once and start saying "mine, mine, mine"--the zombies make their way towards Luna and Clara. (Running, specifically, but zombie running isn't that fast.) Tsuki decides to wait a bit longer in case the bigger guys try and fight, but for now it's just garden-variety zombies. Right now only Nadyn and Tsuki can see the big zombies--the others are too far to see them. Nadyn and Tsuki don't need to worry about the small zombies yet either, other than the slight danger that the commotion from Clara and Luna will draw more towards them; currently about 7 slow zombies are heading in that direction. The group could pick them off, but that takes time even with a big smiting shield. Nadyn sneaks toward the building we expect Dwayne to be in. Clara and Luna do not have bananas to slow the zombies down (nor can Clara use the Meep Crown as a boomerang or else Lady of the Lake might kill her), but nonetheless, the zombies are walking towards them in a very convenient horde. Over in Metal Gear Solid land, Tsuki and Nadyn are channeling their inner Solid Snake, using the shadows from the buildings and being very silent, which is rare for Nadyn. (Actually, Nadyn is forgetting to sing The Sneaking Song, but she's playing it in her head at least.) Actually, speaking of annoying songs, there are plants in this urban city! They're singing conflicting action movie tracks (since they're less connected than the ones in the forest--it's a bunch of potted plants, green-space trees, etc.) as Clara runs from the horde of zombies. Clara laments that she can't turn off the ability to listen to plants, and President assures us that any of us will end up regretting any cool power we get. Nadyn, however, doubts she will regret having the cool power of playing banjo. Nadyn and Tsuki successfully get to the building; there are some skeleton archers which would be a bit of a pain to have to fight, and some undead soldiers wearing very modern Vanecian armor, which is a bit concerning. And then, of course, the Corrozan officer next to a hulking undead guy, sitting there with his eyes wide open in an expression that screams, "Oh my god, if I move, this hulking undead thing is going to kill me, so I'm just gonna stay here." The building itself has one entrance, which is blocked by the officer and the giant hulking undead dude who presumably took a lot of drugs to get that swole. We could try sneaking past, but it's highly unlikely to work; barring some real shapeshifting, we're not going to squeeze through unnoticed, so we may need to find an alternate route. Tsuki can see past them into a hallway, and wonders if he could Misty Step past them. It does have a verbal component, which Tsuki interprets as being any imitation noise, so in this case he figures a fluttery bird noise will do. He does so; Nadyn stays put and keeps her ears peeled for the time being, noticing a bit of silvery dust that happened when Tsuki teleported inside. The hulk momentarily doesn't notice because of a trash wisdom check, but the officer with him stares really hard at that spell and pretends he didn't see anything. Doesn't even tilt his head, mostly just moves his eyes. (Justified, seeing as he's next to a hulking undead that could eat his head off in one bite.) Tsuki ducks into a side room; luckily, the building seems mostly empty, but he gets a sickly, nauseous feeling as he teleports inside. Passing a constitution save, he closes his eyes and counts to 3 or something and feels a little bit better. The building seems empty other than some footsteps on the upper level. He heads up as sneakily as he can. Meanwhile, Clara and Luna are leading the zombies away, and as they do that, they notice that they've made quite a commotion in the zombie social scene. A few skeletons are showing up with ranged weapons (fairly close together but not as closely clumped as the zombies)--basically a comparatively elite skeleton team out to check what's going on. A prolonged fight would probably not work out in their favor, given how close they are to the undead army. The closest zombies are still about 40ft away, not hard to outrun; in fact, it'd be harder to keep an ideal distance where they're still on the trail but not dangerously close. So they keep up their light jog away. Clara throws a rock-sized rock (as opposed to a pebble-sized rock) in the general direction of the zombies to make sure that everyone knows the baddest girl is here in town. (Being the baddest girl doesn't sound like a good deed, but it is right now because she's trying to make sure she and Luna don't die.) Back to Tsuki: looking around this building, it seems to be the kind of place where documents are processed. It's not very interesting in and of itself, but it is kind of old. Maybe or maybe not constructed with asbestos, but the type that in the modern day you'd need an asbestos team to look at just in case, and kind of crusty and smelly. He makes his way towards the sound of footsteps, and hears two distinct voices: one is Dwayne's voice, accompanied by some occasional squeaking from Koala; and the other is a muffled female voice. Tsuki moves a bit closer and listens in. Female voice: "Listen, I don't know what you want me to do. This is kind of an impossible position. It's either you or my colleague, and well, I have no love lost for your kind." Dwayne: "Yes, but you're clearly some sort of intelligence officer--I mean, certainly even the barest of information I have about troop organization will help you." And the two are having a discussion in that vein. Tsuki just walks in, hoping Dwayne doesn't have a brick on him. As a matter of fact, seeing as he is a bricklayer, he does in fact have a brick on him, and the minute he hears Tsuki, he's startled and raises the brick in preparation of launching it. Tsuki hopes that his brick-launching skills are worse than they were before, because launching bricks would break them, so that doesn't work well with brick-laying. Tsuki puts his hands up. The woman next to Dwayne (presumably an intelligence officer) is really tall and in the same uniform as the officer we just saw. Dwayne: "Oh my god, Tsuki?!" Intelligence: "'Tsuki'? Who is this?" Tsuki waves. Dwayne: "This is a friend of mine, Tsuki." Intelligence: "Tsuki, yes, a bird. Wait a second... I can't believe this. I read about you in the National Kingdom Enquirer!" Tsuki facepalms. Intelligence: "I can't believe that was an actual source of information"--she pauses to take a deep breath--"okay, nevermind, not important right now. What is important is, how did you even get in here?!" Tsuki: "Snuck in." Intelligence: "You snuck in past... William? And also a giant hulking monstrosity?" Tsuki: "Teleport." Intelligence: "Ah, you successfully teleported in. That's nice." Tsuki: "The horde is being led away, and outside is this stuff..." Intelligence: "Yeah. Hello? Old buildings like this have some sort of anti-magic security system. Glad you didn't get your stomach rolled up in a fit." Tsuki: "Oh, so that's what it was." Intelligence: "Yeah, well, these charms grow worse over time, and this is a very old building. But, ugh. Anyways, I take it you are friends with Dwayne?" Tsuki: "Yup." Intelligence: "Do you know his real identity?" Tsuki: "Sooorta. Some of it." Intelligence: "Some of it. I see. Well, Tsuki, here's the stiuation: the leader of this zombie army seems to have a particular grudge against any and all Vanecians he meets. Fair, honestly--would not trust one as far as I could throw them--but even for an intelligence officer, handing someone to an army of undead doesn't quite sound like an ethical thing to do, wouldn't you agree?" Tsuki: "Yeah. Depends on the situation, but usually no." Intelligence: "...'Usually no'. Yes. Well, you see, I have a problem that you could help me with, then, if you could. My friend near the entrance over there is being held hostage. They are expecting me to procure Jabin over here to their undead overlord, and if I do not do that, he will simply die. Now, you said you led some of those zombies away?" Tsuki: "Yes, a good portion of them chased after the rest of the party. I think there's still some skeletons outside? And a big guy." Intelligence: "And the big guy. Of course. Nothing can ever be easy, can it? Well, the bulk of the zombie army is nearby, however, if we can dispatch of the big guy quickly, we might have time to, as the kids say, 'get out of dodge'." Note, Nadyn (having been in Misty Step range of the entrance) would have been close enough for Tsuki to communicate with her telepathically from a window. (President refuses to believe in angles. Lucine would probably be upset about that.) Tsuki pokes his head out as stealthily as he can; he does see her (since he knows where to look, a little dot in the shadow where he previously was) Tsuki: "Dwayne's here, along with someone else." Nadyn pantomimes a "fist on hand, fight yes no?" kind of action. Tsuki: "Not sure, but we need to get that big guy out of there. I could escape if I want, but I can't take them with me." Nadyn gives a thumbs up, puts up her fingers, and slowly starts counting down. Tsuki looks back and tells the others that something's gonna happen in about 10 seconds. Intelligence: "Well, we'd better get going. Jabin--if that's your real name--you still remember your soldierly skills, right? Because you're going to need them." Jabin nods not-very-vigorously, and they go down the stairs as fast as possible to the entrance. The intelligence officer didn't really look armed, but apparently she has a rapier she pulled out from somewhere and is ready to start attacking. Nadyn also has an extra round at the start because she's going to surprise the big guy! Which she tries to do with a sudden Fog Cloud, mostly placed to obscure his frontal view. Tsuki Eldritch Blasts him from behind. Bigguy roars and immediately goes to the hostage to try to stab him through the heart with his spear. It would have been a crit and killed him instantly, but the hostage, being heavily obscured by the fog, manages to barely duck away. Big guy tries another swing with his free arm, and misses again! The hostage is kinda scared, unarmed, and knows only a few spells. He successfully casts Faerie Fire, making the big guy highly visible despite the fog. Jabin's turn; he doesn't have much to do, so he just tries to give Tsuki some Help. Nadyn tries firing an arrow form her shortbow, but misses. Intelligence lady barely misses with her rapier attack. Tsuki successfully blasts again and moves a little closer. Bigguy roars and rages because he's a big buff undead guy, and tries to attack the hostages again, but rolls horribly with his spear, including a critical miss. The fog is really doing a number on him. The hostage takes advantage of this to disengage and scoot away. Jabin lobs a brick at bigguy, and does not hit (rather hilariously, it lands just outside the fog cloud). Nadyn fires another arrow and hits this time. Intelligence lady crits with the rapier. Tsuki successfully blasts again. Bigguy hulks a bit, drops the spear, and tries to rage at whatever is closest to him, which happens to be intelligence lady. Nadyn silvery barbs one into a miss, he misses another, and he hits with the third. Hostage can't do much right now. Jabin throws another brick but misses again. Nadyn runs in with her rapier but misses. Intelligence lady, apparently inspired by Nadyn's supposedly dignified and graceful bardlike motion (maybe from triton fencing school or something) to try her best, tries to hit with her rapier and actually does hit. Bigguy is on his last legs. Tsuki laughs and successfully blasts one more time, enough to overkill bigguy. At first he turns at Tsuki, who sees two bright red eyes; he reaches at Tsuki, and then just falls dead (well, re-dead). We've successfully beaten the bigguy! Dwayne looks at him briefly before being pulled away by intelligence lady. Intelligence: "We've gotta get out of here!" She sees that the roads are mostly clear save for a few skelebros we can probably just run past, because of the great job that Clara and Luna are doing distracting the horde. Speaking of which, they've gotten a rather large fan club. To deal with that, Clara wants to ditch the fan club, hoping that if they try to hide somewhere, the zombies are dumb enough to run past like in a cartoon. None of us really have crowd control that works both at range and on zombies. In the meantime, Clara rolls stealth and surprisingly gets enough to evade the zombies, who are really dumb and don't know where they disappeared to! The skeletons, in skeleton language which we have no way of knowing, berate the zombies for losing the trails so quickly. Skeletons: "How could you possibly lose them? What do we even hire you for?" Zombies: "We are not hired, we here for the brains." Then Jabin, Tsuki, Nadyn, and the two intelligence officers show up. Tsuki has a finger of the bigguy as proof of kill. He runs into the group of zombies and casts Arms of Hadar, dealing 6 damage to each; three of the zombies are so fragile that they die instantly (and he grabs a finger from each), while the rest of about 20 are still standing. On his way out, he takes a bit of damage from zombies grabbing at him. Tsuki bravely runs away into the sunset and waits for the others to show up. Which we do, because we actually regroup and don't just leave half our party to hide in zombie-infested streets forever. Koala (and Dwayne, and the two intelligence officers probably) have been rescued! And that's all for this week.
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Post by Coaster on Feb 11, 2023 4:32:27 GMT -5
My Recap Of The Petting Zoo Squad's Vaguely Legal Session 18 As Much As I Was Able To Process It - January 21, 2023 Last session, we saved Dwayne "The Brick" Johnson and a couple other folks, and now we're returning to the guarded area with the lineup of refugees. As we run up, Sleepyjoe, his friend, and their commander wave us down. Commander: "Hello, I see you've brought some friends!" Nadyn: "Hi! Yes! This is Dwayne Johnson, and these folks whose names we didn't get, but we rescued them from zombies." (The intelligence officer that was hostage is Agent Garcia, and the other is Agent Dupont.) Garcia: "Yes; thanks to these adventurers, we were able to extract this valuable asset." The two don't elaborate further on what that means. Dwayne (holding and petting Koala): "Well... I'm not dead." Nadyn: "That you are not." Dwayne: "No, I'm not dead. Well, uh, thank you for saving me from zombies. Again." Clara: "You're welcome." Dwayne (holding up Koala): "Koala says thank you too!" Koala chirps. (Sure enough, to the animal-whisperers, Koala says, "Oh yeah, you guys were really good! Yeah! I think you guys are cool!") Luna: "Happy to help out! And you're cool as well!" Koala: "Thank you, thank you." (Tsuki only really wanted to rescue Koala.) Dupont (putting a hand on Dwayne's arm): "well, I suppose you're coming with us." Garcia (regaining his composure): "Thank you for your assistance--I assure you that Dwayne here will be treated most amicably." Garcia wipes his surcoat. Luna: "Wait, where are you taking him?" Garcia: "Well, this gentleman has some good intelligence on the ins and outs of our enemy's operations. It would be foolish not to pester him for what he knows." Nadyn: "Can we come?" Garcia: "Hmm..." Dupont (crossing her arms): "On what grounds do you want to come?" Nadyn: "Well, we wanna kill the lich that's doing this whole thing, so..." (Note, Clara used her noble title to forge an identity for this guy. Dupont probably would have asked Dwayne how he has those papers. She knows he has forged papers, but Dwayne wisely decided to omit who did this for him.) Dupont: "Clearly he has some sort of connection to someone here, but that still remains to be seen--but I'm not sure how he would have gotten this documentation." (Theoretically Tsuki could have done it but he lacks the tools.) Dupont: "But I suppose if you want to make sure that he is treated well--and it seems you people know each other--you can come along." Nadyn: "Okay! Can we sleep first?" Dupont: "Of course, we do have to cross town and my colleague needs to rest." Tsuki walks over to Sleepyjoe and gives him the zombie fingers, 3 normal and one big one. Sleepyjoe looks at the fingers and lays them out. Sleepyjoe: "Ah, interesting. Well, that's proof enough for me." He tells his commander, who gives Tsuki 5 silver for each normal one and 5 gold for the big one. Sleepyjoe gives us a thumbs-up. Clara gives a thumbs-up back. Because we are with agents, we get expedited to the very start of the line and meet the DMV lady again, who just stares at us and then slowly reaches into a bag to give us back the gem. DMV: "Oh yes, by the way, I have deactivated this gem. Don't bring anything else like it ever again." Luna: "Wait, you WHAT?" DMV: "I deactivated it." Clara: "...You can do that?" DMV: "The way of the DMV officer public sector employee is not for the faint of heart." Tsuki: "Never underestimate this lady." Nadyn: "Is it possible to learn this power?" DMV: "It's not a power the Bards' College could teach you..." Tsuki puts the gem back in the pouch and slowly backs away. DMV nods at us and says, "NEXT!" Nadyn: "Disenchantment seems like a really useful skill thouuuuugh..." (But DMV lady is focused on just one thing: her job.) We find somewhere to sleep. Clara remembers that we just left a demon in some tavern somewhere. (Tsuki didn't forget, he just didn't care enough.) We get back to that tavern and it's basically a recreation of the pizza delivery fire meme. It smells really, really bad. Jake: "Ahahaha, I art mischievous!" Clara: "...Yes you are." Jake: "So what shalt we do?" Nadyn: "YOU can sleep on the floor." Jabin Jake (shrugging): "Okay." He goes and sleeps on the floor. He's a demon, so he doesn't have a concept of sanitation. His sleeping position is a bit like a cat. It's very disturbing. Clara is certainly mildly disturbed. Anyways, Jake is a no-good terrible minor demon-- Nadyn: "Wait, he's a minor? Why did we let him into the tavern?!" (No, not like that. Just a demon whose negative impact on the world is relatively minor. Definitely the enemy of public health officials everywhere.) Luna points out that cats can sleep in any position. In this case it's the classic curled up on the ground pose-- President doesn't want to download free cat images, go away--but it's basically a human body sleeping like that, so less cute, more demon. So, we consider where to sleep. Probably elsewhere, because the tavern-keeper is in tears, but we try to cheer him up first. Innkeeper: "It's so dirty! I don't know what possessed everyone to do this!" Tsuki gives him one of his five bars of soap. Innkeeper stares at it and says, "Thank you. ;A;" He rubs his hands with it. "Well, time to go get to cleaning again." He's cleaning his own tavern. Clara's willing to help clean, as is Nadyn as long as she can use Prestidigitation for it. So we volunteer to clean each of the tiles individually. Tsuki sits on Jake. Jake has no emotions about this--he's too busy thinking, "Ha ha, look at the suffering I have caused! I am a good demon!" Luna doesn't remember why we brought him in the first place. (It's just because we needed to leave him somewhere, like sending a kid to day care. Might have been a bad idea.) Tsuki's being a manager and letting us do all the work. Nadyn does a cleaning performance, dancing with the mop and doing some wicked dance moves. This apparently counts for the By Popular Demand feature. The owner is so happy to have received our help that he says, "Oh, you can stay here for a night, it's fine!" So he lets us stay in this place! The rooms aren't amazing luxury rooms, rather small and cramped rooms actually, but they work. We meet back up with Dwayne and the two officers. Garcia: "Okay, then. Well, Jabin over here--uh, Dwayne--is entitled to legal representation, and I would like to ask you if you had anybody in mind. We are going to take him to Kaer, since it's the closest military installation that is not here." Nadyn: "...Is he being arrested?" Garcia: "Well, he was an enemy soldier. He's not necessarily being arrested. However comma, it's always good to have legal representation." Coaster (OOC): "...Hey Kat, do you think lawyering can be done effectively with Persuasion and no actual legal skills?" Garcia: "You would need some actual knowledge of the law--you really cannot perform in the courtroom. That might reflect negatively if it comes to that." Clara: "He has a point." We recall that Kaer has Vincent Lawyers & Co., so we can say we'll look at Vincent Lawyers & Co. Nadyn: "Yes, that!" Instead of a horse bus, we take a horse cab: a much smaller version of the horse bus, and instead of regular horses pulling magical buses, they have just a military horse pulling a single car, and it's a lot heavier than the material that the regular horse bus is made of, and it's cramped in there too, but they say it builds character. Nadyn: " The wheels on the bus go round and round--" It takes a day's travel to get to Kaer, and nothing much really happens along the way: everyone just steers clear of military things, and nobody really wants to mess with a very scary horse cab. We make it to Kaer, which we are reminded is a small town, not very notable, but has a ruins entrance, a wooded area full of local species-- Luna: "New friends!" --Lawyers and Co., and a pretty sizeable military installation. We remember Meg from our last visit, so we go to Vincent Lawyers and Co. and find Meg there, who is just kind of in the office doing some busywork. Meg looks up at us and says, "Oh, hello! Back so soon?" Nadyn: "How would you like to take on a potentially criminal law case?" Meg; "Oh my gosh! Yeah, sure! But I'm so nervous, I mean I passed all my law exams, but--a real case? I have to ask my supervisor--" She runs to the back, very excited, and comes back with a really large guy who looks very professional and sharply dressed, who looks at us and says, "Hmm. I don't want to give dear Meg over here a case she cannot win." He pushes his round spectacles back. "My name is Vincent; who are you?" Nadyn: "A bird, a cat, a fish, and a noble!" Vincent: "Charming. Seriously, who are you?" Clara: "...I'm Clara, Cordova, um." Vincent: "Ah, Cordova. Hm. Strange to find you in a small town like this." Clara: "We've been going around a bit lately." Vincent: "And the others?" Nadyn: "Adventurers!" Vincent: "That's good, but in the legal profession I require names." Clara whispers to her friends to introduce themselves. Luna: "I'm Luna! I'm an adventurer, I guess." Nadyn is just waiting for Tsuki because she wants to see how this goes. Tsuki (telepathically): "Even though you're not representing me, Tsuki." Vincent is slightly taken aback and widens his eyes a bit. Vincent: "Interesting. Uh... a complication in court. The triton?" Nadyn: "Nadyn Shandegath. You may know me as Nadine Shandygaff." Vincent raises his eyebrows, as he has no idea who that is. Vincent: "And what is the case, exactly?" Nadyn (to group): "...what is our case?" Vincent: "Okay, perhaps that was a complicated question... Who is involved in the case?" Tsuki takes a step away from the others. Coaster is inclined to let the person with OOC legal knowledge take this one. (The recap is that Jabin was found with forged paperwork, and is also from the enemy side of a war, so even though they don't know exactly what they'll charge him with, he might need legal representation for that.) Clara: "There's a person who's been accused of falsifying paperwork." Vincent: "Ah, falsifying paperwork. What is their name?" Clara: "Jabin; came from Vanecia." Vincent: "Ah. Huh. This is an interesting case. Hm." He leans back on his chair. "Well, Meg, I'm afraid you must only observe this one. I will take on this case. This is an interesting confluence of criminal law and military law, which can be quite different." Meg: "Oh my god, this is so exciting, I get to see this, and I've never seen a military trial before, oh my god, this is so exciting!!" Vincent: "Hold on a second." He quickly drafts a letter in truly awful handwriting usually reserved for doctors, signs his name, shoves it into a letter, and says, "Alright, give this to whoever is detaining Mr. Jabin, and they'll make the arrangements necessary." Clara: "That's great, thanks! We'll be sure to take this to him!" (legal engagement letter added to inventory) Vincent: "When all that is done, I'll be able to visit him and take on the case. That does take a few business days, though, so you might want to keep busy." Tsuki is just trying not to get involved and go on trial himself. Clara: "That's fine; we'll be sure to let him know that he might have to wait a bit." Vincent: "Also, Tsuki, I may have to warn you that once they start asking questions of you--and your party if necessary--they may put a device on you that forces your powers to broadcast to everyone, not just who you choose." Nadyn: "...Does that include intrusive thoughts?" (Clarification: if he projects thoughts to one person, it goes to everyone. So no, not a public health hazard.) Vincent: "Just in case you are accustomed to doing so, I have personally seen many people lose cases because they said something that perhaps they should not have." If Tsuki can sweat, he is sweating. Vincent stands up from his chair--he's a big guy both horizontally and vertically. Vincent: "Very well. Have a good day." Tsuki: "...They're doomed." Luna: "Do we have to go into the questioning room?" (He's just warning you not to project secrets to your party since Tsuki will have to wear a device.) (Tsuki's NFT Voice: "At last, I'm free!") ...We realize we left Jake on the floor in Bordeauriva. Oh no. Luna: "That poor bartender." Who knows, maybe Jake will move on to other bars. Not much better, but it'll be a good time(?). Like a fetch quest, we ferry the letter to the officers and Jabin. Jabin opens and reads it, signs something in it, and hands it to the officers who nod at each other. Garcia: "Well, this secures some legal representation for him. I will notify you that he will be staying at the military installation until all the paperwork is processed." Dupont: "Ugh, I hate paperwork. Paperwork's a pain." Garcia: "We will see what becomes of it. The most likely scenario is that he gets a lighter 'slap on the wrist' in exchange for information, but that remains to be seen. At any rate, that will happen in a few days, which is not the speedy pace that you of the adventuring life are prone to. But if you would be so kind, we just have a few questions for you." (Out of character Nadyn is tempted to say "we don't talk to cops" but Tsuki notes that we've already talked to them a lot. He opens his mouth and we hear cricket noises come out. Not actual crickets, not today.) Either way, they get the hint from our silence. Dupont: "Very well, I understand." Garcia (nodding): "We thank you regardless for saving my life." They walk off with Dwayne and Koala. (Koala is with Dwayne even if it doesn't look like he's with Dwayne.) So, gang, there are a few days before legal representation. Be glad that it's not a few weeks, or else we'd be twiddling our thumbs for a long time. The party can do some Stuff. Very wise move not to talk to the officers, according to President, though we are not told why. We recall that Kaer has a managed forest area, some things dedicated to studying it, entrances to a few ancient ruins, and a bit of other stuff, but otherwise not a very fun town to be in, just a small town. (Which is why we ran away from it so fast last time.) Luna wonders if the ancient ruins have ancient herbs. President informs us that they are shallow ruins. There is also a local library. Nadyn goes and looks for a Google Translate level Common-to-Infernal guide. Apparently, that would be hard to find, and Nadyn's not great at Investigation. She doesn't find super reliable sources of Infernal, just books along the lines of "this is a spooky language, and it's a language that fiends speak to make contracts with each other, and some people just kinda know it". There are a few common phrases that are given there, mostly as a joke by the author: "If you ever find yourself needing this language, here's a few terms: 'hello', 'how are you', 'what are you doing', and 'please do not take my eternal soul'." (Always important, says Tsuki.) So alas, not enough to figure out how to sing It's A Small World in Infernal, but Nadyn could probably sing something else with these phrases. She could even make a new original song! Nadyn does so, with this pop-level common phrase book. Tsuki also offers to try to sing in Deep Speech (telepathically, at least). It's probably like tortured screaming and hissing noises. President leaves it as "maybe; we'll see when you can actually talk to someone in Deep Speech. Currently people do not usually speak deep speech, Tsuki." Anyways, that's how Nadyn spends the afternoon. Afterwards, Clara, looking into the ancient ruins, finds some people from the Bards' College very carefully studying the ruins and not going too far. We spot a very familiar (or at least kinda familiar) old man. He perks up when he sees us. Alphonse: "Hey! You are the nice young people I found in Bordeauriva! This is Doctor Alphonse!" Luna: "Oh! Hello again!" Clara: "Hi!" Alphonse: "Hello! I am currently just trying to revitalize this specimen." He's planted the plant that was almost dying before into the soil, and it looks pretty perky, but not the best plant in the world, just A Plant and we have no idea why this guy loves this plant so much, but he continues. "Got a little bit sidetracked; my knees, they don't function as well as they used to, but I suppose this is a little pit stop on the way to completing my research unto this plant." Alphonse recaps that these ruins are from an old civilization, he has some writing from its western part but it's hard to decipher, this specific plant generally only grows near ruins, and he noted that it only grew near the forest in Bordeauriva. But he seems to be a naturalist, not an archaeologist; the archaeologists are basically just going, "Yeah, as long as you guys don't, like, cast Fireball near us, we're fine". The ruins extend underground; some of it is lit up, but the deeper parts are pitch-black. We could explore these specific ruins and see what we find, or we could do something else. Luna investigates the special flower that can only grow here with her herbalism kit. President accidentally finds dnd.py (no, not pie). Luna rolls 16 Survival. Looking real hard at the plant, with regard to her herbalistic knowledge, she finds that the plant is most likely poisonous, guessing based on proximity to various species that are poisonous in this area. It's also perfectly symmetrical--not "some mirror symmetry", but literally symmetrical to the level of every leaf or droopy stem. Very strange. Luna: "First of all, don't eat that plant, it's poisonous. And secondly, I suspect it might have medical properties because it seems to be weirdly symmetrical in every sense." Luna has no reason to suspect one way or another whether it's safe to touch, at least, so she leaves it. Alphonse is sitting and enjoying the sun. Alphonse: "Well, what brings you here?" Nadyn: "...Legal trouble?" Alphoonse: "Ah, legal trouble. My brother was a lawyer. Makes a lot more money than I do." He stares, reminiscing, into the sky, or at least the horizon. Tsuki: "Into the sun--" No, just the horizon, like it's a beautiful day outside. But yeah, we've met this old guy again. Tsuki kind of wants to explore the ruins. Note that Lady of the Lake is not too far from here, if we wanted to pay her a visit. We could also go to a neighboring town--Cadako would be 2 days away, legal processing could take up to a week. It'd probably be good to let Vincent know if we're skipping town, though. Luna thinks the ruins feel sus. Tsuki says sus is good in D&D. Luna admits that that's the case, but only sometimes. Notably, Luna's raven familiar also used to live here and is excited to see the ruins. Raven: "Oh, yes, I mean--my parents always told me not to go there, but I think it might be fun." Luna: "Did they give a reason why you shouldn't go there?" Raven: "Well, I always thought it was superstitious. It's just a bunch of rock, right?" Luna: "Hm. I guess it could be fun?" Tsuki checks to see if there are torches lining the inside--sure enough, there are some explored areas with torches lining them, but there are also unexplored areas. Nadyn remembers something about super duper strong guardians if we go to the deep ruins, so we'd want to avoid going too deep. President assures us they could one-shot us. Luna shares with the group that her familiar is excited to go deeper into the ruins-- Nadyn: "Wait, we never got your familiar's name, did we?" Luna: "I was just waiting to see if anyone would ask! Her name is Stellara. Thank you for asking." But yeah, Stellara is just content to sit on Luna's shoulders. Birds usually do not go into caverns, or taverns for that matter. travenArchaeologists: "Please don't come here; we haven't taken a record of this place yet." But we can kinda go elsewhere, because the caverns are half archaeological site and half death trap, and the archaeologists really don't want to go into the death traps. So they only shoo us from the safe parts. We eventually go to a level where the archaeologists are like "Hey, yeah, just be careful, sweaty" and put Nadyn thoroughly off of doing archaeology with the Bards' College. Anyways, on this level, there is a complex of hallways all around us to the north, south, southeast, and southwest, as we descended into the middle of the room by spiral staircase. Tsuki votes weast south. Nadyn certainly feels like this experience is going to go south. So we go south and find a room. This room, as we enter, has two glowing red eyes. We all back away. Nadyn does so while waving and smiling. Clara stops and looks for long enough to note that they are on some sort of 3D object and that the eyes are oval-shaped. Tsuki stares at them, trying to get an idea of what they are. The robot, as we do this, (oops, president spoiled it)--this animatronic thing in the shape of an ant--stares at us. This artificial ant. It's not attacking us, just tilting its head, and its antennae (which look like TV antennae but we don't know what those are in-universe) point toward us. Tsuki stares, a bit confused, then shrugs, turns, and walks away. President assures us that we'd get a warning if something could one shot us. Luna wonders if beast-speech works on this giant robot ant. Luna (in beast speech): "Hi, we mean you no harm." Ant (very loudly and in Common): "Hello. How may I assist you?" Luna: "Oh. Um. I don't know. We're just exploring. Is there anything interesting or dangerous around here that you know of?" Ant: "I cannot answer that question." Luna: "Hmm. Anyone else?" Tsuki: "What's your purpose?" Ant: "My purpose." It stares at Tsuki for a second. "My purpose is to protect." Tsuki: "What exactly?" Ant: "I cannot answer that question." Nadyn: "But can you ant-swer a question" Ant: "Ah. Pun detected. Laugh track initiated." We hear a laugh track. Tsuki adds to it. Tsuki can now copy this whenever he needs--oh, he already is. Nadyn wonders if we can take this ant to the Other laugh track place we know of. Ant: "Be careful exploring. Many denizens live here." Tsuki: "So it's protecting something it can't tell us, we don't want to run into what it's protecting." Luna: "Probably not." Luna (to ant): "Can we help you with anything?" Ant: "Hm... Well, I suppose helping hands can never be too much of a concern. Due west of the starting position is a group of tree-like humanoids who seem to be guarding something. However, their meddling might interfere with my purpose. If they interfere with my purpose, I may be required to terminate them. It would be nice if you could tell them to leave." Tsuki: "And if they choose not to?" Clara: "You can't talk to them?" Ant: "I am not the best at diplomacy, for I cannot answer too many questions." Clara: "If they ask why you want them to leave, is there any reason you want us to give them?" Ant: "I am tasked with protecting this fortress. I cannot--there are things here which are not meant for them." Nadyn: "What's your name, if you are comfortable sharing?" Ant: "T3, version 10.3." Luna: "Well, I guess we could help out. Nice meeting you, T3." Clara: "Are they a threat? Are they bad? Or are they just freeloaders taking your space?" T3: "Bad is a relative term. I only know that they may act in ways that may cause me to have no choice but to terminate them. It is better if they are convinced to leave." Nadyn: "It's a bit concerning that they've done things to indicate they're worthy of termination, when we haven't." T3: "You have not exhibited any over-the-top behavior. I have let many creatures down here. Of course, whether they survive with the other creatures around here is not in my programming." Nadyn: "I mean more that they're treated as a threat to you and we're not." T3: "I can dispose of them quite easily, but I would rather not." Tsuki: "So we'll get rid of them." T3: "Diplomatically, if possible." Tsuki: "And if they refuse?" T3: "You will have tried your hardest." Tsuki: "That's good enough for me!" Welp, let's go weast! We go up to the east hall from our starting area, then further east a few rooms, until we go into a room that is brightly lit, almost as if by sunlight. In the center of this room we find a few trees we might be suspicious of, as well as an ephemeral thing that we saw last time we were in Din--the guy that had the sword that was missing from the ancient site Clara saw. He's currently trying to decipher some runes on the wall. Tsuki inserts a laugh track. The guy whips around. Treeguy: "What is that? Who are you?" Tsuki just waves. Treeguy: "I will not ask again: who are you?" His voice echoes and oscillates a bit. (Note, he's a ghost guy with tree elements.) Clara: "Hi, I'm Clara. Do you know that big ant over there where we came from?" Treeguy: "An ant? No. I do not." Clara: "Oh. Um, he sent us to talk to you." Treeguy: "What does it want?" Clara: "He just wants to ask you if you could, I dunno, move somewhere else? Why are you here anyway?" Treeguy (flickering in and out): "Stabilizing. I need to find something that will stabilize me." Clara: "Like what?" Treeguy: "Something that tethers me consistently to this plane. Otherwise,"--he blinks out for a few moments--"that happens." Clara: "Oh. What kind of a thing do you need? A particular thing, or just any thing with a link to you?" Treeguy: "Unsure, but the soil here has a stabilizing effect on my friends." One of the spriggans coils itself out of tree form and nods a bit. Treeguy: "They become less aggressive. They are my sisters. Perhaps it could help me somehow." Nadyn: "May I ask your names, just for posterity?" President: "Sure, um. (Notes, notes, notes...)" Treeguy: "My name is Dreesh. My sisters do not like sharing their names." Nadyn: "That's fine; nice to meet you though." Dreesh: "It is nice to meet you as well. I wish... You said an ant told you we should leave here?" Luna, having the highest wisdom among us, doesn't know how she knows this, but knows that the spriggan that transformed out of being a tree looks a little bit guilty. Luna (to that one): "Is there something on your mind you want to talk about or share?" The spriggan looks confused, but Dreesh translates for Luna, and the spriggan had a clenched fist, but releases something from her hand; it looks like a key of some sort. Dreesh: "A key?" He talks to the spriggan sister a bit. "Oh. S@#$. The security systems sometimes do not like too much meddling here. Or at least, I am under the impression that they are some kind of security system." Luna: "That is correct. They defend the area." Dreesh: "How about this: I shall go with you to this security construct and attempt to perhaps make peace with it?" Luna: "Please do be careful if you do that--it did say that it would have to terminate people who would cause it problems, but it should be alright to talk to, I think." Clara: "Yeah, he'd be open to talking." Nadyn: "Wouldn't be able to give much detail, but civil enough." Dreesh goes with us back to the ant robot. As we enter, T3 greets us. T3: "Oh, yes. He is one of our guests. Hello." Dreesh: "Um. I have been informed that we are trespassing upon you." T3: "Mm-hmm." Dreesh hands over the key. T3 (not showing emotion): "Thank you. I shall have this noted. However, one of your companions is not... hmm..." T3 tries to figure out a way to say this. "I must still ask you to leave." Dreesh: "Please, this place is the only stable place I've found for me and my sisters!" T3 (not having any of it): "That is very well and good. You may be sincere, but one of your companions is not. I must ask you to leave." They go back and forth; the ant is adamant about leaving. Dreesh agrees but looks sad about it. Luna asks the ant if it would be enough just for the others to leave but Dreesh to stay. T3 (after thinking): "Yes. But I suspect that for his own safety, he may want to stay with his companions. There are many things that crawl here. Currently they seem to dislike attacking larger groups, and they have learned not to destroy us drones. But someone who is alone and vulnerable may be at risk." Luna: "Maybe we could help Dreesh?" T3: "Hm. Perhaps." Nadyn agrees to help find the faker, or whatever the case may be. Clara wants to help Dreesh. Tsuki wonders what happened to that sword from when we ran into the spriggans last time--President reminds us that the guy was not very stable, was barely there, and couldn't really speak any languages we knew, and the spriggans were very hostile, and he teleported away at the end of the combat. Note, Dreesh still has that sword, but doesn't seem like the strongest of guys. He could probably be bodied by a 12-year-old who is sufficiently devoted or taking sus martial arts classes, such as Tom. Tom could just beat him up. That's kind of sad. Nadyn suggests that since we're promising to help and protect him, if he could please lend his weapon to the big buff strong paladin. Dreesh: "Well, I believe that my sisters, if they leave, can keep to themselves as long as there are no disturbances." He flickers. "But if I could have help with stability, and it would stabilize me and calm them down? That may be worth it." Note, the map is currently a chicken scratch (doctor-esque, not lawyer-esque). But as Dreesh takes us back to his spriggan sisters, something bad happens! The spriggan that uncoiled previously has huge scratches all over her, and the rest of the spriggans are huddled around her, still mostly in tree form but concerned, and they say something to Dreesh, and Dreesh panics a bit. With that, we will start next session! Hmm. There is an imposter among us? Next time there will be combat and stuff! And oh, we can take a level up. Level 4! We'll know why next session. (Tsuki: "It's because of Jake's demon pee." President: "It's like that gamer bath water... or somehow worse...")
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Post by Coaster on Mar 11, 2023 18:20:48 GMT -5
My Recap Of The Petting Zoo Squad's Landscaping And Dissection Session 19 As Much As I Was Able To Process It - February 25, 2023 Last session, we went to a lawyer and a library, met up with Dr. Alphonse again, learned Stellara's name, met the ant-bot T3 v10.3 in the ruins who wanted us to kick some folks out, now we're left in a spooky situation where one of Dreesh's sisters is on the ground with huge scratches, and the others are concerned but in tree form, and Dreesh is kinda devastated. When we enter the room we feel a lot of residual magic around us, and we feel a little bit stronger! Which was our level up. But as soon as Dreesh realizes that his sister is badly injured, we... stand in stunned silence, apparently. The residual magic is like a mini northern lights (localized entirely in this room, for now, and we can in fact see it). Dreesh's hands are shaking and he tries to get his sack out. It takes a few tries, and he rummages through trying to find something that can heal a tree-person; he wraps her up a bit, but she looks in pretty bad shape. We are reminded that we have healing spells. Clara tries to heal the scratched-up spriggan. There's some weird green stuff instead of blood, because it's a spriggan. Kinda like the Halo games except green blood instead of purple so it's rated T for Teen. In any case, Clara heals for a total of 8 hit points, stopping the bleeding. The spriggan smiles slightly and Clara slowly sees her twist her body up into a weird sad short curvy tree since she's not standing up straight--basically the saddest tree ever. Dreesh is still freaking out. Dreesh: "Oh my god, what did you do? What did you do??" Clara: "...I healed?" Dreesh: "Healed?" He puts his ear toward his sister's bark. Clara's not sure what he's listening for. Dreesh: "Ah. Okay. Okay. She's still alive. Just in hibernation." We don't know anything about spriggans or dryads--we have basically no idea how they work. Dreesh: "Oh my god... hibernating." He sighs with relief, but he still looks pretty pale. (Which is impressive, because he's not normally white. Right now, per President, he's paler than Justin Trudeau.) Dreesh tries to shake one of his other sisters who are in tree form, but when he talks to them in Sylvan, Luna (the only one that understands it here) hears that Dreesh is not talking in the normally sly or eloquent fashion expected of Sylvan speech--it's as if this is not his native language or he didn't grow up speaking it. Dreesh: (in Sylvan): "Guys, guys, please answer me, guys? Guys? GUYS?" He's freakin' out. Uninterrupted, he will continue to freak out and hyperventilate, so that's fun. Clara tries to pat Dreesh on the shoulder. Clara: "It's okay, your sister is going to be fine." Clara (internally): "Oh god, is this gonna work?" The physical contact almost feels like a weird video game glitch--part of her fingers react normally and another part phases through, almost like submerging the hand in water. He is unstable, after all. Dreesh: "Oh my god. Okay. She's going to be okay. Okay." He sits near the sad tree and, curiously enough, the other dryads are just not doing anything. Just kinda there. Dreesh is mentally checked out and sitting next to the injured sad tree. Nadyn starts singing, "The hills are aliive with the sound of muusiic". Tsuki remembers we're supposed to be kicking these guys out, but then again, they weren't like this before--they're currently all trees, other than Dreesh who is acting like a tree in that he is sitting down, which is what trees do all day. Regarding Nadyn's song: Dreesh isn't focusing on lyrics, but the sound is super triumphant and happy, whereas Dreesh is sad over his sister, and crying a bit and his sisters are just trees right now, so it doesn't fit very well. Tsuki opens his mouth and adds in some instrumentals (maybe someone in his halfling family was a musician who really likes that musical). Luna is trying to think of ways to help, but she's also slightly anxious because she can't think of anything and is worried for Dreesh. Nadyn notices that the crowd isn't pleased and switches to something more like Bring Me To Life. (wake me up, wake me up inside--) This does not help Dreesh, but it is wonderfully gloomy in an adolescent rage and sadness way. The moment he listens to the song, Dreesh's crying is replaced by a thousand-yard stare. Tsuki and Nadyn manage to push Dreesh to his limit and he shuts down a bit. President reminds us that ant-robot was looking for a key they took, and that there was a spriggan with bad intentions so please kick them out. But now, all the spriggans are just unresponsive--the process is blocked in the waiting state. Luna, being the one with the highest WIS, thinks there's something mighty suspicious about this whole situation--there was an imposter and something like this happened? Maybe there's something to investigate! Nadyn's heard this story before. She feels like we need to find a saw and cut the trees in half as a Solomon Solution. Luna suggests we not choose violence first and recommends not giving Nadyn a saw. Clara doesn't have one anyways. Nadyn looks toward Tsuki in expectation. He pulls out a sickle; that's the closest he's got. The northern lights magic continues to hum around us; oddly, Dreesh isn't reacting to it that much. Nadyn remembers that we can try Detect Magic and sits in front of Dreesh while ritual casting it to make him feel like he's not alone. After about 10 minutes meditating or whatever to see what kind of magic the ambient magic is, she discovers that it is in the Conjuration school. Tsuki's just walking around and looking at the trees. They don't look like much in this form--a bit like human-size bonsai. Tsuki looks around to see if anything looks off. Getting a 21 in Investigation, narrowing his eyes and looking around, he sees what might be a few clues: when he really focuses, it's almost like there are some green scratches and blood splatters leading to two of the sisters--a direct line between one of them and the sad tree. He also sees signs that this room connects to another room, buried deeply into these ruins, and another trail of the blood leads out past the door. He tells the group his findings. We remember that the ant-bot had told us that there are many factions here, some friendlier than others. Luna goes up to Dreesh and asks, "Sorry if this is a dumb or insensitive question, but how come you aren't turning into a tree like the others?" Dreesh (after shivering): "I don't know, I've always been a little bit different. But usually my sisters turn into 'trees' (quote-unquote) when they are injured or really scared, and it's kind of like a hibernation state almost? I guess I'm not very good at hibernating, being all twitchy." He blinks in and out of this plane for a second. Luna: "I see. Thank you for answering, then." Dreesh: "Well, uh." He looks at his sisters. "I guess we can carry them out? I can carry them out. But I kind of don't want to leave them and go back and forth. I'm scared about what might happen. I don't know who did this or why." Belatedly realizing the implications of the trail of blood leading out the room, Nadyn suggests that we can go in deeper and find the culprit while we leave Dreesh here in relative safety. But, he gives us the impression he might disappear halfway through. Luna asks if the ant-bot will be fine with us going deeper in. Nadyn also pokes the two other trees that had blood (and another one, for a control sample) and figures out that the magic is coming a lot stronger from these two trees compared to the regular ones. Nadyn: "Tsuki, where's that saw?" Tsuki: "It's just a sickle!" He hands it over. Nadyn: "Dreesh, are there any of these trees that you don't recognize?" Dreesh: "No, they're all there..." He names all his sisters by pointing at them. "This is Sai, this is Brahna, this is"--he stares--"sorry, it's a little hard with their hibernating forms--this is Soy," and so he continues listing each and every last one. And there were no physical inconsistencies like phasing through and such when Nadyn poked them (which would suggest illusions around our level range). Focusing further, the magic seems to be actually localized at these two trees. They are also rooted firmly into the ground, but not exactly like trees--their roots seems a little off. Luna, by inspecting the roots, would realize that they're almost mobile; they're not as hard to uproot, they move a bit when you push them, seeming a bit more fungi or animal-like than 100% tree-plant. Luna relays this info to the group. Nadyn tries to uproot the more magical trees and carry them towards ant-man. Dreesh: "Uh, sure, you can relocate them, as long as they're safe." He protectively looks at his tree sisters. Nadyn: "We won't be going in any deeper than this, no." The trees are pretty heavy--Clara probably takes most of the load, being the strongest, and the rest of us are more like moral support. Tsuki believes even a tree branch would crush him (and has hollow bones and such; can't even fly). Luna also has -1 strength. Nadyn would be up for two-personing it, but as it stands, it's mostly up to Clara. She at least tries to help with some of the more awkwardly shaped trees. So we take those super-magical trees back to ant-bot who stares at us curiously. T3: "Interesting. Hibernating trees. I wonder why you brought them here." Nadyn: "Just to check, are these the exact things you were telling us to remove from the ruins?" T3: "Not these exact things, but something like them." T3's eyes shoot little beams which asynchronously scan different parts of the trees. T3: "Although... You should probably know, these trees require urgent care." Nadyn: "How so?" T3: "Well... How do I explain this?... Hold on... Explanation level: 2." Nadyn: "WE ARE NOT A SMART PARTY OKAY" T3: "Explanation: Dryads, or spriggans, are often animated with magic. Hibernation can escape normal wounds, but magical wounds, not so much." Nadyn: "Okay I don't think any of us can dispel magic." T3: "Perhaps there is someone on the surface who may help, but I recommend removal." Nadyn: "...removal of the person on the surface?" T3: "Removal from these tunnels. Difficult to find an expert in dryad health underground." Tsuki: "How hurt do you think they are?" T3 (staring at them): "How hurt?... Please do not take my advice for legitimate medical advice. Please consult a medication bot or trusted health professional for medical advice. This is not intended as professional diagnosis. But, I would say that they need immediate extraction." Tsuki: "Okay, so he just wants them out of here." T3: "Well, yes, it is good to have them out of here. Magical injuries can be unstable. But it is also true that there is a dearth of dryad health experts underground." Nadyn: "Cool, maybe let's try finding Doctor Alphonse? He's into plants and stuff?..." We take the trees up the stairs, back up to the thing, where Alphonse is nerding out over plants, akin to that one Onion article headlined "Man Wastes Entire Life Becoming Anteater Expert", but a plant expert in this case. He stares at us as we arrive. Alphonse: "Oh my god! Ah! Dryads! I can't believe it! It's been so long since I've seen them!" Nadyn: "So I understand this is treads all over the distinction between a biologist and a medical doctor, but do you know enough about dryad physiology and treatment to figure out what's going on with this one?" Alphonse: "Yes, I am just a hobbyist botanist, but I can tell there is a leak of magic coming out of them. There is a spell"--he takes out a thin binder--"forgive me, I am not as good with magic as this younger generation is, but--aha!" He sees the spell. "I think I remember how to do this." He does this ritual casting thing. He's not very skilled at magic, but when he finishes, the northern lights effect disappears from the dryads. Alphonse: "A temporary solution, just like a band-aid." Nadyn: "Okay, at least they're not... magicking... as much, it seems?" Alphonse: "Yes, well, you know, it is a very obscure spell, but it helps a little bit with situations like this. I'm glad it worked. But I do not really know how to treat them aside from this, I apologize." Nadyn: "...can I see that spell" Alphonse obliges. It's something like Mending but a very specialized version that can fix certain things from overlapping planes, not just the material plane. We'd have to spend a lot of time if we wanted to learn this spell--Alphonse just knows it already and had to refresh himself on the exact method--but if we wanted to, we could learn it. It's less effective than Mending in area of effect, but in exchange, we could slightly heal things on any overlapping plane (e.g. the ethereal plane or any unseen magical objects--we could stem the bleeding, almost). It's a ritual spell. Tsuki thinks about coming back to this in one level. President informs us that there's a lot of magic in this world that's not in the PHB--stuff that people know but isn't adventurer focused, but we can learn them if we want to. Luna is interested in learning this as well. We're also told to note that such spells tend to be very situational; but even Clara could learn it, as long as we dedicate some in-universe time to it. Luna suggests we come back after we help these plants first. Alphonse (after some thought): "Well, the best place I know for something that could treat these dryads is, in fact, in Albaiin. There's a university there, as you all know, and there are many who know something about the fey. It could be a good option to find someone who could treat them there." Nadyn: "How far of a trip is that again?" Tsuki: "And do we have to take the trees?" We're told we have a week or so until the spell expires, enough to also go down to see Dreesh and tell him what's going on. We don't have to go to Albaiin with him--that's just where they'd get the most help. Luna: "Seems like a good idea; we should definitely tell Dreesh first." Clara: "And hope he doesn't panic again..." We go back down and explain the situation to Dreesh. Dreesh realizes we have to take all the dryads outside, and he asks for help since he's inconsistent with regard to carrying objects. Cool beans, let's take all of the friends outside, slowly and painstakingly. Doctor Alphonse, every time we bring out a new one, is increasingly excited. Alphonse: "Oh my god, how many dryads are HERE? Why were they underground??" Tsuki just sits up with Alphonse after the first trip. Alphonse (to Tsuki): "So, you can imitate anything?" Tsuki: "So, you can imitate anything?" Alphonse: "Ah." Tsuki: "Ah." Alphonse: "Oh, okay. You were at Mettei, correct?" Tsuki: "Yeah." Alphonse: "Ah, well, there used to be a singer whose voice I can't get out of my head." He mentions her name--this is a very popular artist. "Are you able to imitate that?" Tsuki thinks about it and if he can remember who it is, then he opens his mouth and the music comes out. Alphonse is very charmed. Alphonse: "Wow, that is an amazing talent!" Tsuki: "Comes in handy." Alphonse: "I bet!" Nadyn recognizes it too. Meanwhile, Clara's doing all the hard work! Wow! She's still the one lugging all the trees. This is like landscaping, right? Everyone should be glad Clara's not complaining. Clara gets a good deed. She grew up as a noble and has more appreciation for the landscapers on her estate now more than ever. Nadyn says that Clara has an opportunity to hug trees. Tsuki: "And these trees COULD just get up and walk by themselves but noooo, they're hibernating, they're getting the big strong paladin to do it... the moment we walk away they wake themselves up..." Anyways. Eventually we get all the trees out. Dreesh comes out of the ruins, and as he goes closer to the surface, we see him get fainter and fainter. Dreesh: "Ughhh, I don't feel so good. It was so nice down there." He wiggles a little in and out of existence. "Welp. Guess we'll see if I can make it the rest of the way there." He hugs one of the trees and blinks and teleports a short distance away with the tree. After he does that, he looks kind of sick. Dreesh: "...That was bad. That felt really bad." He walks dutifully and teleports the trees by holding them together and blinking in and out. He breathes heavily. Dreesh: "How far is Albaiin again? Just so I know?" Alphonse (alarmed): "...Well, it is approximately 150 miles..." Dreesh: "Great. One teleport down. Several thousand to go." Alphonse (VERY Concerned): "Are you sure you don't want to take some transportation there?" Dreesh: "I don't have money. It just kind of falls from me and people steal it. Well, it was nice meeting you guys. I gotta get my sisters to a doctor." He hugs them all and teleports one more time up northward. Luna runs up and offers to pay for the transportation. Dreesh: "Wait a second, I just need a few minutes before the next teleport... Oh, you would do that? You would help me transport them all the way to Albaiin?" Luna: "Of course! I have the money, and I don't want you to suffer trying to teleport them all the way there." Clara: "something, something, welcome to the forest..." Indeed, as we go back toward the forest, Clara's Meep senses start up again. Clara: "Ah (meme), here we go again." Yeah, we're tree-huggers now. We slowly get Dreesh to the horse bus and pay for a trip to Albaiin. Dreesh plus all the trees (which can go in storage, they don't need seats) is about 1 gold for a one-way trip (considering they're stackable, don't need food, etc.)--wait, actually 2 gold. The horse bus driver, when he sees that Dreesh has a bunch of trees, says, "...I'm not even going to ask." Dreesh: "I'm a landscaper. Yes, I landscape." Luna covers the whole price, since she offered. Clara (out of breath after moving them all): "Oh gosh, we should pay landscapers more." Tsuki's fanning Clara. She really appreciates it. We remember we have that very unstable sword we borrowed from Dreesh earlier. We could try hitting something with it, but the sword just go through stuff and not do anything. Also, none of us know the song "when we're jumping and popping we're dropping", and President's sister requested someone jump and pop at the same time so we can drop? Nadyn has no idea what that would entail. ("Pop" is apparently just a dance move, not a human exploding like popcorn.) Nadyn apparently learns this dance move from extradimensional inspiration while holding the sword--it'd be hard to properly wield, but from how slippery it is, she gets the inspiration to come up with this new "popping" move. Nadyn is apparently now a Warlock whose patron is whatever President's sister decides is funny. (Would be... interesting flavor.) Clara's the only one who the sword feels normal to, but it still can't do any damage, like how she tried to pat Dreesh on the shoulder and her hand passed through. The blade is just completely useless. Tsuki wonders if the sword could hit a ghost. We don't know, but there are inscriptions on it similar to where Kat found the altar with the missing sword. Nadyn suggests we COULD put it back in the altar, since it's nearby and all. We hear the helpful voice of T3 through the ground. T3: "Excuse me. There is a complication. Thank you for removing them from the underground ruins. However, if you would be so kind, it would very much be appreciated if you were to find the... hmm... the ne'er-do-well responsible." Tsuki: "So... we need to go deeper!" T3: "I suppose so. I am not a combat robot. Nor a doctor robot." President: "It's ChatGPT? Wait! Hold on! I could just put all his dialogue in ChatGPT and see what happens! He's a robot and ChatGPT is a robot! I could literally have my campaign be designed by chatGPT!" Tsuki: "We're doomed." Clara: "It begins!" We are saved by ChatGPT being actually down at the moment. Clara runs back over to Dreesh with the sword before the carriage takes off. Clara: "Do you still need this?" Dreesh: "Oh, well, it's a fun little sword, but I don't need it. It's just that it was like me. I wanted someone to study it for me, but if you require the sword, I would greatly appreciate your help." Clara: "...Okay, so does that mean we can keep the sword?" Dreesh: "Uh, yes, you may keep the sword." Clara: "Alright, thanks for the sword!" Dreesh: "No problem!" Clara's not going to say "but the blade doesn't do anything!!"; she's just going to be appreciative, like "thank you for this useless sword". Maybe just bonk people with the handle instead. Clara could actually try that. Perhaps (according to President) Clara would be interested in the sword because the runes on it are very similar to where she found the empty altar for her Oats and felt all serene. It's the Sword of the Oats. The Oat Sword. She can make oat milk with it?... Tsuki mentions that we could either return the sword right now or go deeper to see what ant-guy wants and follow that trail of blood. The sword doesn't have a scabbard, so Clara just firmly grasps it in her hands. We go to the altar shrine thing first because we don't want her to have to hold this useless sword. ChatGPT is back up and suggests things that we basically already did for the investigation--check for chemical/magical stuff, look for physical evidence, identify suspects, gather info from witnesses--short of telling the cops, because we don't want to talk to military police. Now, we're back to the Oat Shrine: it's basically a bunch of nature stuff in a mound shape braided together. Inside there are some will-o-wisp-like hazes of light, and over there is a small altar with runes that seem a lot like the ones on the sword, and a statue just kinda standing there. There's a hole for the oat sword, a little stand. The oat stand. For oat milk. Clara puts the oat sword in the stand. It kinda flashes with some green energy and the statue slowly tilts its neck down, very slowly, very very slowly because it's basically made of stone. Statue: "Who has put the sword back into its place?" Everyone points at Clara. The statue squints a bit. As it squints, we hear the stone crackling, as if someone has been asleep for a long time and there's still eye crust all over their eyes. Statue: "What is your name, young one?" Clara: "...Hi, I'm Clara." Statue: "Interesting. Do you promise to protect nature and the people of the forest?" Clara: "...Yes?" Statue: "Do you promise to uphold light in the world?" Clara: "Yes." Statue: "Your intentions appear to be true, and you have proven your worth. Please take this sword." Clara pulls out the sword again. The oat sword. Is anything going to happen to it? Well, it's very anticlimactic. She takes the sword and it's just a normal sword again. Hooray, she did it, it's usable! Usable Sword of Oats. Statue (seeming happy): "Use it well. And use it to protect people, or else you may face its wrath." Very cryptic. Then the statue goes back to sleep. Clara: "Goodnight?" As he's shutting down, he says, "Thank you. I enjoy resting." Clara: "I don't blame him." He looks very comfortable. Clara: "Ain't that a mood, sometimes you just want to lie there and turn into stone." President: "Just let the mud of time have eye boogers near your eyes. Just actual mud." As far as we can glean from first glance, it looks like an ordinary sword with pretty things on it, with nothing else special about it. President: "It's made from oat milk, that's what's special about it." Nadyn: "Extremely crusty oat milk?" Clara: "Ewww." Nadyn: "'At first glance' implies 'maybe magical if you attune to it'..." Anyways! Golem said to "use it for good or else". Could mean "or else the weather will be bad", "or else I'll crush your face in", or "or else you'll get bad indigestion from licking the blade of crusty oat milk and we'll have a whole session about looking for anti-diarrhea medications. Just like hanging out with your grandparents!" Nadyn: "Luna knows about plants, she could probably figure something out!" We could worldbuild plants for digestive issues! Tsuki: "Just chew on some charcoal." Nadyn: "Activated charcoal sword of oats..." ANYWAYS. Presumably, after meeting this nice golem man, we go back to the nice ant-bot. T3: "Hello. Regrettably, I must inform you that I would like you to go deeper and follow whoever has committed this crime--" TsukI: "Okay." T3: "--under section 10 to the power of 3 plus 172 of the law, it is frowned upon to meaninglessly slaughter someone when a law authority is already questioning them." Nadyn: "Wouldn't it be faster to just say 1172?" T3: "Unfortunately, I have been programmed to say all numbers in scientific notation." (...Except scientific notation would be 1.172 times 10 to the power of 3.) T3: "My language processing with numbers could use work; unfortunately, there is nobody here to provide that. I have very little to offer you except my gratitude and the spoils of whoever you may find making these tunnels a nuisance for me. What do you say?" Nadyn: "Cool." Tsuki walks off toward the direction we already know. T3: "What an enterprising young man." Do we all follow Tsuki? Nadyn: "Probably a bad idea in general, but yes." Tsuki goes back into the tunnels to where Dreesh was hanging out, and further inside. That place was nice and lit up, but we might need to light up something because some of us don't have darkvision, not naming names. Tsuki has a torch. Luna casts Produce Flame for the first time! A flickering flame appears in her hand to light the space. As we go deeper, we go through empty rooms. The tunnels aren't very well-planned, almost as if they were tunneled by a bunch of ants. Wooooooow. Amazing worldbuilding. But unlike something tunneled by ants, it's a bit furnished--there's a floor, it's not all cave, there are weird circuit-like things around us. We follow the trail of green blood until it goes cold. Tsuki's in the front of the group and has to roll Dexterity. With a 17 he narrowly avoids a trip wire, noticing it at the last second. He steps over it, but since it was so unexpected for him, he plants headfirst into a stone thing. Raising his torch to illuminate it, it's a very lifelike statue, and it seems to be in a screaming pose, but it isn't actually moving or making noise. Tsuki slowly crawls away from it. So, petrification trap or something potentially? We could try tripping the trip wire and sees what happens-- Nadyn: "No." Tsuki mentions the trip wire. Where's Key when you need them? (Key's living her best life.) Or Marg? (Marg would have probably been like, "Woooooah bro, he's so stone, that's just what I want to be. The ultimate stoooone.") We think of Marg as we look at this stone man who has quite a fearful expression on his face. Or maybe we need to make sure we don't have our backs to it since that's another pop culture thing, isn't it? Luna, as the party's sole brain cell (+2 INT), thinks whoever petrified this person wasn't triggered by a trap since the person looks very aware and scared in his facial expressions. She relays this to the group and tells us to look out for someone that could petrify--and also if we could find a way to unpetrify, that might be nice, because it doesn't look very pleasant. Tsuki casts False Life on himself to be on the safe side. Just in case. What could go wrong, right, says President? Nadyn prepares for trouble. Tsuki makes it double. We're not afraid of being petrified, because that's for losers, says President! So we go further, but carefully. As does Clara, with her crusty oat milk sword. We press on into the darkness very carefully. (We make sure to assert that since we have actual light, brightly colored red tiles won't sneak up on us like that one comic that makes fun of reliance on darkvision.) Tsuki's still in front. As he turns a corner, he must roll a Constitution save. With a 19, he sees a pair of very stark eyes in the darkness and before he knows it, something in the back of his head tells him to immediately look away before he makes direct eye contact, so he looks down and narrowly avoids something happening to him. But his heart is definitely pounding in his chest and we should roll initiative! (And yes, Tsuki does telepathically tell us to look away from it.) Tsuki immediately drops the torch and casts Invisibility, so he is now invisible, and moves away from where he dropped the torch. It is a very tight corner. He tries to sneak up behind the scary creature. Pod racing Nadyn, not having to See it, but just Identify a creature of choice within range and having been warned "don't look at It", focuses on the concept of It in her mind and uses Dissonant Whispers. It fails the save (being not very smart), so it takes some damage and runs away. Nadyn also bardically inspires Luna. Bassy (we're calling him Bassy now), is like "What the hell did I just hear? This is awful!" and uses all its speed (which isn't much) to run away. But then, it runs back with a dash action because these people are mean and it wants to destroy us. it's just a basilisk trying to live its basilisk life. Luna uses Faerie Fire in its vague area without looking at it. It gives us advantage "if we can see it" but seems like it cancels out disadvantage from not looking at it? Clara attempts to blindly hit the target but misses. Tsuki, at the basilisk's behind, runs up and casts Inflict Wounds, but misses. Then he runs back, taking a 13 damage kick from the basilisk as he runs. Nadyn suggests turning the basilisk around somehow so she can blind it, and gives Healing Word and Bardic Inspiration to Tsuki, peering at him around the corner while trying to keep the basilisk out of her field of view. Basilisk tries to bite Clara and actually succeeds with a 19, for a whopping 16 damage. President thinks the basilisk looks adorable based on the official art--just a big chonky happy-looking guy, an absolute unit. Luna tells Stellara to wait in the hallway so she doesn't get petrified, and goes just close enough to cast a spell on the basilisk without looking at it directly (canceling out the advantage from Faerie Fire) but gets a nat 1, so the flung bolt smacks into the wall. It's okay, it happens to the best of us. She tried at least. Clara's turn: she hits the basilisk and divinely smites it for 17 total damage! Tsuki tries Inflict Wound with an actual spell slot and bravely looking directly at its butt. He hits--and actually since he's so brave he gets the faerie fire advantage and gets a crit! 33 necrotic damage from 6d10, wow! As the kids say, 33 necrotic damage is a pretty massive L for that basilisk. Basilisk just kinda Dies. Straight-up dies. Does the big long theatre death "blarrgh" sound. It's lying there dead. Tsuki kicks it. Nadyn wonders if Tsuki's gonna take its eye, but he kicks it a few more times just to make sure. Then he does, in fact, take an eye--it's a big squishy eye, and he has no jars to put it in. Luna, again the one brain cell in the party, Knows About Animals. She recalls reading about basilisks in many books and that they petrify things in order to store and eat them later, and can unpetrify things using a gland in their mouths. That's a fun fact. Luna: "Hey, want to take out some glands from its mouth? " Tsuki shrugs and looks in its mouth, not sure what he's looking for. Nadyn: "This would be a time for the Help action!" Tsuki pokes around with a dagger in the beast's mouth, rolling Animal Handling(?), with advantage because of course Nadyn knows what a Gland looks like and she's mostly just holding the mouth open anyways, and Tsuki also still has the bardic inspiration and stuff. 16 total. Luna's not having any direct part in this, but Tsuki cuts out a few glands from its mouth, not enough of an expert to know which is which, but one of them might be the reverse petrification gland? The others are just salivary glands. Luna: "At least they're not dangerous." President: "Actually there's one poison gland." Nadyn: "Worst case, we just put the poison on the stone guy, and what's the worst that could happen?" Luna (regarding the dead basilisk): "Normally I wouldn't say to do that to a creature, but right now it's more important to be able to un-petrify..." Hey, the body is mostly intact. It's just a tonsilectomy. Nadyn asks if we want to save the person earlier in the hallway. Luna doesn't know how many usages the gland has, probably just one or two though--a basilisk probably wouldn't have to unpetrify stuff often enough to have that much capacity. There could be other petrified people, but that one seemed highly distressed, so it might not be a bad idea to try. Tsuki squeezes one of the glands at random onto the statue. It gets covered in spit. Mildly disappointing. He tries gland #2. Luckily, that one is indeed the unpetrify gland! As he squeezes a little bit out, the guy slowly begins to de-stone, and as it reaches his face, we hear him finish screaming. He stops screaming, looks at himself as he's getting unpetrified, and stares at us, saying, "Oh my god. I can't move. Why can't I move??" It's not a very pleasant experience; it's like sleep paralysis. Nadyn asks what year it is. Tsuki stands there waving the glands around. Statue guy says it's the year 2512. That's about 50 years ago. Tsuki: "You've been petrified for 300 years." Luna: "FIFTY." Guy: "Fifty--fifty years ago?! Oh my god." He pants a bit. "Wait. Wait. Does that mean that loan shark is dead?!" Luna: "Depends on how old he was?" Guy: "Aha! Wait. Wait. Are any of you from Corroza?" Nadyn: "Uh... Actually, where are you from? We're kinda from everywhere." Guy's demeanor is like he's from an old-fashioned magazine. Tsuki would recognize it as a 50-year-old ugly fashion trend. Guy: "I am from Corroza. I was... a guy. Is the government still... you know... democratic?" Nadyn: "There's a civil war and stuff." Guy: "Civil war, nice. Politics, politics. Have you ever been to Corroza?" Tsuki: "Yes." Guy: "Do you know a guy named Mario?" Tsuki: "Does he have a brother Luigi?" Nadyn: "Is his first name Itsumi?" Guy: "No to both. Man, what a son of a--Do you think debts go away after 50 years?" Luna: "Honestly, probably?" Tsuki: "If they don't, the interest is probably higher now." Guy: "Ehh, I'll chance it. I got some things from over here--" He shows some old currency, but it's still gold, so it can be smelted down or something. Guy: "I need a drink. Is there a bar near here?" Tsuki: "I'm sure there is, as soon as you leave the ruins." Guy: "Nice. Be careful down here, there's like this weird lady who like, ugh. Man, who knows what she does with people. Yeah, I was setting up these traps so I could be safe, but this stupid big basilisk thing froze me. I never want to see another animal in my life." Stellara takes that personally. Nadyn: "So the traps around here are ones you set up?" Guy: "I could disarm them if you'd like..." Luna: "That'd be appreciated, probably." Guy gives us a thumbs-up. Nadyn: "For the record, what's your name?" Guy: "My name is Lyvin." A very old-fashioned name. Was very popular, but not anymore. Luna: "Well I guess you can say you've been Lyvin around here for 50 years." Lyvin: "And I had an ex-husband; he was awful. You think he kicked the bucket?" (This guy seems in his late 20s.) Tsuki: "There's a chance, but he's probably just really old." Lyvin: "darn it. Well..." This guy seems like he had a very unpleasant life. Nadyn: "Say, wanna be an adventurer? " Lyvin: "I need a drink... actually, god, I need to go to the bathroom. Wait, I'll be right back." Jake would be proud: this guy, just holding 50 years of pee, leaves to find a place to do Jake-approved actions. (But it's not public if there's nobody else around, so maybe not.) This session, we helped out Dreesh, as well as Lyvin who is grateful but also wants a drink. The gland is half-full. Nadyn: "No, it's half-empty." Luna: "It still has one use! Probably." Tsuki: "Potion guy would probably like it." Nadyn: "All we need to do is find more basilisks to farm glands from, until the big one comes out and we kill that too, and then we've wiped out an entire species!" Next session, extinction event. The gang causes an extinction. We are the gang.
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Post by Coaster on May 13, 2023 18:57:11 GMT -5
Catch-up time! My Recap Of The Petting Zoo Squad's A-maze-ing Session 20 As Much As I Was Able To Process It - April 1 2023
So Lyvin had 50 years of pee saved up, which is probably enough for us to take a short rest. We do so. The cave is full of ambient sound known as "complete silence" and "the occasional creak and freaky hiss". Stellara's staring at the dead basilisk like "Oh dear." It's not common for birds to see basilisks because they live underground. Clara got a stray phone call from Lady of the Lake and is now frantically trying to clear up misunderstandings (aka is a little late to session).
President: "Does Tsuki have anything weird in his pack?"
Nadyn: "That's like asking if the sky's blue..."
Tsuki: "Eyes, glands, skeleton finger..."
President: "How have you stored the basilisk eye?"
Tsuki: "Wrapped up and put in the bag for now. It's all fresh still!"
Pres: "You don't have a jar or something?"
Tsuki: "That's next shopping trip. Plan to get a bunch since I collect a bunch of random stuff."
Stellara is judging Tsuki. Makes sense; Tsuki's basically a giant crow, and Stellara's a raven.
Stellara: "What is he doing?..."
Luna: "You know, that's a great question. Uh... Collecting, for some reason? I guess we'll find out the purpose eventually."
Stellara: "I mean, I understand being a scavenger, but even WE understand that stuff goes bad."
Luna: "Yeahhhh. Hopefully he'll get some jars soon, or something. Otherwise he might start smelling."
Nadyn: "We've got soap though!"
Stellara: "I heard that humans have something called soap, yeah. You might need that."
Tsuki (pulling out a bar of soap): "I have bars of soap too... I currently have four bars."
President: "That's right, you stole some! (Completely forgot.)"
Tsuki: "I am prepared."
Stellara is still judging Tsuki, but maybe a little less strongly, and instead trying to shame him with raven noises. Nadyn also gives back Tsuki's sickle in case she didn't already.
Clara: "I think I heard something I was not supposed to hear."
Tsuki: "Clara heard about burning down the forest?"
President: "Actually, Clara heard something much worse..." (Off-mic communication.)
Luna, before we head out, casts Goodberry and gives a bunch of berries to us--2 for each of the party members. They restore 1hp each and give nourishment for the day, but only stay good for 1 day. We go deeper into the dungeon; Tsuki has a torch still, and Luna produces more flame, so we can cut through the darkness. It's very quiet. Luna (rolling the best Perception) is cautiously surveying her surroundings while everyone else has been lulled into complacency: she hears something and pulls on the person in front of her (which happens to be Clara). Clara barely manages to escape a giant metal thing falling off from one of the walls of the cave. Tsuki, unfortunately, gets squished underneath a giant ant. (This is not one of the traps Lyvin was disarming.) So he's stuck at the moment. The thing looks like an ant, and still has some movement in it, but crucially, it has bits of metal in it, which are not normal for an ant exoskeleton to have.
Luna: "...Isn't it? Didn't we meet one with a lot of metal earlier?"
President: "Yes we did", says the godly voice from above. That Tsuki can somehow hear. (Another voice for the brain.)
Tsuki wishes he had cast False Life again after that rest. He tries to wiggle out; as he tries to, there's an angry noise coming from the ant. Tsuki offers it candy, questioningly? Its antennae touch the honey candy, considering it. Being a robot ant, there's a tiny clamp that reaches out from one of its legs, takes the candy, and then tosses it toward its mouth so the ant can eat it.
Ant (robotically): "Hmmm. High-sucrose-content. I-am-satisfied."
It also just stays there. It doesn't move.
Luna (to ant): "Are you okay? Would you mind stepping off our friend?"
Ant: "Majority of own systems shut down. Movement impossible."
Luna: "Well, that doesn't sound good."
Ant: "Yes. T3 sent me here. We almost die for the greater good of our clan. Or, I suppose, of our system. Yes, I was to eliminate a problematic program, but alas, the only thing I could do was hide in low power mode."
Luna: "What was the problematic program?"
Ant: "Legacy program. Large power drain on rest of system."
Tsuki: "Hmm."
Nadyn: "I know Tsuki said something about an NFT thing, is it that kind of power drain?"
Ant: "I see news of the environmentally unfriendly practice has reached this sector. I must advise you that it is not good and has no use cases. But no, I do not believe it is that simple--we would have been able to turn it off otherwise. Bird-shaped humanoid, I am sorry for this predicament."
Tsuki: "Yep, guess I live here now."
Ant: "Well. What is your name?"
Nadyn: "You're new housemates, introduce each other!"
Tsuki introduces himself.
Ant: "What does your species eat?"
Tsuki: "Basically what anything else organic eats?"
Ant: "I see. My name is T1 version .95, pre-release beta. I have been in beta for th-th-thousands of your planet's years."
Nadyn: "Just a beta ant..."
TI: "Did you know I have a bug in my natural language processor that allows me to properly state scientific notation?"
Nadyn: "I mean, you kind of are a bug?"
TI: "Indeed. I enjoy this form. Well, not now. But usually. I suppose, if you really wanted to, my body is segmented, so it is perhaps possible for you to lift a part of me so that the little bird may escape."
Tsuki: "The little weak bird."
Nadyn: "Not to be confused with Stellara, who is all-powerful."
TI: "I apologize, Tsuki, but I detect that you are indeed a weakling and your strength levels are below average."
Tsuki: "That's fair."
So we have a broken ant robot.
Clara: "I'm sorry, tell me if this hurts!"
She tries to lift TI to let Tsuki out.
Nadyn: "I was gonna say: joke's on the ant, ALL our strength levels are below average! Except Clara."
Clara doesn't manage to power-lift the ant, but does manage to lift the parts around where Tsuki is, and it takes some time, but in one fell swoop, she lifts just enough that Tsuki can scramble away for a split second.
Clara: "Well, okay, my below-average-strength friends, we must find a new power source for this ant. Wait, isn't that just food?"
Nadyn: "Well, depending on what the ant eats, we could bring some juicy fresh basilisk meat over."
TI: "Unfortunately, I cannot digest basilisk corpses. Also, that thing attempted to petrify me." Ant looks into the distance. "But I cannot be petrified."
Luna: "Can you eat berries?"
TI: "It depends, but I have never had a berry before."
Luna walks up to wherever its mouth is and offers it a goodberry. TI eats the goodberry.
T1: "Refreshing. 10% more power restored. I can now move my head." It moves its head to face Luna. "Hello."
Luna: "Hi! I'm glad that worked. Would you like another?"
T1: "No. I would like for the threat to my system, our system, to cease existing."
Clara rejoins the party proper, darn DST shenanigans. Clara is also told she got an accidental message from Lady of the Lake. (No, the other group did not blow up the lake.) That is, Clara hears an argument between Lady of the Lake and someone else.
Lady: "No, you can't come here, what are you talking about? I didn't want to invite ALL of you over!"
Granny voice: "Oh, sweetie, it'll be great, we shall cause these mortals pain and suffering!"
Lady: "What? Who told you you could do this?"
Granny: "Why, Jake, of course!"
So, it appears she's with her family who wants to celebrate Fiendsgiving or something like that. Clara freezes up and has a "what is even happening" expression. The weight of Meepliness weighs on her. She stands there for a moment.
Clara: "I think--nope, something's definitely happening with Lady of the Lake."
Tsuki: "They're probably okay for now..."
Clara: "Jake has something to do with it."
Tsuki: "He probably peed in the lake?"
Clara: "No, it's worse than that. Worse than the usual messing with mortals. We have to do something."
Tsuki: "It'll be fine for now."
Clara: "Are you sure?" She wonders if she's supposed to hear that, or if the Lady of the Lake would be upset that she accidentally wiretapped the call.
Tsuki: "It's not your fault--it's the Lady's faulty spellcasting! She made a messed-up cursed item."
Clara: "Well, yeah, that's true... Should we find out what's happening with Lady of the Lake? Sounds like she has some dangerous uninvited guests."
Tsuki: "Well, she has a mimic and a dragon... "
Nadyn: "We're also in the middle of the dungeon a bus ride away."
President: "Good plan." Says the godly voice in Tsuki's head, that only he can hear.
Tsuki: "Ignoring the one that says 'invest in electrum'..."
After we've met a nice ant (sorry, ant, Nadyn can't give you any healing because you're a construct)--in the end we're all constructs--
Tsuki: "It's weird when you have a construct in the party."
President: "It also doesn't work on social constructs."
--after the ant, the tunnel opens up to smaller tunnels we don't think we could pass through, unless we squeezed Tsuki through, maybe. But it'd be really uncomfortable.
Tsuki: "Good thing we have a very tiny bird!"
Stellara: "Oh, but there must be like 10 of these little things. I wonder where they all lead?"
Luna: "Would you like to try taking a look?"
Stellara: "Hmm. Well, it's not every day that I get to go in an underground cavern and go do underground things. Let's do it."
Stellara wants to exercise her wings, so she picks one of the higher-up ones.
Stellar: "Oh, wow, it's really dark in here."
She goes silent for a second. We hear the sound of something going on, then a whirring noise.
Stellara: "Uh, I don't think I should have done that."
Luna: "Uh oh."
She looks through the eyes of her familiar to see what's going on. In the tunnel, something is oddly bright and coming at Stellara at high speed. In her beak, there's a bolt she pulled out because she was curious about it. (This is something birds do. They love pulling out nails from things.)
Nadyn: "I mean if a bolt could just be pulled out, then the threading must have been very stripped or something--"
President: "No, birds would just work on that all day. Keeps their beaks sharp, at least."
Anyways, once Stellara pulled the thing out, something got activated, and there are a bunch of small things barreling towards her. Stellara decides to just fly away. She whistles audibly as if nothing conspicuous has happened, like "nope nothing happened it's completely empty." Luna stops her familiar-eyes once she's back.
Luna: "I'm doubtful. What were those things flying at you?"
Stellara: "No, what? Nothing happened!"
Nadyn: "It's like catching your kid with a hand in the cookie jar..."
Stellara: "I just saw something biteable, and kinda just... bit it."
Luna: "What did you bite? Do you know what you bit?"
Stellara (showing the bolt): "It was attached to something, and when I pulled it out, something turned and a whirr happened, but now I have this cool shiny thing! You want it?"
Luna: "Uhh, sure?"
Stellara gives her the shiny thing.
Luna: "It's just a regular bolt?"
Yep, it's just a bolt, with maybe something at the tip that looks kinda jagged but otherwise just a regular bolt.
Stellara: "See? Nothing bad happened."
Luna: "Okaaay. Well, thanks for this? I'm still slightly concerned though."
Stellara: "I took it from the hole."
Clara: "Is there anything weird about the hole, or is it just a standard bolt hole?"
It was one of the holes just like a dozen others in the area, but fairly high up.
Nadyn: "Do we want to investigate the whirring noise?"
In fact, there was something coming out toward Stellara, is that still coming? (President gives us latitude to work through our thoughts and discuss with each other.)
Nadyn: "Because we should probably GET OUT OF HERE if there was something bright coming at Stellara."
Tsuki: "Are there any holes other than these small ones?"
There are two large human-sized passages, or large-ant-sized passages.
Tsuki: "Well, it's either turn back or one of these, I guess."
We pick one of the passages. Nadyn suggests we pick the rightmost one because that's the right one to take. It's dark, so we can't tell if there's a difference between the two. Maybe the right one's the left one, but we go to the right one. Ducking into the cavern on the right, we don't roll initiative yet. As we're going through, there's more description first! We see yet another fork--ants just build tree-like structures, apparently--but before we can get there, we hear the whirring noise, and it's initiative time. Tsuki regrets forgetting to cast False Life again. (At least we weren't in group B's game today--we're told that it was a disaster, since an NPC stonewalled them (which President makes happen sometimes), very clearly some sort of construct pretending to be human, and the players were trying to be gentle, but he very loudly declared "I was made like all humans were made! My parents (NSFNTWF)!" at the top of his lungs.)
There are four drones. We call them "Klink" 3, "Klank" 2, "Klunk" 4, and "Kronk" 1. Clearly we have the souls of poets. Nadyn suggests offering the drones the bolt. Klank goes first and is very angry, almost like a little hornet. It's buzzing but can't buzz that well because it's in close quarters. Nevertheless it stings Clara for 4 damage and poisons her (at the beginning of each round until Klank dies, she will lose 2HP if she keeps failing the save). Klink's next and tries to fly over Clara to attack Luna. After President thinks about what wasps do: it tries just bumping into Luna (and barely misses hitting her). It klinks into the wall and makes a klank noise. Tsuki eldritch blasts Kronk for 15 damage. That's quite a lot for Kronk, but Kronk is still standing. Next is Klunk. Klunk is like, "hmmmm. who dares attack my friend." And Klunk tries to sting Tsuki but crit misses. You win this time, Tsuki, you win this time. Luna's next, turns to Klink, holds out the bolt, and says, "May I offer you a shiny bolt in this trying time?" Klink is still dazed and stares at the bolt. It doesn't seem to understand her, but she is good with animals, so she tries a Persuasion (Animal Handling) roll, getting 15. Klink accepts the bolt, and she doesn't know what robot wasps look like when they're happy, but she guesses this is the happiest they can be, even if they're kinda sedated. Klink decides to go back to the mothership. Klink has survived.
Nadyn viciously mocks Kronk, who fails the save (since wasps are not very wise) and takes 1 damage. It buzzes and seems angry. Clara's next and smacks Klank for poisoning her, but swings and misses and falls over ungracefully with a crit miss. But at least she passes the save to expel the poison using the power of the Meep! She decides to just walk it off!
Nadyn: "Is there any grass underground that she was touching?"
President: "No, there is no grass. The robots here really do not touch grass."
Next is Kronk, who is very angry and tries to stab Tsuki with its butt, but doesn't hit. Klank's like, "haha, you have yet to defeat me!" and decides it's round 2 of butt stab time, but also does not hit. Klank has failed to butt stab. Basically, because Kat stumbled away, it just whooshed past to hit the air. Klink is just happily buzzing, having the time of its life. Nadyn considers that we should offer them some electrum. If only we invested in electrum. Tsuki eldritch blasts Klunk for 11 damage. Klunk tries to butt-stab Tsuki again (Tsuki: "Bring it!") but barely misses. It's been foiled by the foul smell of his pack's contents.
Tsuki: "It hasn't even been a full day yet!"
President: "They just know."
Luna eldritch blasts Klunk and misses, but Stellara is cheering her on, just spectating. Nadyn cure woundses Clara back up to full to help walk off the poison. Clara hits Klank again but still misses. She's swinging her sword as if practicing poorly for little-league baseball. Kronk tries to buttstab Tsuki but rolls as terribly as everyone else. Klank manages to hit Clara again, and poisons her again. Klink is still happy. Life update: Klink has bought a lot of moisturizer and is treating themself right. That's Klink's life right now. Aren't the rest of us jealous. Tsuki blasts Kronk again and rolls 20 (and feels bad for it) resulting in 18 more damage. Kronk buzzes sadly to the ground and falls. There's a big metal clank.
Nadyn: "No, Klank's on the other side of the group--"
(Tsuki rerolls for fun and gets another 20.)
Klunk cannot feel for the death of its partner; it just sees bird and damages for 6, but Tsuki manages to avoid getting poisoned and uses Hellish Rebuke, blasting it for 24 damage. Klunk's like, "bzz bzz bzz error error" and also falls to the ground with a clank. Luna's next and blasts Klank for 4 damage. Nadyn mocks Klank for 3 damage and it has disadvantage next attack. We hurt its feelings even though it doesn't have feelings. Impressive. Clara, still poisoned, Cure Woundses herself back to full again -2. Klank's mission in life is to cause Clara a lot of pain, but barely misses hitting her. Tsuki blasts Klank successfully for 5 damage. Luna blasts away again (so anyways she started blasting). She hits for 5 damage. Nadyn's tired of mocking and tries to smack Klank with the rapier, but misses (the rapier goes klank). This thing is functionally immortal. Clara's still poisoned. She's mad. She hits Klank really really angrily. It's okay, she's not hurting anyone. But she couldn't hurt a fly? Actually she hits!
Tsuki: "Klank had a family!"
President: "No he didn't!"
Clara hits for 6, which is enough to finally kill Klank. He goes "clank, clank, clank" and falls to the ground unclankimoniously. RIP indeed.
We've killed 3 robo-wasps, and one's off happy somewhere in the tunnels plotting world domination or something.
Clara: "Will we see him again?"
President: "You might. You could just say, 'Hey, Klink, come back!'"
Clara: "No, we don't miss him that much."
Technically Clara's poison is dispelled when the creature dies, but she rolls again anyways because it would be funny if she still rolled low. But she rolled well enough to walk it off anyways! Tsuki searches the wasps for spare parts. The stinger has enough fluid to poison Tsuki, and that's just what it does. It's metal mixed with some weird synthetic/organic hybrid exoskeleton like the beta ant we saw earlier.
Clara: "You should probably wrap that up or something..."
Tsuki: "It's too late for the bag. Three glands in there, and one of them is poisoned, I have written down. The unpetrifying one, the poison one, and one that just says 'spit'. I figure there's a potion maker who'll want this junk."
Nadyn: "Luna, do you want this junk?"
Luna: "I mean, I could potentially use them, but I'm happy for Tsuki to keep carrying them."
Nadyn: "Forget bags of holding, just get a filing cabinet."
Tsuki takes Kronk's stinger. Clara thinks Tsuki can take whatever the heck he wants, but she personally doesn't want to take any, since she's tired of getting poisoned. Not still over there whacking Klank's dead body, but giving him the stink-eye nonetheless. And Klunk's probably still smoldering. Steak à la Klunk.
After this impressive bit of combat against the robo-wasps, we are faced with yet another fork! Look at that, it's a fork! Look at this stuff, isn't it neat? Shall we go down a path that results in a fork bomb? Either way we're kind of going to be forking ourselves. First rule of mazes is "stick to one side", so we go right again. It's hard to maintain directionality in a place like this, but we're faced with another fork. We keep right. We're faced with another fork. We're unsure if we're going to end up going in a circle. President assures us there's an actual map. We continue right nonetheless. Surprisingly, it actually leads us to a new area. It's very dark and filled with prison cells, most of them having skeletons in them, some empty but we think they probably used to have skeletons which are now long-gone, and in the back is a large cylinder filled with liquid. Suspended in it is a sort of youkai-like woman (no, not Mewtwo) with vaguely avian features but mostly lizard-like otherwise.
Nadyn: "Do we wanna free her, or is that just asking for ancient test-tube evil to be unleashed?" Luna: "Or would she just die if she comes out of the liquid?"
Tsuki: "Down here? It's probably not keeping her alive."
Tsuki votes on release. Clara inspects this lady all trapped in stuff. There's a console, not that any of us know what that is, with a giant red button that says 'release' temptingly, but we don't know how the rest of anything works. She seems to be alone, and beside her is a log book which one of us may be able to read. Turns out it's in Deep Speech, which Tsuki can read. As typical of Deep Speech writing that he's seen, it's kind of deranged. He reads it out loud to everyone. It's mostly incoherent scramblings like "the lifeblood of this thing is not enough to sustain" and really the equivalent of big capital letters. It's kinda freaky. Not quite conspiracy theorist ramblings, more like crazy cultist ramblings.
But Tsuki notices that the lettering is very nice and neat. Rolling insight 13 on the letters, any instance of a character or letter is perfectly identical to its last occurrence (which is to say it's probably not handwritten). It's perfect and flawless. He goes through and reads and memorizes the weird contents of the log book that make sense in a sort of "I am going to eat your brains" kind of way. He could always copy the writing style later anyways, even if the player forgets. Nadyn wonders if the test-tube lady looks specifically basilisky or cockatricey. But nah, she doesn't. More coatl-y. As we vote, Nadyn goes over and presses the big red button that says "Release". We expect something exciting to happen. It's unfortunately disappointing as the water slowly drains, and we hear the sound of pumps as if something's being pumped into the tube. The lady opens her eyes and takes a deep, gasping breath. She's kind of dazed still, but her eyes dart from person to person, and then focus on Clara.
Creature: "So it finally comes to this. So you've finally decided to do it, haven't you?"
Nadyn: "We came down here, we found you in the tube, we figured we'd try to help."
Creature: "No, you're with HER!"
Luna: "I have a feeling you might be mistaking her with someone else..."
Creature: "No, that's what she does--she gets underlings to do her dirty work, never dirties them herself. Isn't that right, LORD MEEP?"
Clara: "WHA--"
Tsuki: "King Meep."
Creature: "King Meep? Ah. It's been promoted to a king position. So you are the poor suckers she sent down here to die and also take me with you."
Clara: "She's the Lady of the Lake."
Creature: "The what now?"
Tsuki: "She never told us to come down here."
Luna: "We're down here because we're helping a robotic ant and some tree people. We do not mean any harm."
The creature slams the inside of the tube.
Creature: "Ugh, 'Lady of the Lake'. What is she up to? What kind of newfangled moniker is this?"
Tsuki: "She's currently trapped in a lake and having to deal with family."
Nadyn: "We determined that she's a celestial now, if the prior fiendishness is an issue?"
We don't know if she was drinking anything, but she does a spit take.
Creature: "EXCUSE ME?!"
Nadyn: "Yeah, apparently the whole 'protecting the forest and lake' thing might have uncorrupted her?"
Creature: "You can't uncorrupt a thing like that, I should know! She was my ex!"
Clara (gaping): "...Ohhhh. Like--?... Well, that explains the tension."
Tsuki: "So the same thing that created the murder-creatures in the forest and has a brother that likes peeing on things..."
Creature: "Yes. (Lady's infernal name). That's the one."
Tsuki repeats the name in Lady's voice.
Tsuki: "Yup. Okay."
Creature (noticeably angry): "EURGH! Listen! I know I might not look trustworthy, but she's even more untrustworthy!"
Luna: "What happened between you two, if you're willing to say?"
Creature: "Listen. I'll tell you something. This 'Lady of the Lake' persona she's having is a complete and utter lie. You know what she's the demon of? Unspeakable horrors beyond man's comprehension."
Tsuki shrugs.
Creature: "Yes! And! AND she would scout these ruins for more ways to bring more unspeakable horrors, and when the time came, she ditched me!"
Clara: "I'm so sorry she ditched you."
Tsuki: "I'm curious: do you wish to punch her?"
Creature: "YES."
Tsuki chips away at the vat with a dagger hoping to open it faster. Nadyn wonders if we can call on Lucine. She also taps on the Meep crown, saying, "Hey, we have your ex on the phone." Apparently that actually transmitted something.
Lady: "I'm busy, I'll get back to you later!"
Clara: "How later is later?"
Lady: "I dunno, give me 5 minutes."
Clara: "Is anyone gonna yell into the crown that her ex is there?"
(Nadyn did, but Lady probably didn't get the full signal. Apparently, if you're not the Meep, you really have to yell it.)
Nadyn: "Okay, wait--we've got someone who's DEFINITELY willing to yell into that crown."
Clara's going to be pushed up next to the ex so that the ex can yell into the crown? Yes, we should. Clara just walks there willingly.
Nadyn: "Just plug your ears."
Clara plugs her ears (because it's never too late for hearing protection). This lady yells through the piece of glass Tsuki chipped.
Creature: "I"M BACK, B!@#$"
Since Clara's just muffling with her hands, she can still hear the yelling and thinks, "Oh no, what have I done, is this a good deed?" Tsuki's just loving it. There's a few moments of silence.
Lady: "I'm sorry, who was that?"
Nadyn: "...I'm sorry, I assume you've been in a test tube for a while, but can we get your name?"
Creature: "Yes, my name is (something less guttural than Lady's name but really long and clacky)."
Tsuki: "Clacky for short?"
Creature: "Sure, mortal."
Tsuki tries to investigate to figure out how to deal with the glass. He discovers that if he works together with her chipping at it a certain way, it'll make it a lot more frail than just Tsuki chipping at it alone. Luna just asks how she got in there.
Clacky: "Didn't I tell you? That (Lady's name) betrayed me! She left me with that stupid ghost! Or whatever."
Luna: "I mean, how did you physically get into the tube?"
Clacky: "I don't know how I physically got into this tube."
Nadyn: "You said something about a ghost as well?"
Creature: "Ah, yes. It's kind of weird that she hasn't gotten you, yet... But anyways. Yes. Lady, bluish-green, can phase through things, catches up to you in seconds, that kind of ghost."
Tsuki: "Yeah, haven't seen that yet."
Clacky: "Well, you should probably leave before she finds you. Of course you should take me, because I am... I... can do this!"
She hisses and reveals some fangs.
Lady (meanwhile, via Clara): "Oh my god--ughhhh, why is she still here? What did you guys do? You FOUND her at like, what, the side of the road or something?"
Clara: "No, it's not like that!"
Lady: "Well, tell her that I... am... on... uh... planet... Poseidon. Yeah. Planet Poseidon. I am nowhere near here."
Nadyn: "We've given therapy to people before. You're getting therapy."
Tsuki casts Shillelagh and starts beating on the glass.
After tube lady hisses and shows fangs, Luna tries to do the same.
Luna: "I can do that too!"
Clacky (nodding sagely): "Impressive fangs."
Luna: "Why, thank you!"
Tsuki just repeats the same sound. We can at least presume this is not the threat the other ant was talking about, since she's been suspended in something for who-knows-how-long.
Clacky: "So what's the plan? You guys getting out of here?"
Tsuki: "Yep, well, I dunno--break you out, try to find this other problem, and then we leave."
Clacky: "Well, I'll have you know that I am the demon of blind loyalty." She bows. "And as such, I suppose I am required to give you some token of gratitude, and I do not like being beholden to anybody."
Nadyn: "Demon of blind loyalty? No wonder you've got relationship issues."
Clacky: "Yeah, I knowwwww."
Clara: "Yeah, this absolutely sounds safe."
Tsuki salutes and nods his head yes. If Jake can make people pee, then we can be blindly loyal to this demon. What can possibly go wrong? (Tsuki hears that. Any time he's in danger he hears the "I'm in danger" meme. Random snippets from parallel dimensions. He can mimic them too.) Clacky has joined the group! At this point we can take another long rest, because there are other places in the dungeon, and there's a lot more mapped out than President usually uses, in case the group mixes it up with directions. So we could get into combat, like, next encounter or something. So President personally advises a short rest. But you can't rest while there are enemies nearby. Nadyn is excited to have a new audience member! And starts playing "Welcome to the Forest."
Clara: "NOOOOO!"
Clacky: "Ugh. Truly a manmade horror beyond even the smartest immortal's comprehension."
As Nadyn sings "welcome to the forest, bear dogs run the day, ba-ba-ba-baba-ba--" she abruptly transitions to the song she tried to write from the infernal language handbook with phrases like "how are you, where is the closest grocery store" to the tune of It's A Small World After All. To Nadyn it sounds like weird record scratching, but to Clacky it sounds like reading a middle school language textbook. Clacky feels regret. Apparently she doesn't have a great track record with picking sane people.
Tsuki: "You just get used to it."
That's the end of the session! We really need to call on Lucine! It's not angel vs. angel, but it's getting close. It's almost the opposite, really.
My Recap Of The Petting Zoo Squad's Sci-Fi Narnia Session 21 As Much As I Was Able To Process It - April 29 2023
Last time we were in The Tunnels and met a Very Nice Lady Who's Not Evil (as far as we know, or maybe probably evil) who we nicknamed Clacky. We're still in those tunnels and Clacky's told us about a bluish-green scary ghost lady. President's got our positions marked down. We're probably going to keep taking every right exit. This will definitely go well, President says ominously. Clacky looks grumpy, and behind us we hear a familiar voice: it's Lyvin! who has expertly tracked us down by following the direction of random screaming. (We're not the most well-composed individuals.)
Lyvin (catching breath): "Guys! Sorry it took me so long! (panting) Anyways. I'm here to help!"
Nadyn: "Thanks! Sorry, we just decided to go ahead a little bit."
Lyvin: "Yeah, it's no big deal; I saw a bunch of broken steel bug things so I figured you guys already dealt with that, and I don't think she was there with you..."
He points to Clacky.
Clacky: "Nice to meet you. Hmm. I am the demoness of blind loyalty."
Lyvin: "Ah, yes. I understand."
He looks like he's about to make a comment but decides it's better not to tinkle off a demon. One very striking thing about the ghost we didn't hear last time, is that her hair is long and goes opposite the direction of gravity, so we'll probably know her when we see her. (Also she's a ghost. Ish. Ghosty lady virus thing?) Nadyn wants to ask what she does with her hair to get such volume.
Clacky: "Uhh, sure, if she's amenable. But somehow I doubt that she will very friendly in that regard."
Nadyn nods sagely and heads to the right exit. We continue on, making another right. There's a fork. It happens to have a fork, there's nothing interesting. We take a right.
Luna: "It's the right thing to do."
Clara: "Sounds about right."
Well. This part of the tunnel is a fork with THREE exits. Where do we go? Still the furthest right.
President: "Oh my god..."
Tsuki: "I think our group's not good at exploring..."
So, as we go to the right-right, we stumble across a very silent room. As a matter of fact, as we walk through these ant tunnels, when we enter this room, there are no footsteps, and if we try to speak to each other or snap our fingers, it's completely silent. We can only hear our own thoughts. Tsuki can still talk to us, but not with any physical sounds. Nadyn is too scared of a place where she can't make noise, being a bard and all, so she tries to pull everyone back. Tsuki makes creepy whispering noises in people's heads. Clara's opening and closing her mouth and waving her arms like a weirdo trying to make noise. She tries to hit something to see if that makes noise. There's a bunch of glass and tables and notes. Clara hits her sword against the floor several times and looks up and shrugs. Tsuki tries to make the most annoying noise anyone could make, but nobody can hear it. We can just say our deepest darkest secrets in this room and nothing will pick it up.
Nadyn: "...anyone have Zone of Truth?"
Clara stands there knocking on the walls, pushing glass carefully with the toe of her boot, confused that nothing's making a sound. We could go back out... or we could experiment with the glass vials, or look at a book. Tsuki goes over to look at the books. He knows a few languages, but most of the books are in some weird language that not only does he not understand but he hasn't seen anything like it before. However, scrawled in the margins is some Deep Speech that says something about "statuesque forms do not suit me" over and over again.
Tsuki: "Okaaay, notes of a crazy person."
President: "Yeah, that's what you get when you get Deep Speech."
Tsuki puts the book in his bag, just in case. Luna investigates the vials. They're labeled, and they're chemicals that she's heard of before--"royal water" etc.--along with hydrochloric acid and such; chemistry has not really advanced far enough at this point for Luna to understand some naming conventions, but they are various organic compounds. Tsuki dumps a few of the safest-looking chemicals on the floor to see what they do (just hoping "it's not acid"). Thankfully he avoids a complete disaster, because one of the vials eats right through the granite that it's on when he pours it out--definitely not safe--but eventually he does come across something that doesn't seem to be doing anything to the granite at least? Is he gonna perform more tests once he flushes out this safe-ish looking chemical, or just put the glands right in it?... he puts the glands right in it and hopes for the best, after rinsing it with some water from our waterskin. Luckily for Tsuki, the thing does not react strongly with water. It's kind of an inert substance. Flushing it out a few times, he doesn't bother drying it before putting the gland in it. He closes it with a cork. He now has some sort of storage for the glands. (Clara jumped when the stuff ate through the granite.) Luna checks for any vials that were not poured out--there are hundreds, in fact; Tsuki just went for the thickest ones. Looking specifically for ones she recognizes, a lot of them are labeled, but there is a section set aside for magical chemicals, i.e. more like alchemy which is what Luna's good at. She checks if the vials are safe enough to put in her bag: their contents are not in their plant form, just liquids, and she's never seen it in that form before. But as long as they don't look like they'll leak, she puts them in her bag.
Since Clara had disturbed the glass a while ago to check that there were no sounds, she puts everything back where it was and pokes the glass with her sword to see if anything happens. Nothing happens. It's still deathly quiet, is all... but since Clara did that, she has to roll d20. She got 17. When she did that, the oat sword reverberated a little bit. Just for a moment, she saw some humanoid figures faintly, almost like a hologram projection, and then they disappeared. They seemed to be just walking around and putting books and things and experimenting. One of the figures turns to Clara and smiles before disappearing. It's a normal smile, not a creepy-smile. These people seem to mostly not be aware of anyone else except Clara; they notice her and smile, and that's when they disappear. Before they disappear, Clara tries to figure out what the figures are holding or working with and if there's anything in common with this room. It's not random stuff; they're doing some vacuum filtration or whatever, and it looks like very boring chemistry experiment stuff. It's the chemistry room. Clara tries to sweep the glass shards over to where nobody would trip on them. As she does that, she sees something that is not a type of wastebasket she's familiar with, but for a few seconds, some rectangular thing appears that she instinctively knows is meant for disposal of this kind of waste. Without really thinking, she dumps it inside and the thing disappears from sight and she doesn't know where she dumped the glass shards into.
Clara: "Wow, that's very convenient, but okay. Safety first!"
After she puts the glass shards there and it goes poof, she's feeling very done here. Surely it counts as a good deed to clean something up, even if she doesn't know what it is.
We exit the room and go into the middle fork, since that's the nearest right. It's a very large room. It doesn't necessarily have anything special; it looks like living quarters with a bunch of bunk beds and chests and closets for each bunk bed, for where people's personal belongings were. The place seems abandoned. It's as dark as it normally is in these tunnels; we don't think anyone's been here for however much time has passed in this complex. Nadyn wonders how long Clacky was imprisoned here for. Clacky says it's maybe been 1000 years, but she's not sure. Some of the chests seem to just be open, while others have very brittle locks. For the most part they're clothes--some of them really weird clothes--but there are other things that appear valuable, including some very shiny things. Tsuki likes shiny. He opens a couple to see if there's anything worth it. It's almost as though it's someone's house; there are a few items, a bit of jewelry and stuff, some pieces tarnished and others in good condition (about half and half). Tsuki grabs whatever looks valuable. Nadyn looks for vaguely humanoid clothing, if there is any. There's also closets, which are more likely to have large items--things like musical instruments, XBox 360s (or whatever the equivalent is for these people), fancy coats, dry-clean-only stuff, etc. Nadyn looks for fancy coats and instruments. She takes one of the fancy coats; as she looks for musical instruments, she sees something that looks hilariously like a very elongated flute, coiled like a snake, and she feels like she'd need at least 3 mouths to play it. Nadyn blows into one of the holes at random, very loudly. You know how when you have a regular flute blow into it without the right mouth shape? It's kinda like that, but there are 3 different discordant notes coming out. Nadyn decides to keep it since it's probably a piece of cultural heritage and a fascinating instrument regardless.
Something else she notices: at the specific closet she took the fancy coat and the instrument from, as she pushes aside things that are on the hangers, the closet does not have a back. It seems to just go on.
Clara: "Oh no, it's Narnia!"
Nadyn: "Hey guys, wanna come to Narnia?"
President: "C.S. Lewis-ism. We should totally go in."
This is concerning, but we decide to push our luck. We step into the blackness and walk and walk until we see a light at the end of this very long tunnel. We end up in what looks like a chrome tunnel before we know it, and around us are hallways, some sort of interior built of metal, a bunch of buttons we don't know the function of, things written in a language we don't understand, and across from us, a hulking 3-mouthed being in a uniform slithering by.
Nadyn: "Smile, wave, back away." (We know there are things in these ruins that could one-shot us, after all.)
Clara instinctively puts herself between everyone else and the creature protectively. The slug-like creature with its compound insectoid eyes keeps moving casually towards us, not seeming to acknowledge our existence, and as they move, they phase and pass through us. That leaves Clara pretty surprised.
Tsuki: "So, should be safe to walk around."
Nadyn: "Do we really want to party split?"
Tsuki: "...Probably not a good idea."
Clara's still scratching her head over how the thing didn't see them. She looks around.
Clara: "Are we done here? Should we go?"
We had come in from a long and dark tunnel. As we look behind us, that tunnel is no longer there. Clara gasps in surprise.
Nadyn: "Well, at least we have fun stories to go out on if this is going to be a total party kill."
President: "Don't be so pessimistic!"
Clacky is just kinda quiet and staring at the language. She very slowly makes out the words.
Clacky: "Sig-nal in case of... reactor fail-ure... Huh. Been a while since I've read something like that."
Nadyn: "What language is it?"
Clacky: "Oh. Uh... It's... How do I explain this? It's kind of a dead language as far as you're concerned."
Nadyn: "What would you call it if you were to give it a name?"
Clacky (squinting as if trying to remember something): "Olarin. The Olarin language. Yeah, I'd really be surprised if there were any left, to be honest. Well, surely some still exist, but..."
Nadyn describes the metal wasps and ants and asks if they are familiar to her.
Clacky: "Well, yes, they're found all over the world in these sorts of tunnels. But I certainly don't know how they work--their creators were very secretive about that. Well, in truth, it is hard to establish who did what in the tunnels." She shrugs. "As I said, long history. But I wouldn't be surprised if the Olarins ever came across them."
So it seems like the ants are at least native inhabitants, not opportunists from after the original inhabitants left.
Anyways, nowhere else to go but onward! We reach a room, but we're not sure what its purpose is. Far away, we see a bunch of stars. Nadyn wonders if we're standing sideways and looking up at space. We're looking at this landscape that looks like we're actually in the sky. And there's no ground or anything. Just space as far as the eye can see.
Clara: "Well, they did say space was the final frontier."
Clara glances over her shoulder to see if the way back is still there. Anything in this chrome structure space is still intact, but the original dark hallway is still nowhere to be seen. As we look out into space, we are approached by... something more humanoid, sort of bluish-green, but they look kind of old and they're just mopping the floor very janitor-like and don't seem to take notice of us. Nadyn wonders about the text Clacky read earlier. There are some buttons around some glass thing. We think--or Clacky can tell us--it's kind of "press this in case of emergency" stuff. Nadyn figures that it must not be an emergency since Janitor isn't super concerned. We're lost and confused, though. We can continue taking rights, there's a fork up ahead!
Nadyn: "Well, this is a brand new space, so we don't have to continue with the same systematic pattern."
We go left instead.
We come across a large office-like place with quite a few people. There seem to be a few people of some sort of slug species, about a 60:40 ratio of humanoids to slugs, and they all seem to be talking. Again, we don't directly understand the language; but if we really try to focus, we kind of understand the gist of what they're saying. Doing so: they're going back and forth about 'signals', they throw out a bunch of abbreviations, they're all talking almost as if they're waiting for something, and we understand that they're waiting for some kind of clog in the system to clear up; along the lines of "we haven't had a communication message in like 15 minutes, it's probably just the light or something, some sort of signal messing up", but nobody seems that worried. And they don't seem to notice us. It's full of people and communications computers. We haven't tried interacting with any objects yet... There are things like mice and keyboards (Nadyn: "What are those? We are in medieval times.")--right, sorry, our characters see some kind of board with a bunch of buttons sticking out of it, and a bunch of screens and holograms, and they're just staring at it like "what is thiiis".
Nadyn: "It makes lights though. That's really cool."
Some of the room's occupants are in nice swivel chairs. Which, if we've seen them before, are definitely not common in our characters' times. A luxury item. But here there are just so many of them! Clara stares at all the swivel chairs.
Clara: "You can't get these just anywhere! And--and these guys have so many of them! Are they rich?"
Nadyn wants to try a spinny chair since she's never tried one. She jumps on one and tries to go spinny. When she spins around in the swivel chair, all of a sudden, she feels a lot of eyes on her. But the rest of the party don't seem to be acknowledged. Someone chastises Nadyn, saying, "Hey, stop horsing around! You're not supposed to do that in here! This is very important!"
Nadyn: "...Okay, sorry."
Tsuki: "spin fasterrrrr"
Nadyn gets up and gestures for Tsuki to try the chair if he wants to. Tsuki spins around. Clara watches and feels a bit dizzy. The humanoid who was annoyed with Nadyn is now very annoyed with Tsuki.
Someone: "Hey, Yui! Yui, stop that! You're not supposed to--this is a professional environment!"
One of their friends seems to smack them on the shoulder.
Friend: "Hey, it's not like we're doing anything right now. Nice kid you've got there."
They exchange some back and forth. The other person seems to give Tsuki something wrapped in a material that we're not very familiar with.
Friend: "Hey, here you go, try this. Kids are supposed to love these."
Tsuki takes the... candy? In the... plastic wrapper?
Nadyn: "So now we need to find the goblins and give them this candy!"
But yeah. Tsuki tries to eat the candy, plastic and all. Here's the review: plastic? Very hard to chew and very hard to gulp down. But he manages to do it.
Clara: "Amazing."
He basically just swallowed a plastic wrapper... But the candy inside is very gummy and chewy and good for the most part, but it has a bad aftertastey flavor that kind of reminds him of the "medicine" Ree tried to give him that he didn't take.
Nadyn: "...So it's cherry?"
Tsuki: "Sounds like grape."
President: "It's an unpleasant and very mediciney aftertaste. Like very cheap grape flavor."
As he's done eating it, the people don't seem to react to the fact that he's eaten the plastic.
Friend: "So, kid, you like it?"
Tsuki gives a thumbs up.
Friend: "(sighing) I'm really glad."
The person who seems to be Tsuki's "guardian", or the guardian of whoever's kid Tsuki's standing in for, seems to say, "Well, I'm gonna check on some systems. Please watch over them for me until I get back." (The candy isn't poisoned, but maybe eating plastic isn't the healthiest thing, so expect to see some health repercussions from that.)
Nadyn: "Ehh, it's flexible and stuff; it's like fibre, it'll just pass into the stool--"
President: "We'll see what happens to Tsuki."
So, the guy person (there's not much to go off; they're just bluish-greenish-humanoids) leaves the room to check in on something. We follow. He goes to where we were originally going right, down some stairs, into a sort of decontamination chamber and out that chamber. He visits an office with a desk, and in it seems to be someone very frail.
Guardian: "Ah, yes, hello. I just wanted to tell you that we haven't received any communications."
As they're saying that, the old Olarin at the desk is resting their elbows on the desk and rubbing their temples, but their eyes are wide open as if something awful has happened.
Guardian: "Um. I'm sorry, did I interrupt something?"
Old (staring): "Don't be expecting any more communications."
Guardian: "...what?"
Old: "Don't be expecting any more communications. They're gone. It's over."
It takes a while for the communications person to calm this old alien down.
Old: "No, you don't understand: the astral plane has shattered. There's no way to achieve faster-than-light communication."
Person: "What?"
Old (shaking head): "Don't you understand? I don't know how to break it to the others, but we're stuck here."
The employee doesn't believe the old guy, who definitely has some magic about them. The employee goes back through the decontamination chamber, goes to the captain's quarters, and reports on the lack of communication: there still haven't been any incoming comms from anyone in the past 30 minutes. (RIP Bozos amirite?)
Captain: "The astral plane shattering? That seems impossible..."
At this point our characters have no idea what's going on and why this is such a problem, but we are with someone who might know. Tsuki turns slowly towards Clacky.
Clacky: "Uh, god. This was such a long time ago. But, uh... Okay. You see space? Outer space? The area outside this planet? Do you follow me?"
We nod.
Clacky: "So: turns out outer space is very very big, and you cannot really visit other planets because there's a speed limit to the universe, the speed of light basically."
Tsuki: "Sounds fast."
Clacky: "But not fast enough to traverse the universe, or other star systems or--" She stumbles on her words trying to explain what a star system is. "Anyways, there are places that are very very far away, and there are no means, physical or indeed magical, to go faster than that. There used to be a way; there used to be this sort of intermediate plane where people could compress time and space and go really really fast to where they needed to go, and everything depended on the existence of this plane, but it kinda just left one day. It kinda just shattered one day and that kind of travel isn't possible anymore."
Nadyn: "Wait, is this different from when we drank that rainbow soup?"
Clacky (nodding): "Different. I don't really know what that rainbow soup was..."
Tsuki: "Most likely."
Nadyn explains the rainbow soup in the sketchiest way possible.
Clacky: "If that really did happen to you, then yes, you did travel to another plane of existence, but even then, you can't travel faster within any plane than this speed. The astral plane was a plane like the one you traveled to, but over large distances, you can't travel and see these other places because of how far away they are."
Nadyn: "Eh, I'm sure a level 9 spell could do it."
Clacky: "With enough magic, it could be done, yes--but in terms of mass easily-accessible ways to do it, not very possible."
Tsuki: "neeeeeerd"
Clacky: "Ugh. Anyways. The reason I say the language these people spoke is kind of extinct or might as well be extinct, it's because these people aren't from this system or this place and their home world is who knows how many million light years away. They must have been stranded here until they died out."
Without letting that sink in, Nadyn wonders if we can find a computer with fantasy YouTube and find out how to play her new weird instrument. We're stuck here with nowhere else to go, after all, so... sure. As we go onto a computer, people start noticing us again, but they're like, "Oh, yeah, this kid is just playing on the computer, not like it's doing anything important anyways." We reach the local cached version of a bunch of weird videos, some of them very strange indeed. Nadyn figures out pretty quickly that the mouse moves something on the screen, and Clacky helps out a bit.
Clacky: "Okay, so this moves a thing on the screen, you can click it, this thing gives you characters--what did you need to find?"
Nadyn (pulling out the instrument): "Do these people know how to play this thing?"
Clacky enters a lot of different terms into the search bar until eventually there's a video of a slug person playing this instrument.
Clacky: "Uh, well, it's not the best, but this guy is playing a very simple tune for babies. So let's see how they're doing."
On the screen we see a slug with the three mouths blowing into every part of the instrument simultaneously, and with their weird fingers, it looks at first like they're just gliding along the instrument, but in reality it's more like the holes are so small to Nadyn that she wouldn't really be able to selectively put any digits in them, but this creature can. Because Nadyn knows how to play a lot of instruments, it kinda does seem like a flute conceptually, and she understands how one would make the basic notes, but she's not physically able to play it on her own. We'd need at least two more musicians and a bunch of needles.
Nadyn: "Well, it'd be a fun curiosity for the bards' college."
President: "They'd love this instrument; they'd be like, 'where did you find this?'"
As Nadyn is discovering how to play the really weird instrument, Clara's looking at people's monitors. Someone is watching cute animal videos; the animals aren't anything we've ever seen, but they do look vaguely cute. Luna sees this too; she gasps and runs over. As she sees, people love this kind of... thing, that floats in the air like a jellyfish without stingers and has things that look like googly eyes on it. Very weird creature, but apparently people love watching it push things over and also attempt to take on much larger animals. Luna asks the person at the computer what that creature is.
Person (without looking): "Oh, that's a"--President looks up the name--"Riijii. It's quite a funny little animal, isn't it?"
Luna: "It is! It looks pretty... interesting. I've never seen something like that before."
Clara: "It's cute!"
Luna: "It is."
Person: "Well, I guess you haven't... It's native to the slugs' home world, isn't that right?"
Person swivels back and looks at one of the slug people.
Slug: "That's not what we're called..."
Person: Yeah, but your language is so hard to pronounce!"
Slug: "Oh, come on, how is (strangled gurgling noises) hard to pronounce?"
Clara: "That's a good question."
Person: "That's the problem with you guys!"
There's an argument about their language being very weird.
Meanwhile, Tsuki is getting in trouble. Looking around the place, looking for things to loot--
President: "TO LOOT?"
Okay, with an eye for looting and stealing, lots of people have personal things that shine light and are rectangular-shaped.
Tsuki: "...sounds like a good thing to loot?"
He rolls sleight of hand to loot one of these shiny rectangular objects. 16. He has this rectangular object in his hand. There are a bunch of buttons. Tsuki presses the buttons. Damage roll...? He takes 8 damage and needs to roll a constitution saving throw. He rolled 4. He's now stunned. He electrocuted himself. He's on the ground, unable to move.
Draco: "This is why you don't leave Tsuki alone."
Kat: "We're not Tsuki's babysitters! We didn't sign up for this!"
President: "You're gonna have to be."
Tsuki's like a cat. By virtue of him just showing up, you signed up.
Kat "We were watching a cute Riijii video, you can't blame us!"
President: "And then Tsuki is just on the ground unable to move."
We hear the sound. Clara leaves her cute Riijii video and goes over to him.
Clara: "Are you okay? What happened?"
Luna comes over as well.
Tsuki: "I hate this plaaaace."
In his hands they see a rectangular object. Luna tries to poke it out of his hands with her staff, very sensibly. As she slowly pushes the taser out of Tsuki's hands, Tsuki is still immobilized, but at least it's out of his hands. Nadyn notices the commotion and takes it without pressing any buttons. It seems inert for now. It takes a while for Tsuki to feel his fingers again.
Tsuki (now able to feel some body parts) was probably wondering where the taser went and what other weird things they have around here.
President: ..."are you gonna try stealing something again"
Tsuki "...maybe."
President: "Like what?"
Tsuki: "Anything that might be valuable."
Luna: "A computer?..."
President: "You could try just taking a computer..."
Tsuki: "Something small and easier to manage."
On some people are some cards with crystals dangling off of them. Tsuki thinks that sounds interesting. With another sleight of hand roll, he snags a card with a blue gem. He puts it in his bag without even glancing at it. We'll worry about that later.
President: "Okay. Okay, that might be a problem."
At this point, Nadyn has safely stowed the taser somewhere, but not long after that, we smell something burning. The sorry state of Tsuki's bag has come to bite him, as he smells some wonderfully disgusting burning fumes.
Nadyn: "Oh no."
Tsuki goes in and throws out whatever-it-is. He rummages through the bag and tries to grab the hottest thing in there. When he grabs it, it really hurts because it's really hot. He gets rid of it as fast as possible. As he dumps the singular most hot thing and throws it, he takes 2 damage. The card and the gem have been successfully ejected from his bag. It's red-hot but slowly cools down. Nadyn glances at it. Something about this item is very attractive, and she kinda just wants to stare at it--something with how the light bounces from various facets of the gem is very fascinating.
Tsuki: "Everything in this place wants to kill me."
President: "Maybe they just don't like birds."
Anyway, something about this shiny thing is so entrancing that she stares at it for a while. When she stops staring at it, she looks around and she's now in a completely different place. It's a more familiar setting: some kind of brick building. She's walking around and there are these humanoid blue-green scientists, and outside the window is a blue sky with plants and things that she's even more familiar with. She sees an old person--not the same one that was the comms officer, but like a much older version of that comms officer, who is just staring out the window. Nadyn stands there awkwardly. After a while they seem to notice her.
Old: "Ah. Yui. Nice of you to come by here."
Nadyn: "....Uhhhhhhh, yeah!"
Old: "Y'know, kind of weird for the sky to be blue."
Clara (somehow interjecting): "Why?"
Old: "Oh--you probably don't remember anymore, but on our home world, it was yellow."
Nadyn: "And it was aaaaall yellow--"
Old: "I wonder how they're doing?" He turns to Nadyn. "I'm sorry I couldn't give you a normal life."
Nadyn: "...Well, I guess it just means I get to find a new one."
He smiles at that, but as Nadyn says that, she gets a sinking feeling in her stomach that this is not how "you" actually feel. She realizes that there will eventually be nobody that looks like "Yui" left. She feels this sense of intense sadness, almost as if all your people crash-landed somewhere and it's impossible to go home, and it's biologically impossible to survive for more than a generation because there's not enough genetic diversity etc., and when you get old you won't even have a kid of your own to talk to. This intense sadness manifests into almost-anger.
Cut to outside the vision. Tsuki says he's going to eldritch blast the card. It's now heating up again, and Nadyn is still staring at it intently. Tsuki just goes ahead and blasts it. The card flies away and explodes into the distance.
Coaster: "Nobody's gonna ask how 'little Yui' can do that?!"
Honestly, they just hear a ruckus and someone tells us to just be a little more quiet.
Someone: "I know it's boring here, but we have to get this fixed."
We get the impression that more and more people are realizing that this isn't going to be fixed, and that this is a real problem, and there's a growing discontent among them. As Tsuki blasts the gem and card away, Nadyn is back in the present moment. That vision seemed like the future, so it's a bit confusing. But, she feels like she's gotten some sort of understanding. Apparently, she gets an effect indefinitely: deals 3d10 damage whenever "the ghost" tries to charm her.
There's a mood of growing discontent, and we get a sliding sensation like the ground has tilted 45 degrees. Clara tries to bury her sword in the ground to avoid sliding down and manages to stay put temporarily, but looming over her is a sort of vacuum, and she gets a sense that wherever she's sliding down is better than being sucked into this vacuum. She's sliding down because this is kinda the ghost's memories, and nothing makes sense in this region. Basically, everything goes black and we slide down to where we came from. At some point the slide is too much for Clara to keep holding on and she decides to pull out her sword and let go. We slide into the darkness, down and down and down. Clara's screaming basically at capacity, Nadyn feels like this is just surreal, Tsuki is creepy-giggling, Luna's confused and goes along for the ride but tries to slide down slowly, not too fast. We tumble until we're all unceremoniously ejected from the closet. Rude of the ghost's memories to force us out of the closet, ba-dum-tss. As we dust ourselves off, Clara's oat sword feels wrong somehow. When she holds it, there's something very disconcerting about it; if this were a movie, the camera would zoom in on the sword of oats to highlight its oddness instead of oats it's instant oats, and whatever properties it had, it now has this additional property just at the tip of it: before now, she didn't know how it was possible for metal to look rotting, but the tip of the oat sword looks and feels like it's rotted away somehow. It's not rust, it's not blemished metal, it just looks like something burnt at the very tip of it. When Clara figures that out, she stares at the point. When she touches it, it feels a bit like it's charred, though because it's an oat sword it feels more like it's decayed somehow.
Clara (going over to everyone): "Are you seeing this? Are you seeing my sword?" We all see the sword. "The tip is going and I don't know what caused it, it's like it's disintegrating!"
TsukI: "...Did you spill some of that bottled stuff on there? That's the only disintegrating stuff I know of right now."
Clara: "I didn't spill any of that disintegrating chemical stuff on it! I just noticed it when we came out of the closet!"
Clara tries to do a few swipes with the sword. It feels like the sword really wants to hit stuff. Normally, as it was, it was kind of no different than any other sword except for having magical runes of unknown significance, but now it feels like it really wants blood.
Clara: "Oh, great. A sword with bloodlust."
Tsuki: "The sword is now a barbarian."
Clara: "I did not approve this class change!"
Nah, it's just the sword that's different; maybe she can negotiate with the sword. There is a reason the sword is like this that Clara will probably find out later.
Tsuki: "After we feed it some goblins!"
President: "FOR ONE, don't feed the sword goblins. The sword can't eat."
Tsuki: "The blood of goblins."
President: "They're also too puny for the sword."
Clara: "They're not worthy of the bloodlust sword!"
President: "Imagine you were an apex predator and someone gave you an ant. Don't insult the sword."
Anyways, Clara swings it away from people and it seems like it's a heat guided missile. She tries to swipe it well away from the group but it veers toward the first person it wants to hit (which happens to be Tsuki) and she yells "What are you doing?!" and tries to pull the sword back. Tsuki ducks and casts false life. The sword cuts a few feathers off his head.
Tsuki: "I can't fly anyways."
Next time aim for the guy that just joined us. Right, apparently Lyvin did not follow us into the closet. He was just on a bed, and still is, but at this point he's found food somehow.
Tsuki: "That stuff lasts for how long?! Special rations there."
Clara asks where he got the food.
Lyvin (stands up): "Aah! Oh! The food? I went to the surface and got it!"
Clara: "You went up to the surface and then came back down here?..."
Lyvin: "Well, yeah; you disappeared in that closet and didn't come out for a few hours, so I said "bye bye", but then like a week passed and I felt bad, and I got this food--"
Nadyn: "...We missed our trial, didn't we?"
Lyvin: "What trial?"
Tsuki: "Ehh, he'll be fine."
Lyvin: "...well, uh, yeah, some people were looking for you and I told them you disappeared into a closet, and that I was born 70 years ago, but they told me I didn't look 70 and laughed at me, but then they were like 'okay fine if you're so confident take this sword and go slay the monsters you crazy butt' and there were no monsters when I came back down but I got some food, you want a sandwich?"
Tsuki takes a sandwich. Clara looks at it but does not take it. She's still preoccupied thinking about what's wrong with her sword. Aiming for Tsuki's head is not a good deed. Kinda a bad deed actually. This is bad for her mojo.
Lyvin: "Welp. Um. Eat up?"
He got enough sandwiches for everyone. Apparently, we haven't eaten for a week, so...
Clacky: "Uhh, that's kinda weird that the ghost didn't go for you."
Lyvin: "Hmm? What ghost?" He takes a bite of his sandwich.
Clacky: "You know, the ghost that made it impossible for me to leave? How the heck did you go in and out without dying?"
Lyvin (staring at her): "I didn't see a ghost. Mm-mm. No ghost here. I wonder why?"
Tsuki insights on Lyvin. With a 14, it looks like Lyvin's being honest: he did not see a ghost, though he did meet a robot that told him there's a virus problem and offered to help Lyvin out and said there was another robot that was a giant ant that was extracted, so that was fun. Lyvin also tells us that he's been very careful and set up a bunch of traps (he told us where they are so we don't fall for them), but he hasn't seen a ghost. Maybe the ghost really just isn't interested in Lyvin. There might be an alternative explanation if Tsuki is smart enough... which he wouldn't be. Luna's the brain cell of the party with +2 INT. Knowing that Lyvin is telling the truth and we just spent a week in what seems to be not a very real place but a place of memories, we may have come to the conclusion that for a week we were with the ghost.
Tsuki: "...did Clara stab the ghost then?"
President: "Maybe. You need to find them next session and put an end to this ghost nonsense to find out. And now the sword is maybe-cursed. Or maybe just very grumpy."
Tsuki: "Feed it Lyvin!"
The sword does not respond to the suggestion of eating Lyvin. But it does seem to have a very small pull to anything living nearby, and that should concern Clara a little bit maybe. (Yeah she's very concerned.)
Clara inches away slowly from people, whispering things like, "No no no. Bad sword."
Lyvin: "Okayyyy! So, um. What were you guys doing in a closet for a week?"
Nadyn: "We went to the astral plane and saw the... future? Or the very distant past? Or something."
Tsuki: "Got electrocuted."
Lyvin (very unfazed): "Sounds about right. Well. I guess--you guys look terrible."
We realize as we eat the sandwiches that we're very, very hungry. We eat a bunch of sandwiches that Lyvin got from the surface, and we take a long rest here. Probably a good idea after a week of whatever that was. We're like, "Wow, I watched YouTube videos and tased myself and now I'm very hungry". Average day. Nadyn still has the taser. And Tsuki is still digesting the plastic. Apparently he'll just poop it in a day's time. Hopefully this is the kind of information he wants. President confirms that Cure Wounds might work on IBS. Gives Clara something to think about besides her sword going rogue. Next session will be combat probably! Unless something really really weird happens! Brush up on our combat! Also Clara has Mold Earth, and we're underground, so maybe we can use that to our advantage. She puts the sword in time-out for its long rest. Maybe it'll learn its lesson and think about what it tried to do.
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Post by Coaster on Aug 19, 2023 21:15:48 GMT -5
My Recap Of The Petting Zoo Squad's Extra-Cursed Session 22 As Much As I Was Able To Process It - May 27 2023
Last time, we got a slug alien instrument, ate plastic, watched Space YouTube, got a taser, and corrupted the Oat Sword (it has +3 to both hit and damage now, with some Unspecified Downsides yay it's cursed). Lyvin and Clacky are both there at the end of our long rest. The lights of the room we're in, which are very dim/vestigial, start to dim even further until it goes completely dark save for our torches/fires.
Lyvin: "Well, this sucks."
Clacky does not seem to even notice the light going down. Nadyn is trying to think of a song about lights going off; surely there are plenty.
Clacky: "Ah, lights, huh. Now that you mention it, the colors do seem to be a little bit duller."
We see her eyes glow in the dark. Wowww, demon lady has darkvision, what a surprise.
There's one path in this general area of the ant tunnels we haven't explored. Are we gonna go there? During the long rest, Nadyn tries to manipulate the taser with Mage Hand to figure out how it works. It's more the sci-fi type you don't have to reload every time, just bzzt and aim at someone and it causes some electrical damage. It's like a hand-cannon, in universe, but with a bunch of weird sci-fi settings Nadyn tries to tamper with. One causes the taser to be really hot, and the mage hand isn't affected, but when we put it on the ground it glows red... So that setting probably isn't worth pursuing in the short-term. Eventually we get to a nice clear sci-fi shot from the taser that hits things. (Tsuki did, in fact, press the heat button in his time with it. Recalling the memory, he casts False Life to be on the safe side.)
Clacky is a bit grumpy. Lyvin, in his infinite wisdom, badly tries to flirt with Clacky.
Lyvin: "Heyyy we've both been asleep for how many years--" He continues a bad pickup line.
Clacky (groaning): "You're lucky that you're useful to these people, otherwise I would string you to a tree."
Lyvin: "...Geez. Okay. Okay, I'm sorry. God." (Worst man on earth.)
Clacky just seems to be out for blood. She's sharpening her claws--it's actually kinda annoying--and she sharpens them for a few hours straight and destroys a few bedposts with them, all like "I hate things."
Lyvin: "Do they really do that? Do they really string you up against a tree?"
Luna: "Yeah."
Lyvin: "Eurgh. Alright. Note to self: don't flirt with demons."
Clara's oddly quiet. While she's asleep, she has a Great Dream with the sword: that she's a mighty conqueror, killing a lot of people. Wow. She gets the impression that the sword really wants blood and really wants to kill a lot of anything (not just enemies). That might be a problem.
Tsuki: "At least the sword's not talking yet."
So that's why Clara's quiet. It felt exhilarating but after waking up she's like "uhhhhhhh. did I really feel that. how can that be a good deed. maybe it could be for something noble but could it be done without actually killing people"
President: "Yeah, just talk to the people who are clearly screaming and running from you."
Clara: "Yeah, they're just screaming and running, surely you could just talk to them."
Tsuki: "It's exercise for them!"
This reminds President of a scene in Ghost Stories which will not be discussed further.
Anyways. Stellara is perched and looking around and assures Luna that she will not touch anything. Luna certainly trusts Stellara in this regard. Clara says "okay" but keeps her eye on the raven who touches stuff. In fact, as Stellara says she won't touch anything, we notice there's a hole she made in a trunk, and a lot of clothes are picked out as if they were pinched out at one specific point. But she's like "I will not touch anything I promise". #birdlife
Nadyn: "I mean, they're not in use. She could make a nest."
Yeah, but what's the point of that?
Tsuki: "Too much work."
President: "Eggs are also hard to lay (not speaking from experience). But since she's a magical familiar she doesn't need energy to lay eggs, so free food! New Ponzi scheme! She just currently doesn't want to lay an egg, we'd have to ask her very nicely."
Luna: "You know I can give us some Goodberries? I don't think we need to make my bird lay eggs to eat..."
So yeah, everyone does something. Except Tsuki, whose dreams are actually very nice; he dreams about hanging out with Lara and the halflings and having a good time.
Tsuki: "Halflings know how to have a good time."
Clara has bad dreams, Tsuki has nice dreams. I guess making pacts with old elder gods really does pay.
After finishing our long rest, Tsuki gets that False Life going, and Luna casts Goodberry and offers one to everyone.
All group members have a Goodberry. The berries are blue. Clara eats hers now. Nothing happens. Clacky sketches out our surroundings.
Clacky: "Here's where I was captured; to the southwest there's this large room--it's shaped a bit like a massive head--I'd wager the ghost is right there."
So we head that way to beat up a ghost. President sings a parody of Dora the Explorer's Travel Song and takes psychic damage. We walk through the darkness for some time. It's quiet. We reach a place that isn't quiet anymore. Or at least not silent--instead, we hear muttering echoing through a room with really bad acoustics (because it is underground and all). The party doesn't really have a lot of time to react before going into initiative. It's like the jumpscare blue lady with the long flowy hair suspended as if in water.
Nadyn: "What did you do with your hair? I wanna get that kind of volume!"
Ghost screeches at us threateningly and we roll initiative! She even goes first and just screams! Immediately four constructs form around her. They're kind of ethereal, still coming into existence. Three are Olarins and one is the slug species we saw. Clara next: she attacks construct #3 but crit misses so not even her bloodthirsty sword can help her. It's like a pre-hologram anyways. Nadyn fires the taser at Yui. 1d8 lightning damage vs. CON save, DC 9, with paralysis on success. Rolling DEX: she aims and fires, but she's not used to guns, and she doesn't know how to handle it properly, so it goes wide. Clacky brings out her claws, goes "You son of a--" and then starts slashing. She also rolls terribly and misses. Lyvin goes to construct 4 and sets a trap beneath them, then goes and readies a blade. Luna casts Faerie Fire in the area covering Yui, 1, and 3, but only managing to affect #1. Tsuki eldritch blasts Yui but misses (it flies through her hair, which does nothing). Yui looks up, glares at Clacky and uses a claw to slash her in return, and fails to hit with the first attack, but the second attack hits for 10 psychic damage. #4 springs the trap, which erupts in yellow smoke in a 15ft square; we can't see what's happening in the square but it contains Lyvin and #4.
Clara goes for #3 again and hits for 9 magical slashing damage. The sword is really happy. Clara gets the feeling it wants to strike again: next turn, whatever she does, she has to attack something, and she can't heal on that turn. As she slashes the construct, she notices that it has the same wound that happened when Clara stuck her sword into the memory to stop herself from slipping. Nadyn viciously mocks Yui, which Yui fails, causing 3 damage and giving disadvantage. #1 is next: it moves to the side and aims a taser at Clara, barely missing in a slow-mo Matrix moment. Clara feels the blood-loving sword's intense hatred for construct #1, so that's fun. Next, Clacky tries to attack again and misses again (maybe this is why she got captured in the first place). As a reaction, we see some electrical things forming around Clacky's space: she fails a save and suddenly she's electrocuted and paralyzed. (Less actions for President to keep track of at least.) Lyvin exits the yellow thing he created and tries to get himself in a better position a ways off to the right. Luna moves a bit to the side and casts Eldritch Blast on Yui, hitting for 12 damage. Tsuki uses Word of Radiance on Yui, causing 4 damage on the failed save. #3 gets a glowy lightsaber-esque sword and fails to hit our tanky paladin Clara with it. #3 says something--but the language isn't being filtered through our memories like before. Nadyn actually recognizes it as Triton for "darn".
#2 repositions and does something with a watch that causes a shield to form around Yui. Yui turns to Tsuki and attacks twice. First would hit but Nadyn's Silvery Barbs disrupts it (benefiting Clara), and the second fails. Yui looks a bit annoyed. #4 goes and attacks Lyvin, who unfortunately gets bonked in the head (which is maybe worth like 1 silver? some people will pay good money for bonks to the head for some reason). Clara next, under obligation to attack and having advantage, rolls a 3 and a 1. Sword is very displeased with missing. So displeased, in fact, that on her next turn when she attacks, she will automatically hit the target with the lowest AC in range, so she miiight need to move away from her party members. Nadyn uses the melee function of the taser (so no int needed) and hits, but Yui passes the constitution save. #1 attacks Clara with a taser again and does not hit. Clacky is paralyzed but manages to shake it off, saying, "YOU! You paralyzed me again!" Lyvin attacks #4 but misses. Luna also edges away from Clara and eldritch blasts Yui for 11 damage. Some of that damage is absorbed by the shield, but there is progress. Tsuki blasts #2 for 7 damage... and waves at Yui again. Yui has legendary actions actually, and this annoys her enough to use one of them to silence Tsuki, dealing 3 necrotic damage and creating a bubble of silence preventing him from using any spells using verbal components until it is dispelled somehow. This is why you shouldn't annoy bosses.
#3 attacks Clara and would crit for 15 damage, except Nadyn silvery barbs it to at least not crit, just 11 damage. #2 has been blasted out of their shield but re-shields Yui. Yui tries to attack Tsuki, crit-missing the first but hitting the second for 8 damage. #4 is out there dueling with Lyvin, good job Lyvin. Clara casts Cure Wounds on herself, and her sword hits #3 anyways... for a 4. But hey, it still hit the lowest AC target automatically. Nadyn gives up on the taser for now and tries dabbing stabbing, misses, and tries Cure Wounds on Tsuki to heal him up to full. #1 is still trying to tase Clara but misses again. Probably the darkness or something. Clacky tries to attack Yui again but misses. Lyvin's still off with #4. Luna blasts Yui again but misses. Tsuki silently screams and disengages, ending his turn because he can't do anything else useful. #3 tries to attack Clara and misses. #2 does something new! #2 passes by Clara and Nadyn (both missing) their opportunity attacks and tries a quick stab on Luna, but misses. Nobody's hitting today! Yui uses her action to cast a charm on Nadyn... taking 12 damage from the memory effect. Yui screams a bit at the damage, which the shield doesn't protect her from. #4 is still engaged in epic battle just over there. Clara, worked up over her violent sword which is demanding blood and just having a bad day overall, swings at #3 and finally hits with an 18. #3 kind of disappears into thin air. Sword is very happy at having felled an enemy. Now that Clara's killed someone, she's activated something the sword can do called Bloodlust, and she autohits the nearest person... which, thankfully (and barely), is Yui, because the party has wisely decided to stay the heck away. Sword hits for 11 more damage, some of which is absorbed. Very good item, however dot dot dot.
Tsuki isn't thinking clearly enough to telepathically scream into everyone's heads which he could totally do. He figures once someone reacts to his screaming he'll know he's no longer silenced. Maybe he's dictating books or something? But it's Luna's turn, and she tries a Regular Attack, stabbing #2 with her dagger, barely hitting, for 3 damage. Tsuki passes his saving throw so we all suddenly hear screaming. Tsuki's no longer silenced! He still can't perform a spellcasting action, though bonus actions are fair game (but still basically useless right now), so he repositions himself a bit further into the room. #2 goes up to Tsuki, with Luna missing an opportunity attack--Tsuki's screaming ended probably with something about a certain demon's voice about urinating in public, and it's because of this hatred that #2 is after Tsuki--and #2 hits for 4 damage, ninja flipping over the Hellish Rebuke but still taking half of 21 damage. #2 got all fancy for nothing and is like "oof that sucks". #2 also failed the concentration save so Yui no longer has a shield! Yui's turn: she's surprised a bit, like "wow I didn't expect this much resistance"; she had been attacking Nadyn or Tsuki but abruptly turns to Clara and tries to attack twice with her claws, dealing 10 damage. #4 is still off with Lyvin. As Yui attacks, Clara gets the reason: the wound her sword stuck in earlier is now visible, and Clara gets the sense that if she hits, she can end this fight prematurely. Sword is like "hit Yui, complete me!!" or something like that. Clara can resist this with a CHA save if desired--but she takes the chance, having only 7 HP left. She manages to hit Yui, driving the sword into the wound she made earlier. Yui chokes a little bit; the sword is extremely happy about this. Yui is shocked, and her hair goes slack like normal hair. She returns briefly to looking like a normal person (but in hologram form).
Yui (in Primordial): "What are you doing?" She turns to Nadyn. "You can't trust them. You can't!"
She's cut off as she disappears into the clearly evil sword.
Nadyn: "...Woulda been really nice to figure out who 'them' was."
Tsuki: "Oh well."
Lyvin is not dead yet. He's still doing that battle. He and #4 are having a bit of a fencing match, testing their skills. #4 seems to notice that Yui is deaderino. #1 is too shocked to respond.
Clacky: "Ha, yes, die you dumb ba---rd, I hate you!"
Lyvin (stopping attacking): "Hey, bro, I thought we had a thing going here, whatcha doin'?".
Luna's turn: she blasts #2 but misses. Tsuki blasts #2 with disadvantage but still hits for 7 damage, causing it to dissipate because it's kinda just a hologram. #4 leaves the fight with Lyvin and goes to charge Tsuki, taking an actual opportunity attack (1 damage, whoopee) from Lyvin and failing at its own attack. Clara's turn: as Yui disappears, she feels this sword turn to a very shocked #1.
Sword: "Silence him. Permanently."
She'd have to CHA save with disadvantage to disobey that... but she goes along with the sword deliberately, dealing 6 damage.
#1, getting a clue about what's happening, says "Wait! I have information that might be useful!"--in a Triton-esque dialect.
Nadyn: "Uh, I think he's got some information, actually."
Clara sword: "You already know all you need to know. Why listen to these little peons? What do they know compared to you? You have the ghost entirely within your hands."
Clara is not convinced. We're still in initiative. Clacky goes to help finish off #2 but misses. Luna goes off to the side to blast #4 but barely misses. Slug people were very strong, apparently. Tsuki uses Inflict Wounds on #4 but misses, so he tries to pretend he was pushing the slug to run from Clara.
Sword is insistent Clara already knows what #1 would want to say, and is screaming for blood, being an obviously evil sword and all. It gets a nat 20--but Nadyn tries to Silvery Barbs it. The reroll still hits for 7 damage. #1 tries to tase Clara but misses. Clacky goes for #4 and misses. Lyvin hits #4 for 7 damage. Luna blasts #4 for 10 damage, dissipating it. Tsuki is a bit confused but moves next to Nadyn--he's not sure how useful the info would be from #1, and is worried the sword would be mad if he stole the kill, or if he was just standing near it at the end of the fight. So he eats that Goodberry as if it were popcorn and watches things unfold. Clara's sword really wants to kill #1; Clara hits with an attack, and the stupid evil sword is happy. Clara's fine with rolling with it as long as people she cares about aren't hurt (she tries). #1 dissipates into thin air. Clara is now free to heal herself or do whatever. She uses Cure Wounds on herself.
President: "Completely unrelated question: what's Clara's eye color?"
Clara: "Brown?"
President: "Okay, thanks!"
(We can assume that at some point it might not look like brown.)
Tsuki: "Who wants to place bets?"
Nadyn: "The obvious choice is red, so no bet there."
Tsuki: "That's the trick, it'll be white!"
Anyway, Clara heals.
Sword (eerily calmly): "Don't worry; as I said, you already know all you need to know. All Yui wanted to say was to not trust the ants... but you may have already known that."
Nadyn: "To be fair, I trust Yui and the ants more than this sword..."
As Clara turns around, her eyes glow very, very starkly orange.
Tsuki: "Who bet on orange?"
Clara: "I didn't bet on the orange!"
But yes, her eyes are orange. But hey, we managed to defeat Yui! her eyes are sauron orange. sauronge
Clacky: "Yeah, that's what you get for imprisoning me all these yearrrrrs!"
Lyvin walks over to Luna because Lyvin trusts Luna the most out of this squad.
Lyvin: "Uhh... is your friend okay?"
Luna: "Y'know, that's a good question."
Lyvin: "That sounds like my mom when she doesn't want to answer questions, or my ex-husband... Anyways, I will stand over here, because usually when people's eyes glow it's not a great sign."
Clacky: "What are you saying? My eyes glow! Are you saying that I am not a good sign?"
Lyvin (hiding behind Luna): "Protect me, Luna!"
(Because Clacky is just a tiny amount of evil)
Luna: "Little a evil?"
Clara: "A little evil as a treat."
President: "Well, she is a demon, so levels of evil you'd expect of the demon of blind loyalty."
Speaking of! We get a little message from the Lady of the Lake.
Lady: "Hey! Hey, where were you people?"
Nadyn: "Umm... killing the ghost of an extinct race, I think?"
Lady: "Ah, I see, okay, great."
Clacky: "YOU B!@#$! You left me to die or be harvested or what--"
Lady: "Ugh, stop being so dramatic, it was one little betrayal. Kids these days can't handle things like that."
Clacky is very mad at this and continues ranting at her, arguing with her ex-girlfriend, the Lady of the Lake. Very dysfunctional relationships on display here.
Lady: "Ugh, you can't seriously ask me to remain loyal. We're demons, not like 'I love you forever and ever'."
Clacky: "Hey, I'm the demon of blind loyalty! You really don't think loyalty means anything to me??"
Their argument slowly devoles into something in Infernal. We can elect to eat popcorn. Nadyn gently nudges Clara to maybe put down the sword for a couple seconds. Clara obliges. She's staring at it and thinking, "It's so evil, it's so cursed." The act of putting down the sword does not return her eyes to normal, but she doesn't know that.
Nadyn: "Okay! You're still glowy."
Clara (record scratch reaction): "What"
Nadyn: "I'm guessing it's because you gave in to that evil sword a few too many times?"
Sword speaks to Clara in her head, dredging up a memory of Clara's mom, who she has mixed feelings about--it's a memory from childhood, where Clara's getting ready for some occasion and her mom tousles her hair and says, "Aww, look at you, you have such pretty eyes!"
Nadyn: "Quick, now's the time to telepathy NFT jargon into her head to distract her from the clearly evil memories the sword must be whispering to her!"
Tsuki backs up toward the dark swirly mist on the encounter map. He examines it to see if he can figure out what it is. He pokes it with his hand. It's almost as if a wasp has stung him.
Tsuki: "Okay, walking through isn't a good idea, got it."
President: "Or if you aren't a wuss who's afraid of wasps..."
The disembodied DM voice eggs on the character to make obviously bad decisions. Tsuki hears the player chatter and must be confused. He misty steps 30 feet straight ahead, taking 1 damage from the sting but quickly jumping outside the thing's boundary. He sees this giant crystal hooked up to something; it's got something growing over it, and it's currently deactivated, but there's a big button he's pretty sure activates the crystal because it has a picture of the crystal activating.
Luna: "Oh no."
Tsuki shrugs and presses it. A lot of lights turn on suddenly, stuff whirrs around, and a PA system plays some loud brass music before abruptly cutting off because it's a reboot. He hears the voice of his good friend T3 v10.3.
T3: "Ah! You went above and beyond! You've restored power; I assume the virus is taken care of?"
Tsuki: "...suuure?"
As he says that, an air vent whooshes the black inky stuff away. Tsuki poses as it disappears.
T3: "You have the system's gratitude."
Tsuki: "So now what?"
T3: "I believe we have some precious stones as payment--extracted from the earth, you understand."
Tsuki is nodding like yes, yes.
T3: "Is that payment enough for you?"
Tsuki: "Sounds good."
T3: "In that case, I shall meet you on your way out. Thank you so much for restoring power to this place."
As it says that, a bunch of waspy drones come in and start repairing the area.
Clara: "First ants, now wasps."
Stellara flies with the wasps, who are in this case kinda friendly. They don't have emotions because they're drones, but they do agree to fly harmlessly around Stellara.
Stellara: "Wow, this rocks! I never knew that the human world had metallic wasps like this. Ah, do you think this is a giant wasp nest? Or perhaps these ants and wasps have worked together?" She nods sagely.
Tsuki: "I'm thinking 'together'."
We actually do see the really happy one we gave the bolt to earlier. He's still there, still happy, still flying with the bolt, currently using the bolt to screw something in. Very happy. Happiest little wasp ever.
Meanwhile, Clacky is still arguing in Infernal with Lady via Clara's Meep crown.
Tsuki: "We'd better get to the lake soon..."
Luna doesn't have popcorn but tries casting Comprehend Languages to listen in on the argument.
Clacky: "First, I will rip your throat out and eat your brain!"
Lady: "Ha, I'd like to see you try!"
(Clearly it's devoled into petty threats now.)
Lady: "You know what? Your skill with the sword is almost as bad as your skill in bed."
Clacky: "HOW DARE YOU"
(It's just, like, a fight.)
Lady: "Come on, you're free now, get over it!"
Clacky: "I'm upset you betrayed me!"
Lady: "What do you want from me?"
Clacky: "Take me back!!"
Lady: "Fine, but you have to live in a lake."
Clacky: "what"
Lady: "Yeah. I'm stuck in this stupid lake."
Clacky: "What are you doing in there? Are you creating Cthulhu 2.0 or something?"
It's very popcorn-worthy.
Nadyn walks over and taps on the crown a bit.
Nadyn: "Excuse me?"
Lady: "What? Oh hey, you guys! What's up?"
Clara: "Hai I think my sword is cursed"
Nadyn: "Yeah, that."
Sword (retorting very calmly): "Cursed? Look at what I have enabled you to accomplish! Aren't all your friends safe? Isn't this what you want?"
Clara has a record scratch noise in her head again as she ponders this.
Clara: "Yes, but I don't need a sword to tell me to keep my friends safe, I can do that on my own. The sword kept telling me to keep hitting and killing, and I think my eyes are permanently glowing, and I can't get it to stop."
Lady: "Um. That's... concerning. Uh. Can I... um."
Sword (very calmly): "I understand. I'm not forcing you to do anything, of course. I am after all still in your hands, and I am here to serve my master."
Nadyn: "Suure, what's that about charisma saves then?"
President: "Yeah, you have disadvantage on CHA saves. You can always disbelieve or retort, but with disadvantage."
Clara considers giving the sword to the Lady of the Lake to look at it. Sword really does not want to do it and tries to not assume direct control, but it's one of those "can't disobey without double save" things.
Nadyn: "So, what was that about 'Not Forcing You To Do Things'?"
Clara takes the double CHA save challenge. Nadyn uses bardic inspiration (in-universe, the reminder of her earlier attempt to dissuade the sword from critting) to try to help Clara get rid of the sword's influence.
Sword: "You saw the Lady of the Lake betray someone she loves; what gives you the idea she'll not do the same to you?"
Clara: "Okay, well, maybe not right now."
Sword: "I saved your hide. What did the Lady ever do?"
Clara: "Gave Meep responsibility..."
Nadyn gives Clara another bardic inspiration for the road.
Tsuki: "So can we leave the tunnels now?"
Yeah, we can collect our reward on the way out. It's not quiet as we walk because we hear Clacky muttering to herself in Infernal. Luna, having Comprehend Languages still active for the hour, understands it.
Clacky: "I can't believe she's been having a demotion like that, but she's so pretty--" She's gushing to herself about how pretty the Lady of the Lake is, how she's the demon of blind loyalty and it wouldn't really hurt to be loyal again, and hey, apparently Lady's a celestial now so maybe a little more trustworthy, and imagining this domestic life with her, completely unaware Luna can understand everything she's saying.
Tsuki: "Remember the time Lady of the Lake hung people up by the vines in the tree and let them die? That was cool."
Nadyn: "I mean we only saw that happen to Jake, and he didn't die, right?"
Tsuki: "I mean the skeletons. With the bird in the skull..."
We go back up. The ant gives us the reward; let's find out what kind of reward we get! What if it was just ants? Would be cool if it was our own personal ant drone army. But nah, it's gemstones. Between us, we get 1 black sapphire, 1 luriyl, 1 agni mani, 1 epidote, 1 blue sapphire, and 1 morganite. One of them matches Tsuki's beak. Nadyn forgets the sword and the extinct species and all that because the gems are so pretty. T3 is pleased we enjoy it.
T3: "Of course. These gems are quite nice, and have some instrumental value--you can use them as you may--but know that you have this system's gratitude."
Tsuki: "We try."
Luna: "Glad we could help!"
T3 (bowing its head): "Thank you."
It sees us off to the surface, where not much has changed. It's still a surface. No longer preoccupied with the cursed sword or Lady of the Lake and Clacky thing, we're like "oh crap, we missed our court appointment." In the distance, we see Vincent and Co's law offices.
Nadyn: "So... giving them the gems would be considered bribery, and that's illegal, right?"
Clara: "Yes. That's illegal."
Luna: "It's only a problem if they turn it down..."
Tsuki: "In our defense, we were transported into another realm for a very long time. And that kind of stuff happens all the time in this world. So we either pretend none of this happened, or go get chewed out by Vincent."
Luna: "We should probably figure out what's going on..."
Tsuki: "And then Lady of the Lake."
Nadyn: "Do we want to bring lyvin and clacky as witnesses or something?"
Yeah, the townsfolk have already seen Lyvin go up and down, so we could muster up some circumstantial "I saw this guy get some stuff for a sandwich because he said he had to feed his friends". Clacky might not be a very reliable witness, but right now she at least looks like a human.
Clacky: "Yup, my name will be Mildred! That's a very trustworthy human name, right?"
Clara: "Oookay. Okay."
Tsuki: "Sure is!"
Next session we will go to some law offices (yes this must be so exciting for Kat) and maybe see Lady of the Lake. Tsuki pocketed the luriyl immediately. Clara takes the epidote since it's green and Meep stuff. Luna wants the black sapphire or morganite, but it wouldn't be right to take both, so she goes with the morganite. Nadyn will take whatever's left over, so sure, blue sapphire for aesthetics. Tsuki tries to offer Lyvin a random rock he found on the ground.
Lyvin: "I wasn't born yesterday."
Tsuki (tossing it to the side): "Darn. Worth a shot."
Clacky does not seem interested in mere things like stones. We offer Lyvin the agni mani.
Lyvin: "Awesome, thanks! I will be sure to catch a decent amount for this." He stares at it. "Anyway, thank you for freeing me; I will now go and stick it to my ex husband."
Tsuki: "If he's alive."
Lyvin: "If he's alive. So yeah, like 'I'm young and you're gross and old'."
Nadyn: "Well, you know where to find us! Which is... actually, I have no idea where you could find us."
Lyvin: "I'm sure I could ask for the bird, the cat, the paladin, and the triton."
Tsuki: "You could find the Lady of the Lake."
Lyvin: "Yeah, I've heard her name mentioned a few times. Sounds like a fun person."
Tsuki: "You probably won't be hung from a tree."
Lyvin: "Yeah, I'm definitely going to stick to flirting with regular people. And not demons."
Luna: "Probably a good idea."
Lyvin: "You know what really impresses people? Adventurers. But first I'm gonna go to where he used to live and rub it in his face. See ya guys!"
He immediately starts going on his journey. He'll be fine. The black sapphire is left over in our communal inventory as the bonus gem.
Nadyn: "I KNOW! We could give it as a treat to Mimi!"
President: "Yes, yes, Mimi will be so happy."
Also, the agni mani is useless. We gave the cheapest gem to Lyvin. But yeah, next session we can figure out our legal stuff.
My Recap Of The Petting Zoo Squad's Coterrific Session 23 As Much As I Was Able To Process It - June 10 2023
As we ascend from underground, the sun's shining and birds are singing, maybe in an annoying way; the Meep crown still works fine despite the cursed sword, and since she's back in nature for the first time in awhile Clara's crown is transmitting the wonderful chatter of birds: some looking for food, others like "HEEEEEY WHO WANTS TO BE MY GIRLFRIEND". Stellara seems happy to be under the nice grand old blue sky. Lyvin is enjoying his freedom.
Lyvin: "You guys are good, right? You guys are good? It's time to track down my ex!"
Clacky ("Mildred") is wearing very strange clothing that makes us wonder "how many years ago did that exist", with our best guess being the equivalent of the 1400s.
Clacky: "Yes, I'm Mildred. I'm your average human woman."
Coaster: "That's... actually a lot less suspicious than it would be in real life."
Tsuki: "I mean there's a human woman here with 2 cursed items..."
Nadyn: "So Clacky is probably the most average human woman in this group."
We realize: oh, that's been a week. Isn't that when we were supposed to show up in court? Uh-oh.
Tsuki: "It's fiiine. Not showing up for court is perfectly okay. Let's just leave town as fast as possible. I also would vote to leave as soon as possible but I don't think anyone would agree. But if nobody says anything..."
Nadyn: "Is today our court date or is it already over?"
President: "It's like when you're really late to a meeting that's already half-done."
Nadyn: "Okay, that's perfect, because then we can storm in all like OBJECTION and it'll be super dramatic and awesome."
Tsuki: "Only if I can scream the Phoenix Wright objection."
The trial would be a week after we entered the ruins; it's more than halfway in-progress, we think. Clara's all for going, but not to cause ruckus (she already did enough of that with her cursed sword last time). Luna votes for that as well. Tsuki's been outvoted. This is now tribal council; we extinguish his torch (he was carrying one in the dungeon anyways, might have left it behind somewhere) and make it to court. The clerk looks at the party.
Clerk: "Oh. I've heard about you." They write in some file somewhere. "Yeah, you can go in, sure."
Nadyn is aching to go in screaming "OBJECTION", but Clara's holding her back (Tsuki isn't). We just go in normally. The judge is an old woman who glares at our Totally Normal Party as we go find our seats. (Clara's eyes are still glowing evil orange.) It occurs to us as we see Vincent on the defense side that we've never seen Vincent standing up. He doesn't look at us or acknowledge our existence in any way whatsoever, just continues to speak in his Vincenty monotone voice. Meg's also trying to be professional, but quickly waves at us and goes back to standing there like a good lawyerly assistant.
Turns out we came during closing remarks. Vincent pushes back his little round glasses and summarizes the case: Jabin a.k.a. Dwayne "The Brick" Johnson is an enemy soldier and stuff, but he hasn't committed any crimes, technically--besides falsification of papers, and that's really light. Prosecution made a deal in exchange for things. As we listen to it, we get the impression he might have thrown us under the bus a bit.
Nadyn: "To be fair, I think it went a bit better than it would have if we were here the whole time."
Vincent continues: remember that this is someone who was really scared; remember there were some mitigating circumstances and other people who share the blame; he recounts the situation and how he was able to obtain falsified documents; he makes a big deal of noting that Clara is a noble, meaningfully clears his throat, and rests his case. Clara starts to look a little awkward. Vincent, being a pretty good lawyer, and Meg who is a pretty good lawyer-to-be, have clearly done something. Because Clara, way back in session 1 when she said she had a family member she didn't talk about that much, the black sheep of the family? In this very courtroom is Arthur, the black sheep of the family, sitting cross-legged with a smile on his face--the kind of smile that tells you that everything's gonna be fine. He's watching the court proceedings like it's some kind of entertainment for him. Very typical of Arthur. Clara stares at him for a bit as if to check if that's really him, but she feels like she shouldn't say anything to interrupt the proceedings, so she controls herself. Nadyn sees the Meaningful Glances they're exchanging, gets completely the wrong idea, and nudges Clara to say she should go flirt with him. (She does in fact seem itching to tell him something, it's just not THAT.)
The court proceedings go civilly; there's no jury in this particular courtroom (just the jduge), and he concludes the case.
Judge: "Okay, fine; you took this bargain; there will be no charges against Jabin, or as he was known, 'Dwayne "The Brick" Johnson'; this name he may keep for reasons related to safety in case of retaliation blah blah."
So everything kinda fizzles out. Before we can talk to Arthur or ask anything, Vincent beckons us.
Vincent: "Come here, guys..."
Nadyn: "Wait! I have something to say! How do you tell which lawyer is the best lawyer!"
Vincent: "...how do you tell which lawyer is the best lawyer?..."
Nadyn: "A TOURNEY."
Vincent "..."
He smiles at it a little bit like "ha ha lame pun I get it, my children would probably like it", but makes a noise indicating "I've been standing for too much today" and sits down.
Meg: "Oh, that went pretty well, didn't it? Y'know, at first I was really kinda sad that you weren't here."
Vincent: "Better that they weren't... ugh..." He doesn't really elaborate. "You strike me as a bit of a more impulsive group. Well, over the past week, we did not really require your testimony per se."
As he says this, we hear the door open and it's Arthur coming in. Vincent: "Ah yes, we've managed to find him. Well, Meg managed to find him."
Meg nods really enthusiastically.
Meg: "Well, speaking of which: normally you guys would kinda have to go to trial?"
She's struggling to find the words. Arthur kinda just has a court summons with our party's names on it, shows it to us, and rips it in half.
Tsuki: "As long as they didn't touch us, we're safe!"
Arthur: "It doesn't matter really. It's not like they can prosecute you for anything, isn't that right?" He gives Clara a meaningful look, looks her up and down, smiles, hooks her with one arm and tries to give her a noogie.
Arthur: "Ey, how's our little angel doing?"
Clara tries to extricate herself.
Clara: "I'm fine, stop that!" (Even though deep inside she knows she's not fine because cursed sword.)
Draco: "(and cursed crown)"
President: "Well, not CURSED."
Draco: "Close enough."
Kat: "It's not too bad, she just can't kill goblins..."
President: "It's just a crummy blessing."
Kat: "...and keeps hearing birds and plants gossiping..."
Tsuki: "Is there a potted plant in the room? Would it be talking as we sit here?"
President: "Yes, it's just echoing some legalese it heard."
Clara (internally): "Wow, that plant wants to be a lawyer." She keeps trying to not get noogied.
Clara (externally): "Arthur, what are you doing here?"
She knows Arthur is the black sheep of the family; they're mostly in the textile business, but he's in the much more unsavory business of selling and buying weapons. Including in Corroza. Clara (slowly, putting 1+1 together) picks up the idea that nobody in Corroza would be able to touch the party legally (i.e. we can rip up a court summons) because of his dealings.
Clara: "Ohhh. So that's why nobody bothered us in the courtroom."
Arthur: "Hey, Clara, you know it's been so long since I've seen you; you've grown up so much!"
He's barely older than her, but he's treating her like she's so much younger than him, like "look at this little baby".
Arthur: "You know what? We should catch up with a dinner!" He gestures at the party. "You can even bring the riffraff with you!"
Nadyn: "I rescind my endorsement."
Clara: "Okay, but don't call them riffraff."
Arthur: "I see..." He takes some notes. "I should not call them riffraff." (He's definitely the type to pivot to a synonym.)
Tsuki has the look of wanting to say something, but drops it with a shrug, because he's kinda right--we are riffraff.
Arthur: "Ah... The peons? The commoners?"
Tsuki: "I think that's worse"
Clara makes a face that says "I'm sorry he's like this" to the rest of the party.
Luna: "Eh, it's not your fault he's classist."
For Cordova, the nobility kind of at least transitioned over to the merchant class. Arthur finds this idea kinda charming.
Arthur: "Ah, Clara, you were always the best of us, you know? Most of our family by now, they would have just settled into their comfortable lives, but look at you, playing the role of the knight-errant! I really admire that about you lately."
Nadyn: "...emphasis on the 'errant' lately..."
Clara: "Thaaaanks question mark question mark question mark???"
Arthur: "Unfortunately, this town does not have any... suitably nice places, but before you leave, I will invite you and your..."
Nadyn: "Can we at least be a 'coterie'?
Arthur: "...to the most expensive establishment in this backwater town. Fine, I suppose you can be Clara's 'coterie'."
Clara: "That's... better. yeah."
Arthur: "Anyways, Clara"--he says to indicate we don't really have a choice in the matter--"I do expect to see you there at precisely 7pm." He does this rolling of his wrist thing and gives us a bow.
Tsuki copies him. Clara finds the mimicry honestly a little funny in this case. (President's sister calls us all nerds.) Arthur leaves.
In retrospect, there are like two or three inns in this town tops: one of them is the cheap one, one is the regular inn for soldiers and stuff, and one is a high-end one for government officials and officers and stuff that come by. (It's not that high-end, just "kinda nice"). Vincent, through this entire conversation, was giving Arthur the death glare but didn't say anything.
Meg: "Hmm. I wonder, as your legal team, are we part of your coterie?"
Vincent leans back and shakes his head no.
Meg: "Ah, listen, you don't understand!" She gives Clara these puppy-dog eyes. "Vincent makes a lot of money because he's a lawyer but I'm only a legal assistant please help me please please!"
Tsuki just shrugs.
Luna (whispering to Clara): "We should invite Meg."
Clara (nodding): "Hey, Meg, want to come with us? We'll have dinner later?" Not saying out loud, she plans to put Meg on Arthur's tab. It's already implied Arthur's gonna pay the tab--he did offer dinner after all.
Nadyn: "We should invite the whole town."
Clara: "What the fudge, that's too much coterie for one person!"
Tsuki: "Too bad Lyvin already ran off."
President: "Could probably track him down if you really wanted to."
Clara: "It's fine..."
We meet with Jabin (a.k.a. Dwayne "The Brick" Johnson).
Jabin: "Oh, hi guys!"
Nadyn: "Hi! Which name do you prefer now that you have the choice?"
Jabin (sighing): "Well, I do like my original name."
Koala comes on his shoulder and makes an affirmative squeak.
Jabin: "But you know, Dwayne The Brick Johnson is... a name that... is better for the records, according to Vincent. He was like, 'you must consider the legality'--who knew he was an expert in Vanecian law too?" He half rolls his eyes. "I appreciate him, really, but now I have to pay off my legal fees. Or, wait, Corroza doesn't have legal fees, that's right! Ah."
He goes back and forth like this. Stellara says hello to Koala and they have a little conversation.
Stellara: "How's it like being a rat?"
Koala: "You know I'm not like a regular rat, I'm like a pet rat. But yeah, doing good. I like chewing on things."
Stellara: "AWESOME. I also like chewing on things!"
They bond over the chewing. (Ravens do chew a lot because their beaks grow indefinitely.) Clara considers if Jabin is part of her coterie... Sure, why not? He's also invited to the expensive nice place to go for dinner. We have a few hours to spend before dinner. We could shower or something beforehand, since we have soap after all. At Luna's suggestion, we all go bathe. Nadyn lies at the bottom of the tub and makes the bubbles. President's mind is momentarily blown by Oxford thesaurus listing Batman as a synonym for attendant. We take our shower, we wear some clothes (Nadyn puts on her stagey fancy clothes), and this counts as a short rest. There's not much to do in this town, even in the way of shopping; we guess we could go to the medium inn and haggle with soldiers who gambled too much, but we don't talk to cops, and we'd rather go back to the city to buy/sell stuff. Clara, as we're walking, she gets some bad reception to the Meep crown and hears Lady of the Lake arguing with someone.
Lady: "Hey! Hey! No. No. PUT. THE GOBLIN DOWN. PUT THE GOBLIN DOWN."
It's clearly not directed at Clara, just noise it picks up. It's a very not cruddy blessing to have this crown.
Eventually, by some means or another, it's 7pm, and we arrive at this restaurant where the biggest table is reserved, and Arthur's just reading a book at the table like he's been here for a while.
Nadyn: "Say, whatcha readin'?"
Arthur: "Ah, well, it's a book in a foreign language I'm sure you wouldn't know."
Luna: "Technically, I could understand any language, but..."
It uses the same writing system as Sylvan, but it looks like gibberish because it's Elvish.
Arthur: "I'm sure you wouldn't understand." He puts the book down. "Well, hello, Clara, m'Gan"--he gestures towards the rest of us like he hasn't really bothered to learn our names.
Tsuki: "He hasn't."
Luna: "I thought WE were bad with names."
Clara: "Hi. We're here."
Arthur: "Ah, yes, have a seat, have a seat. The waiter will be here very shortly. Clara, would you mind introducing your friends to me?"
Naydn: "We've been upgraded to friends!!!"
Tsuki: "Score!"
Clara: "These are my friends; they're Luna, Nadyn, and Tsuki. You've been a big help to me, so be nice to them."
Arthur: "Ah, yes, yes. Well, thank you for helping little Clara..." he says in the most condescending way.
Clara's rolling her eyes. She's the party tank, for Pete's sake.
Arthur: "...through her little quest to do all these good deeds for the day. It's very adorable, how quaint."
Nadyn: "Right, you'll probably have to make up for today's bad deeds for a bit, huh?"
Arthur is very charmed by the idea of this idealized little cousin who's just so cute running off doing little things. He gives a few updates on the family; he's not contacted much but does manage to stay upbeat.
Arthur: "You know, your aunt got remarried, and one of our mutual uncles is on his fourth spouse now, and..." He shares this kind of stuff.
Arthur: "Ah. How long has it been since you've gone back to Cordova?"
Clara: "It's been a while."
Nadyn: "Do we count the soup in that?"
Tsuki: "Oh, yeah, technically."
Arthur does not know what we're talking about. He interprets this as 'ah yes peasant speak the way they speak is so funny'. (It's pointed out that in retrospect, in an honor-based society like Shandeg, Nadyn might be related to some fairly high-ranked folks, but wouldn't be personally well-thought-of.) Anyways, Arthur's just been chatting away.
Arthur: "Okay, everyone, enough chit-chat; certainly you cannot fill your stomach with words." He gestures for the waiter to take everyone's orders.
m'Gan Megan orders everything on the menu, and she and Jabin form a bond with their mutually taking on the same challenge. Arthur looks at them, not devastated, but like "these common people are animals, what are they doing, how are they eating so much".
Tsuki: "They did us proud."
Clara's not so heartless as to join in. The menu has about 50 types of vintage wines, plus some of that honey mead from the neighbouring town. And fancy dishes, but all filled with bad military puns because the clientele recently is all military officers or high-ranking government folks passing by. Not quite like a pâté swirl on a big empty plate served as an artistic statement on the futility of food--that'd be more Corroza capital or Cadako for very pretentious food. It's served on actual plates here still, just a regular kinda toss-up of Indian and Spanish and French type stuff. The cuisine on this continent is mostly that. A bunch of curries and stuff. Nadyn orders the most expensive mead. Luna orders the most expensive white wine, and orders a side of berries for Stellara, who is on the table.
Stellara: "Oh, I love berries!"
She eats them happily. Tsuki, to make things weird, orders a whole chicken and some noodles. Stellara goes to steal Tsuki's noodles every once in a while. Tsuki doesn't initially notice and is like "what happened to my noodles. what happened to them". So he just orders more. Eventually, while Tsuki is eating his noodles, he figures out Stellara is eating them too, but he could almost have sworn that there were two ravens, one on each of his shoulders, trying to steal his noodles.
Luna: "Does one have a halo and the other have devil horns?"
Draco: "This is Tsuki. They both have devil horns, one's just a little nicer."
One is Stellara, and the other is a very similar raven but not Stellara. Tsuki has a moment of confusion, but shrugs it off and keeps eating. He doesn't really care at this point, but does think it's a bit weird. Two corvids stealing his food. The birds are all sticking together.
Clara notices the second bird.
Clara: "Did someone else bring a raven?"
Luna definitely notices too. The other raven sits up, looks at all of us, and slowly goes back to trying to steal noodles like nothing happened.
Stellara: "Oh yeah, you know what, you look familiar... but who are you?"
The other raven quickly flies to the middle of the table, makes a display as though she's going to say something, and then flies off, trying to take Tsuki's chicken with her by grabbing the whole thing in her talons.
Tsuki: "She can try a bite."
President rolls DEX for the bird. So yes, the raven lifts off with the chicken. Tsuki wants that bird as a familiar now. The raven goes to another table and plops the chicken on the table as it becomes too heavy to lift properly. We see part of it land on some officer who gets startled.
Officer: "Uh--a CHICKEN? What?!"
The raven lands on his shoulder.
Officer: "You're a very bad bird."
As this man tries to gather the chicken from the ground, we recognize him as the unnamed military officer that we never asked his name (spoilers: we still don't) who also had a raven familiar, and he holds the dirty floor chicken in his hands.
Officer: "Um. I believe this belongs to you."
Tsuki salutes the bird and nods his head yes.
Soldier: "Oh, okay." He plops it on Tsuki's plate and wipes his hands. He looks at the table, nods respectfully, and goes back to his own table, talking to his familiar like "bad bird". We establish that Tsuki's bag is probably still dirtier than the upscale tavern floor. We establish that we should go on a quest sometime to burn it when it inevitably gets cursed. Maybe we can consult a cleric to scrub his brain with a broom and some dish soap. But anyways, having animals in a restaurant, always fun. Arthur seems to people watch in a very butthole-ish way as this all happens. Tsuki does eat the chicken (five minute rule here, five second rule if it were outside in the dirt.) Clara is relieved Tsuki has SOME cleanliness standards. As Arthur people-watches, he eventually turns to Clara.
Arthur: "You know... I just wanted to tell you"--for a second the constant smug smile on his face flickers out a bit--"Clara, as you well know, you are an only child. And your parents are not going to be around forever. I would consider stopping this silly trek along the countryside and going back home."
Clara thinks on this a little because he's right and all (or at least, she knows what he's getting at).
Clara: "I know, but that doesn't feel right for me to do right now. But maybe in the future I'll think about it again."
Arthur (nods): "I suppose."
He gives a genuine-ish smile--hard to tell, but it still comes as a bit of a surprise that he would encourage Clara to reconnect with the family, and it strikes her as rather strange.
Arthur: "Well, I would just remember that you can do a lot more good with the family name than just the good deed a day thing that you've got going on here."
It's treated almost like what she's doing here is some kind of distraction from what really matters. The moment of sincerity then completely evaporates as he goes back into small talk butthole mode.
Arthur: "Although, if you are going to be in this countryside a while, look up Arthurian Munitions--that is our weapons business--if you require any new equipment. Obviously, it's usually reserved for more militaristic matters, but I'm sure I could pull some strings and get you something if you still wanted to visit me in Corroza." He gives Clara a funky little business flyer. "It was nice catching up. I will have whatever tab sent back to me. Enjoy the rest of your night." He gets up to just kinda leave.
Nadyn: "Wait, he knows weapons--should we show him the cursed sword?"
Clara needs a minute. She's contemplating why Arthur's suddenly so much about family and so concerned. When she gets the flyer she suddenly remembers the cursed sword.
Clara: "Yeah, we are definitely showing Arthur the cursed sword."
Arthur turns and squints at the sword.
Arthur: "Ah, interesting." He turns it over a bit. "Does this thing work?"
Clara: "It works... too well."
Arthur gives the sword a few taps.
Arthur: "Uh. Are you sure? This steel does not look the highest grade ever, but..." He mutters a cantrip on the sword. "Ah, but it's enchanted. Somewhat. I can't offer you too much about the make, which might have been good once, but has clearly degraded." He focuses a little more on the enchantment. "That's strange, I can't really identify what might be on there."
Tsuki: "It likes bloooood."
Clara: "Have you seen swords like this before? Has anyone walked up to you with a weird looking sword and asked, 'hey, there's something weird about this sword'?"
Arthur: "Well, of course I like collecting antiques of all sorts; the history of weaponry is fascinating to me. This looks very old, and the patterns... hmm... almost a rare dialect of Elvish. If I were to hazard a guess."
He reads the runes on the sword aloud, and it sounds vaguely familiar to the Oath of the Ancients, but the last line is a little bit... corrupted. Like "snuff the light" which is a bit ominous and out of character with the rest.
Arthur: "Hmm. This seems incongruent with the rest of these tenets, I would say."
Clara did hear Arthur recite the odd oath, and thinks on whether something inside her feels twisty or tingly on hearing it. Aside from her own moral feelings, there's a kind of intense anger, like...
Sword: "Look at this pompous poser. So concerned with the trappings of nobility and saying the only way you can help people is by taking your family's business. What has your family ever done for the common person? Don't forget why you left in the first place. Is money and the trappings of polite society really power, or is power not really within the blade? No matter what, you are more powerful than he'll ever be." (It's a really evil sword, guys.)
Clara: "Just stick a devil tail and horns on it already."
President: "I'm gonna lead you down the path that rocks!"
Clara: "Forget those stinkin' oats, I have better oats for you."
Sword even calls him a hypocrite!
Sword: "Does he even care who he sells weapons to? At least with a sword in your hand, you can make the decisions that matter."
Not only a very evil sword, but maybe has access to what Clara cares about and will try to use it against her.
Clara: "That's scary, man. Where's the privacy?"
President: "I don't think you've had privacy ever since you had the Meep crown. Not that she can read your thoughts, but you can definitely sense her disasters. Also we lost Mildred. Not like she was under any obligation to be with us."
Luna: "I thought she was 'blind loyalty'?"
President: "Yeah, but she's like, 'I'm gonna go get back with my ex, later nerds'."
Tsuki: "Yeah, we suggested that we'd go straight there, but we didn't. We probably left her at the courthouse."
Nadyn: "Like demons being repelled at the entrance of a church... but a courthouse."
Anyways, Arthur has read the oath out loud.
Arthur: "Huh. A little incongruent oath. I only know that for many years there was this old order of nature defenders, and of course there are modern disputes on what exactly they did, but this seems to be part of their tradition... except for that last note, that seems quite odd."
Clara: "Yeah, um, it sounds odd to me too. So. Is there anything you can do about it? Because I took a different--the right oath I guess?"
Arthur: "The right oath? Hm. Well, unfortunately," he shrugs, "I am not that skilled with magic--I'd have to go to any of the magic people I've hired and give the sword to R&D if you wouldn't mind parting with it."
As he mentions that, Clara feels a really bad splitting pain and a flood of unpleasant memories of her family.
Sword: "He's trying to take away the path that you decided for yourself."
Clara winces in pain and grabs the table.
Arthur: "Clara. Are you okay?" He almost puts his hand on her shoulder, but tries to keep an emotionless decorum. "Clara?" This time it cracks a little bit into sounding like a normal freaking person.
Clara continues to feel this splitting pain and kinda just has to bear with it for a while. She really gets a flood of these thoughts immediately.
Sword: "What's to stop him? I mean, look at him--he abandoned his own branch of the family to do something new, what's to stop him from mass producing whatever the sword can do?" And other arguments that really paint Arthur as a really bad evil no-good dude--morally he really isn't the most upstanding anyways, but still.
Clara argues a bit with the sword that she herself ALSO left the family business, so it's not like Arthur was the only one. Sword itself tries to argue back.
Sword: "YOU left the business to stand up for what you think is right, not to profiteer and make more than you already wanted. Look at him, he doesn't even respect your choice. Why should you respect his?" The sword is really trying to not be given away.
Clara (to Arthur): "When you said you wanted to take the sword to your researchers, I started feeling really, really, terribly bad."
Arthur: "Like a sickness?"
Clara: "Yeah."
Arthur: "Huh."
He puts 2 and 2 together realizing oh this sword is cursed! Arthur thinks a moment.
Arthur: "Well, it's normal to feel a little bit sad when you have something taken away from you for a little bit. If you feel a little better about it, you could come to the research and development part with me...? Or I could have someone sent to whatever location you would like. I kind of worry if it makes you wince in pain that much; some curses really try to attach themselves to the bearer, and you never know what might happen if it's taken a little bit too far from you."
Clara: "Yeah, I feel that. I might take you up on that. Thanks for the offer." She leans in a little closer. "I think this sword doesn't want to leave me."
Arthur nods and gives back the sword.
Arthur: "Noted. I will attempt to see what I can do." He taps his head, and Clara remembers that Arthur was a guy with near-photographic memory, so he hints at that. "I believe I've seen some things, and I will attempt to the best of my ability to get on with it. In the meantime, if you find yourself..." He trails off. "If you find yourself not being yourself... well, don't be afraid to contact me, and I hope your coterie is reliable enough to support you." He gestures at the rest of the party condescendingly, like 'look at these little ones'. Tsuki holds up a coil of rope.
Arthur frowns a little, thinking, "I am going to try to get started as soon as possible or you guys are definitely screwed."
With that, President has family commitments and nondeterministic finite automata to get to, so that's the session! Hopefully next session we don't go to court for burning an orphanage down or something! (The trick is the sword wants to kill the orphans like it's a Star Wars prequel, so we just evacuate the orphanage and burn it down with the sword inside.) Also Clara has a flyer for her friend's weird weapons shop she can go to if she wants.
My Recap Of The Petting Zoo Squad's Hellish Session 24 As Much As I Was Able To Process It - July 8 2023 Last session, we went to court. It was very fun and interesting and a lot of other Positive Adjectives. Clara would have gotten in trouble for falsifying government documents, but because of politics and because her family member Arthur is an arms dealer with a critical supply of weapons for the military, she's off the hook! Don't you love nepotism? It's fine when it helps you out! Clara is a nepo baby. We then caused chaos at a restaurant. Sword caused Clara a headache and is very hard to get rid of. It's very obviously evil and trying hard to do something. Like turn you into its mindless slave or something. Fair trade for defending your friends, win-win? Anyways, we need to decide what we do with this sword. How do we approach it? Tsuki: "Carefully." President: "How carefully are we talking here? Go behind Clara's back and try to snatch it? Coax the sword by talking to it in a very soft voice?" Arthur's promised to research swords like this with runes like this, but currently we're stuck in Kaer with Clara and a growing problem. Maybe we could go to Martha or the DMV lady-- Nadyn: "I mean, DMV destroyed the possession gem thing, so she's probably our best bet?" Tsuki: "We should probably check on Lady of the Lake at some point, and go to city to get the sword thing fixed that way too..." Corroza's a democracy, and so is this group. Or actually, it's more like anarchy, but with a president for life? But we can vote for where we want to go. By the way, Arthur doesn't know about the Meep powers, so we wouldn't know yet if they interfere. Several of us vote to check with Lady of the Lake. We figure since we had a very fancy dinner in the fanciest tavern this town has, we could do a long rest followed by the logical first step of going to the Lady of the Lake. Nothing of note happens to Tsuki, but President has arbitrarily decided he's leading the group back there. To ensure the sword doesn't turn on people randomly behind Clara's back, he ties it to Clara with some rope, just to make sure it doesn't come undone (seeing as it did want to kill him earlier) and to keep it tied into its sheath. Clara is not pleased but agrees anyways. We also watch it real closely from behind while we're on the way there. ...No, Tsuki, we don't feed it random innocents. But the sword reacts to being put in sword time-out with fury. Sword: "Why would you let them just push you around like you're some bomb waiting to go off? Who would stand for this kind of treatment?" Clara: "It's fine." Sword: "Fine? It's fine? Are you just used to being treated like this" To be fair, she is the tank... Sword: "Aren't you tired of doing this?" Clara: "Surprisingly, no." Sword: "No? Ugh. Well, what if you need me to do a good deed of the day?" Clara: "We'll get to that later. If I need to do a good deed, I'll tell them." Tsuki: "This sword means business." Clara strokes the sword like an animal as it tries to wriggle free (STR: Animal Handling roll???). Alas, something not that good happens because she only rolled 11: the sword is kinda just slashing in front of Clara, but she's trying to fight against it, and now she's flailing wildly, not aiming at anyone, just trying to get the sword under control. Clara: "Please step away from the sword, everybody. Please keep your distance. Social distancing!" Thus, there was no collateral damage today, just the sword being very angry and trying to hit something and Clara being like "no don't hit something" and the rest of the party just keeping their distance. No talk it, it angy. We trek back to Lady of the Lake. As we arrive in the forest, Clara, in addition to having to wrangle the sword, also gets ringing voices in the Meep Crown, from the plants and creatures and other assorted things of the forest, in hushed, fearful tones. Clara doesn't say anything at first, but her expression says volumes; she's grimacing at what she's hearing from the crown. Clearly something's caused a commotion in the forest. Even if Clara weren't the Meep, she could perceive that the birds are jumpier than usual. Stellara: "Oh dear. Um. This is very rare for a forest to be like this..." Luna: "You know what's going on?" Clara's hearing so much from the crown. Everyone seems scared. Tsuki says something about buying electrum. Stellara: "Let me try to ask some of my fellow birds. I'll be right back." She tries to find a fellow raven. Clara continues to feel miserable. Nadyn doesn't really have any insight, just biding her time. Eventually Stellara comes back. Stellara: "Ah. Ah, okay. There are certain fights within the forest." Luna: "Who's fighting?" Stellara: "Well, there is... you know, the usual, undead. And then there are the Lady's... forces, I believe it was called?" Nadyn isn't privy to the conversation but wonders if something's up with Lady's family or the goblins. Stellara: "I'm not sure if goblins are capable of what destruction I'm hearing about, so it must be something else." Luna: "Thank you for relaying that information; it's very helpful." Stellara: "I'm glad to be of service!" Luna gives her a little pat on the head. Stellara takes the pat and then gets distracted by fruit on a tree. Typical bird behavior. Forest is all "this is fine" meme. As we approach Lady's underwater house, we hear the sound of very very loud music that is very discordant and headache-inducing. Nadyn: "Eyy, that's my jam!" (Congrats, Nadyn, you found your people.) We find the source. It's a bunch of differently-sized... creatures? Some of them are amorphous, others have animal traits, others are gigantic and we can't really see their faces, like "how's the weather up there" in the most literal sense. One of them turns to talk to us. Creature: "Heeeey look, it's some mortals!" Tsuki (in Deep Speech): "Hey loook, it's some things!" Creature: "Yooo, you speak Deep Speech, that's the good stuff." He hands Tsuki a pipe. Tsuki looks inside and it has that rainbow slurry we remember taking once. "Yooo, little bird dude try smoking this." Luna: "Bird dude, do not try smoking this." Tsuki looks at it for a couple moments... then shrugs and tries it. As Tsuki smokes the stuff, he's transported into this place that reminds him of the plane of fire, but worse somehow. And smells bad. And there's a lot of noise and screaming. Yes, Tsuki literally just went to hell. For the rest of us, his body is just comatose like he's taking a nap. But for him, he's in a really hot fireplace, and he recognizes some people from his former cult over here. Hmmmm. What does he do? He just sighs. Someone with a clipboard stops to stare at him. The clipboard person has horns and kind of looks like a vampire person. Person: "You're not in the list, what are you doing here?" Tsuki: "I smoked something..." Person (sighing): "Well, the inhabitants of hell aren't helpful, so..." Tsuki's AC is 14. The guy punts Tsuki with his foot. Person: "Haha, you fell for it loserrr!" He continues walking. Tsuki shrugs and wanders around. Hell is not a very nice and sensical place. It's like a plane of abstract suffering and stuff. Tsuki eventually gets away from the screaming and instead finds less severe negative things, where now it's just extremely annoying elevator music--whatever the most annoying thing is for him. Which is a lot, since he already hears about NFTs and electrum all the time. But this will be worse for everyone else eventually, because now Tsuki can mimic it. It's annoying to him personally, though; he does his best to shake his head and ignore it, but he can't. This part of the plane also has some buildings. They say something in the same alphabet Abyssal uses, but it's not quite Abyssal. He ignores the buildings for the most part. He comes across this guy who's pretty grey but otherwise looks mostly like a normal person, just with bags under his eyes and his soul has clearly been very tested. Guy: "Hello, welcome to mediocrity, how can I help you?" Tsuki: "...Hi... Just passing through." Guy: "Passing through? What's your destination?" Tsuki: "Somewhere not here." Guy: "Somewhere not here... okay... There are many places that are not here. Would you like to be put on hold?" Tsuki: "...No." Guy: "Oh. Thank you for your cooperation!" The guy still puts Tsuki on hold, but in person. He erects a cardboard cutout of himself to take his place as he goes off and tries to find a comprehensive list of places that are not here. MEANWHILE. We're just staring at a passed-out Tsuki. Frat demon: "Yooo, this guy's awesome! Anyone else wanna try?" Luna: "Uh, I'll pass. Thank you for the offer, though." Clara: "No thanks." Nadyn: "I, uh, I brought my own." (If only Marg were here, it'd be great.) He calls us lame-os, and as he scoffs it actually sounds like a horse neighing. He puts his hand over his mouth to stop neighing like a horse and coughs a bit. Frat demon: "Anyways. Who wants to dance?" Nadyn: "Something about dancing with the devil?..." Clara's kind of already dancing already while wrangling her sword. Frat demon: "Ah, yeah, that cute girl over there is already dancing a little bit." Luna (whispering to Clara): "Hey, shouldn't we be finding the Lady of the Lake?" Clara: "Yes; actually, I don't know how much longer I can keep this up." Frat demon: "Ah, dude, she's got moves. Yooo. Someone said something about the Lady of the Lake?" Clara: "Yeeees?" Luna: "Yeah, we're looking for her." Frat demon: "Ah, yeah, (her infernal name). Yeah, well, just so you know, our family does not like her little... 'alter ego', you might call it, so please call her by her proper name." Nadyn: "I don't think we can pronounce it. The one person who physically can is passed out." Frat demon: "Hmm. Little bird dude. Well then. I'll get (infernal name) for you. But right now, make sure little bird dude doesn't lose his soul or anything like that. I'm kinda fond of him." Nadyn: "So are we, against our better judgement." He leaves. Meanwhile, Tsuki, after what feels like a year on hold with this horrible music, sees the guy comes back and remove the cardboard cutout of himself. Guy: "I've procured a list of places that are not here, in Heck." He unrolls a cartoonishly large scroll that goes on for a few metres. "Here are a few places that are reachable from here that are also not here in Heck." Out of all the languages Tsuki speaks, the one he has the poorest reading skills in is probably Deep Speech, and sure enough all the places are listed in Deep Speech. And that's a lot of places. In fact, if he tries to go to the end of the scroll it just keeps going. Guy: "I have fulfilled your request. Is there anything else you would like to do?" Tsuki: "I definitely don't want a magic item. That'd be terrible. Guy: "Alright, I will not give you a magic item." Tsuki: "Good!" (A magic item from heck would be pretty bad.) President: "Think about it--it would be even more mediocre than the Meep crown." Tsuki: "Clara would get something from hell anyways." Clara: "She might wind up there if the sword has its way." Luna: "Can we confirm the sword is not from hell?" President: "Would this pass Tsuki's mind as he's trying to think of any way to get out of hell?" Tsuki: "Probably not." Clara: "Thanks a lot!" Tsuki (somehow hearing that): "You're welcome." Clara: "Thank you for thinking of Clara in these trying times." Tsuki: "Well NOW he's thinking of Clara. But he's in hell, more important things to deal with." Heck greeter: "Is there anything else you would like, Mr. Tsuki?" Tsuki: "Um. A portal to the mortal planes?" Heck greeter: "Ah, okay. Name collision: do you mean the portal to the mortal planes, or the planes that are made out of mortals?" Tsuki stares, kinda interested in that second one, kinda wants to know what that is, buuuut... Tsuki: "The first one." Heck greeter: "Okay, I will get you a portal to the mortal plane." He goes into one of the buildings, gets an extremely creaky portal frame (think minecraft cobblestone and mud, like the most mediocre frame ever), says some magic incantations, and the portal opens, and Tsuki sees one of the most mediocre places on the mortal plane. Nadyn: "Is it the DMV." President: "It's the DMV." Tsuki sighs and steps through. He sees the slow DMV clerk eating chips. She looks up at him. DMV: "Disembodied spirits aren't allowed entry." Tsuki: "It's me; my body's somewhere else." DMV: "Your body's somewhere else... Do you know where your body is?" Tsuki: "Over by the lake." Clara: "There's no body there." (ba-dum-tss) DMV: "Go that way, chop chop, I have other things to do with my day, go away." Tsuki scurries off. After a while, probably the same time the Lady of the Lake is summoned, Tsuki just springs back to consciousness in his own body. He liiiivesAs he gets back he hears Nadyn singing the "hello how are you in grade school infernal" song. Just a little hell as a treat. Clara is getting really petered out trying to control the sword, but it's a great cardio workout. Clara: "It's great for her buns and thighs." See, the sword is being helpful and yet we still insist on calling it evil! Clara: "It's still cursed." Finally, the Lady of the Lake comes back with demon who gave Tsuki the pipe. Demon: "Little bird dude! Little bird dude, you're okay!" Tsuki: "Yeahhhh, that was something." Demon: "See, I told you he was alright!" We haven't seen the Lady of the Lake in this state before. All her feathers and hair are messed up, and she seems like she hasn't got any sleep, which is weird because she doesn't sleep in the first place, so this must be some advanced 20-dimensional insomnia. Lady: "Please, please, you can't just give mortals--you can't just send their souls to hell! What is wrong with you??" Tsuki: "I saw some things." Demon: "Dude, it's always hilarious watching their little faces. Sometimes they go and see the mountain of bones, and it's like. Yeah, they're totally freaked." Tsuki: "Yeah, that was cool." Demon: "See, this mortal wasn't bothered! All the other mortals were just weak!" Clara just looks over at Luna and Nadyn like "are they calling us weak". Luna: "Probably." Clara: "Maybe they should try wrangling a sentient sword sometime." Sword: "See, look at them calling YOU weak--just look at the people that the lady of the lake associates with! Are you sure you want to trust HER?" That makes Clara think, but only for a second before a resounding "yes". Lady: "What do you guys need?" Clara: "I need help getting rid of--well, maybe that's too strong a word-- taming this sword so that I may or may not remove whatever curse it's got. Mostly may. I'd definitely like to be free." Lady: "Well you've come to the right place. If there's anyone who knows what a cursed sword is, it's my extended family." As she says this, a giant foot descends from above. It's like the Burj Khalifa. We hear a distant voice. Giant: "Hoooold onnnnn, let meeee looook at the swooooord." Lady: "Oh. Yes. Of course." She offers the sword to this giant thing, and gives Clara a "do not cross this guy" sort of look. Clara just nods very vigorously. She definitely doesn't plan to, especially if he can help. Tsuki: "His toe could beat us up." Clara: "You cannot miss this guy." Giant: "Hmmmmm. That's really weird, it's not from hell." He muses as he inspects the sword, as a demon does. He doesn't hand it back, he just drops it from a very large height. And it goes down point-down at terminal velocity towards us. We run away from it. Tsuki dives into the lake. The sword, at terminal velocity, hits the ground with a thud, miraculously not shattered, but instead just really stuck into the ground. Nadyn: "Okay, so now we just need to get Arthur, and he can get this sword out of the ground right?" (no, not that Arthur) Clara: "We're gonna leave the sword here?" Sword: "Don't you dare." Tsuki: "At least it's safe." Lady: "Alright. Alright, grandpapa, you have to take the sword out, okay?" The giant hand comes down in front of us, not really paying attention to anyone who might be in the way (so we dodge out of that), and digs the sword up, but he doesn't have the fine motor control relative to its size to pick up the sword, so instead he just puts a few litres of soil mixed with the sword on one of his fingers and hands it to Clara. Grandpa: "Take this, mortals." Nadyn: "...Clara, do you take it?" Clara thinks for a moment if she wants it back. She picks it up along with all the dirt that comes with it. Clara: "...Is it safe?" Tsuki: "No." President: "No, but you're sorta bonded to it." Tsuki: "It's exactly the same, but dirty." Clara: "Nice to know, thanks." Sword: "Please clean me." Clara: "Can I clean up the sword? That's okay, right?" Lady (shrugging): "Sure, clean up the sword. So, grandpaps, what do you think of the sword?" Grandpaps: "Not fiendish. Doesn't have anything to do with hell, you know. But I'm surprised that bird doesn't know more about it." Without elaborating, Grandpaps leaves. (As in like steps relatively one foot to the left across the whole lake and causes a mini earthquake.) Lady: "Yeah, that's grandpapa; that's the demon of pride. He shrunk himself just for this occasion. Usually he has the mass of a sun." Clara: "Wait, your grandpa is the demon of pride?" Lady: "Yeah, well, he's like one of my hundreds of grandpas, so..." Tsuki: "Good old demon family." Lady: "But yeah, it's my pedigree. I have a pretty good pedigree all things considered." Nadyn: "#JustImmortalThings" Lady: "So, it's not fiendish, which means... at least it's got that going for it? He did say something about the bird. Tsuki, do you notice anything about this sword?" Clara: "Aside from the fact that it has tried to kill you once?" Tsuki: "And that it's talking to you all the time?" (More a blind guess in-universe, but still.) It talks to Clara all the time, and the place the sword got corrupted was filled with weird Deep Speechy things. Tsuki takes out the weird book he found down there in Deep Speech and looks at that real quick. He puts this book near the cursed sword. At first it doesn't do anything, and then he feels an "interest" taking place. He's not sure who's interested or what's going on, but all of a sudden he sees these tentacles just erupt from his arms, and as he's holding the book, they flip the pages of the book for him until somewhere in the middle, as if searching an encyclopedia. When it stops, the writing is running like a marquee all over the pages. Deep Speech usually isn't a very straightforward communication style, but this time it says something about a tear in the veil and that it must be closed. Tsuki could interrogate this further but doesn't want to go back into the cave. In any case, the sense he gets is that the sword is a byproduct made of the same essence as his patron is. Whatever the sword is, has to do with weird eldritch stuff, not fiend stuff. Tsuki relays this information, but he's not really sure where we're gonna find eldritch knowledge to figure this out. Hmm, if only we had a tome warlock. Where are we gonna get the eldritch knowledge, guys??? (He's holding onto the book.) Lady: "Ugh, eldritch. Hold on, who can help you with eldritch... Eldritch, eldritch, eldritch... Hey, (Clacky's infernal name)!" We've never seen Clacky smile before, but it's certainly a sight. Clacky: "Yes, snookums, I'm right here!" Lady: "Ah, Clacky! Do you know anything about eldritch stuff?" Clacky: "A little bit? I knew things about magitech, which these guys don't know anything about. But if it's about that sword thing... You know, that paladin girl over there stabbed it into some sort of weird flashback thingy, and it's been like that ever since." Lady: "You knew about that and didn't tell anyone?!" Clacky: "I didn't think it was that important." Lady: "Well. Ugh. How do I get this..." Clacky: "Didn't know the Olarins spoke Triton, though." (As a side note, those are the species of aliens that Yui was a part of.) Lady: "Well you know how mortals are--they change language every few hundred years, it's so annoying." Nadyn is just nodding and has no idea of any of the significance of any of this. Yeah, we have some pieces, but we aren't putting them together well enough for a plot hook, and President is desperately trying to herd us in the correct direction. Tsuki's only guess is we need to go back into the caves and stab the same point again (which might be hard, because Yui isn't there anymore), or find another tear in the reality or whatever. President thinks that might just get it even more cursed, logically speaking. Alternatively, we could just keep using it and steer clear of it all the time. Or all of us could get cursed stuff and turn the group into a murder hobo spree. Nadyn rolls History and gets a 3. Something almost springs to mind. She feels like she's on the cusp of realizing something important, only to forget about it a few seconds later. Nadyn (to self): "What was that I was about to put together? Maybe if I go and read a history book it'll come back to me." Unfortunately, we are not near any history books; we are just at a wild party, so we can only party. Jake is at the wild party. Jake: "Yoooo, wassup guys!" Nadyn attempts to go up and initiate some sort of secret handshake. Jake reciprocates by shaking her hand with his trunk. Jake: "Yo, hey, look at this squad!" (Referring to all the demons here.) Tsuki: "There are a lot." Jake: "Yeah, see? One day, now listen"--he's about to go on an "am I the butthole" tangent explaining that situation--"you know, guys, my sister was like 'oh no it's so hard to fight off the undead these puny little goblins don't fight the undead' and you know she hasn't even contacted anyone in the family for at least a few hundred years? So I decided, y'know what, why not kill two birds with one stone? Family reunion AND the goblins are protected from the undead!" Lady slaps her forehead. Lady: "Yes, but you are also a problem to the goblins!" She punches Jake. Clara: "What a happy family this is." Lady: "Okay, listen: sometimes you just need to punch your siblings. Nadyn: "Yeah, don't I know it." Lady: "See, someone gets it! Sorry not everyone had a nice good family. I bet you were an only child." Lady is uncharacteristically testy because she hasn't gotten 3D sleep or whatever. "Yeah, Clara, I bet you were an only child. You wouldn't understand." (Clara was, in fact, an only child.) Lady: "You know, Tsuki? Sometimes you have a sibling you need to discipline, so you punch them in the teeth. You don't even have teeth. See, teeth aren't important!" Tsuki just silently nods his head like "okay". Clearly a functional family life. Jake shrugs it off, punches Lady back, and the two go on what seems to be a very bloody blood duel, which is apparently very normal for them. We get the impression Lady's hands might be a tiny bit full. After a while, Clara figures out that this is normal for them and doesn't try to stop them from fighting, just thinks, "Oh, demon families, how wonderful," but can't really relate. We left Martha here last time we met. 8 days have passed since then, and she could have very well gone back to Cadako. She was hiding to avoid being lichified--we could ask Lady where she went and we'd probably hear that if she's not in Cadako she's probably in the capital trying to meet Theodore for politics, or whatever, trying to trudge up support from the government against the weird lich problem which the government is ignoring because it's kinda helping them in the war and stuff. Tsuki: "Until they turn on you..." President: "Optics!" Well, yeah, you know how the government is, and how weird conflicts spiral out of control. As we consider this, we hear the demon of pride talking with some other large demon. Other (sobbing): "Ugh, it's a shame that my son doesn't talk to me anymore. Man. The demon of xenophobia... He makes a father so proud." Nadyn feels very much less welcome at this party now. Lady: "Ummmmm. Yeah. Well, it's my opinion that you guys should just leave for a bit. Let me handle my family; I'll just try to prevent the goblins from degrading or otherwise finding all themselves sent to hell. Good luck with the sword thing. Looks pretty bad." She stares at the sword a bit. "Okay, at least let me see what its purpose is; people don't just curse things out of nowhere." She stares at it. "What are you trying to do?" Sword does not actually talk minus the mental link, so it doesn't tell her anything. But she just stares at the sword for a bit. Lady casts some identifying spell and grips the sword with her claws. Clara sees a vision of the sword scanning her; back on that ship, she would have seen the scanning apparatuses (with no idea what it does other than that it shoots light through her). From that light that shot at her, it creates a new version of her, and she sees the old version crumple away. Clara: "That's kind of... a little concerning." She thinks about the "new version" of herself to see what's different than usual. Seems smarter, better, faster, stronger, all the work is never over, and specifically the stronger version has really bright orange eyes. Clara: "Again with the orange eyes... That's a little concerning." Sword (trying to salvage this): "Look, you are killing your old weak self, and something new emerges. Isn't that just grand!" Clara doesn't really answer the sword right now because she's thinking, "Dang, that new version does look strong, but something's off about it". It's not something she particularly wants right now, or maybe at any time. It's nice but not her career goals. Tsuki: "What she didn't see is that 5 minutes before that, she was beating up orphans " President: "Speaking of orphans, I'm gonna spoil how you defeat Ricardo: his phylactery is in an orphanage and you have to burn it down. Sorry guys." Clara: "RIP" Tsuki can live with that. Anyways, that's a concerning vision, but it seems that in order to learn more, we should go to a place with a library. Or just find Martha, who might know something about it but might not, because she is a high-level wizard. Cadako might have both. It's probably a good place to go. We know how the horse bus operates. It's just a giant carriage with multiple buses, half magic half horse, and the horses swap out at stables. We go back to the horse bus. With supply, demand, and inflation, a one-way trip to Cadako with nice seats costs 5 silver per person, or for a round trip, it's 1 gold. We each take the one-way. We don't make any stops, so after a day's worth of travel, we make it to Cadako. It's the same old Cadako. Not much has changed. Temples, Brautz estate, university of history, International Bards' College branch, zoo which we already visited. We can also go to Hannah in the catacombs and take a few days to learn the pocket banana peel portal thing. Nadyn says that's the most important thing we can do right now. After Hannah, we can go and find books and stuff. So we go to the Brautz estate, and as usual the butler greets us. Butler: "What do you want?" Nadyn: "We just want to go to the crypts and talk to your ancestors again." Clara: "If that's okay..." Butler: "Hold on, I will ask Mr. Theodore. I will be right back." He goes and asks. Butler: "You have obtained permission from Mr. Theodore. However, I will ask that you stop stealing soap." Tsuki cackles in the background. Butler: "It's just that there have been some thieves stealing soap recently, and so it is not directed to anyone here, but soap thieves I highly despise." Nadyn: "Noted. We don't even need to go into the house. Let's go, everyone." We go into the catacombs and say hi. Leon the Angry Skull Guy says hello. Clara: "Hi!" Leon: "Yo, what's up? Nice to see you again! Thanks for helping me with my parents!" Tsuki: "No problem." We retrace our steps; the construct that is here maintaining the catacombs leads us to Hannah, and Hannah greets us with something like an air horn. We consider adding custom Discord sound board sounds like Welcome to the Forest playing in the background at all times. Hannah: "Hey, how can I help you guys? Didn't expect you to visit so soon." Clara: "Hi, we're here to ask for a little help." Hannah: "Little help? I can do that!" Nadyn: "So last time we were here, we started learning a bit about how to pull a banana peel out of a portal. That seems useful." Hannah: "Oh yeah! Give me a couple days, no sweat." Another ghost (whispering): "She's a really bad teacher; just pay attention." Hannah: "Hey, I'm not bad, you're bad! Get outta here!" Hannah explains the magic behind the portal. We roll INT to see how well we retain the information. Our rolls are bad enough that as a group it takes 3 days because some of us lag behind, and this teacher goes off on random tangents about things they feel are relevant to the lesson but really aren't at all. Hannah's like that. Combined with the fact that none of us are geniuses, we have some difficulty learning, but we do eventually learn. Yay learning! Cantrip: Hannah's Secret: You open a 2ft x 2ft pocket dimension in which you can store things. Remember to keep it clean, certain adventurers! Touch range (like, physically peel it open) School: gotta think about that question Casting time: 1 action Components: S Duration: Instantaneous? Only we can open it. It's open until we close it. Closing it is a free action. Not a common enough spell that people regularly check for it but maybe somewhere really well funded might be able to tell if we own a pocket dimension somewhere. It's not free real estate. People like DMV lady could probably recognize it. Or when Tsuki tried to teleport into the building and felt sick because of the security countermeasures. As long as we don't try to open it in a place like, that it should be fine. Basically an ender chest. So yeah, we learn this cool cantrip! It can save us some weight if there's something really heavy we need to put in there! Clara stores her goldfish plushie in it. Nadyn practices the banana peel in hammerspace trick using Hannah's props, to maybe banana peel an unsuspecting innocent zombie probably. What to do next? Seems unlikely in these crypts that the current ghosts know much about the Deep Speech or tritony or Olarin kind of history; they might be into history in general but wouldn't know much about this topic. So... to the library? To look for some Tritony Deep Speech Olarin things. Because none of us is The Designated Group Nerd, we all go to the library and all do some research. Nadyn goes for tritony stuff since she knows the language. Clara wants to sort out some books for someone before doing some research. Sword: "Yes, help someone. Delete their problems PERMANENTLY. >:K" Clara: "That's a nice way of putting it. Aww, Mr. Sword, I didn't know you cared." Sword: "I care a LOT." Tsuki: "In a very demented way." Clara: "Honestly, yeah." Turns out there's a homeless person who needs some money, somewhere in the city. Tsuki (mocking the sword): "Delete them." Clara approaches a person and gives them 3 gold. Person: "Thank you madam, that is very kind of you!" They stop and talks with her for a little bit. They're like, "Clara's such a pretty name yadda yadda yadda". Sword doesn't outright say "kill the homeless person" but is like, "Hmm. Look at the rich eating and getting fat while the poor starve. Kill them all for their hubris!" Luna: "Huh, maybe the sword's not that bad after all." Clara: "Eat the rich? Remember, Clara's rich... She has to eat herself. That's the end of Clara." Sword tries to tie it back. Sword: "People like Arthur profiteer from war, but do you see them struggling like the common person does? Can you trust them?" Luna: (communist emoji) Sword: "You should have the power to make the world in your own image. No suffering, everyone is forced to do a good deed a day." Clara: "Is it really good, though, if you're forced to do it?" Sword: "Would you really object to a doctor curing people if it was forced?" We consider a trolley experiment where a doctor gets to kill one patient for every 6 cured. Sword: "The power to not only dispose of whoever you wish, but to mold them to your liking; you could force people to be a doctor..." At this point, Clara just goes back to the library and says goodbye to the person she gave gold to so she can join in the researching. (The sword is a tankie? The sword would deny a certain real-world massacre?) Anyways, Tsuki knows how to read deep speech so he finds some of that stuff. Clara looks for resources on sentient weaponry. Luna looks for any reference on the aliens/Olarins. Addressing the concerns in a particular order: for Tsuki, the more accessible layperson general audience stuff is filled with conspiracy theories. Really weird ones too: cult sensationalization, ilithids and stuff (mind flayers that eat people's brains), but most of it isn't useful, just like "yeah this stuff's wickeeed". As far as academic treatment of this stuff: he rolls INT, gets a 10, and the most approachable text to him is basically a language textbook having some tidbits of cultures associated with Deep Speech, and one of the little asides in the book mentions that nobody is quite sure what the origin of Deep Speech is or why it has all these weird properties, but it is certainly most associated with the Old Gods, and while there is some back and forth on what exactly IS an Old God, Tsuki gets the impression that the Old Gods are gods not very dissimilar from regular gods, but have somehow lost their divinity, and the oldest of the Old Gods who is half-divine half-Deep Speech is the Raven Queen, who is responsible for the realm of death. That's a useful tidbit, having the best guess of what the Old Gods are/were. Tsuki's basically learning about his mystery patron. Next, Clara goes for lore on sentient weapons. Luckily there are lots of fiction books about sentient weapons: "Help, My Sentient Weapon Tried To Kill Me", "I Fell In Love With My Sentient Weapon", "My Sentient Weapon Took My Wife And Ran Away", and trash-tier stuff along those lines. We don't know why it's here--maybe to appeal to the stoner college students. Then she finds a book of spells that says that sometimes weapons are sentient because someone's self projected onto them: it's like an artificial mind, but just a mind, and never someone to begin with. There are religious arguments of whether it counts as having a soul if it has a mind, and how do you know if something has a soul--all this mire of things to get through that takes an INT check to check for anything useful. Clara rolls a nat 1. There's just too much junk in here. She doesn't find anything useful, but she does find a PG-13 level of steamy novel shipping the main character with their weapon. Like, Twilight-level, and the author really cares about the story, so it's actually somewhat engaging. So Clara winds up reading a story like that because she can relate to the main character. Sword starts off evil and actually had a bad childhood etc. etc.? Or just relating in the sense that she also has a sentient weapon and maybe the author's onto something; maybe there's something cryptic in there, or the author did their research. Luna, searching about aliens and extraterrestrials, mostly ends up finding common background knowledge: people know that planets are a thing, they're spherical, and they orbit suns; the distinction between sun and star is hotly contested; generally it's accepted that there could be something out there, but as of now, in recent memory, nobody has really found it. Hippo people, slug people, who knows. But rolling INT to find out its usefulness and getting an 18+2, that's pretty good--with the information she finds, she ends up with this breadcrumb trail to an interesting series of articles that compare and contrast all these weird cultural myths asking how many of these have some version of celestial beings coming from space, and finding consistencies between them. One of the things mentioned--one hypothesized species to have existed--strikes her as remarkably similar to the Olarins... which means they have actually left their mark on the world at some point or another. Coming to the triton stuff, Nadyn is trying to find some historical etymology based on the language being shared with the Olarins. Tritons are a very insular people; they take it upon themselves to bring order to the oceans and seas, kinda like Aquaman but more annoying somehow. Nadyn looks for the origin of the Triton language, and one weird thing is that it's kind of a linguistic isolate. There are other species that live in the ocean, merpeople and sirens for example, but as far as triton scholars can tell, there's no linguistic overlap besides a couple loan words. Completely different grammar and everything. Rolling 7 INT, on her own she's like, "Okay, that's great, Triton is a language isolate." Meeting back up with Luna in the library, though, Luna shares her findings of an interesting triton myth: obviously tritons are militaristic culturally, and the upper classes don't put much stock in art. As the story goes, once upon a time, the sea was chaotic and untamed, and it was ruled exclusively by the merpeople who greatly mismanaged it and caused a lot of its creatures to die, and they angered their gods; essentially the merpeople were split in half for their hubris of trying to not only ruin the sea but also overstep their bounds and take over the surface world. So one part of them, their capacity to reason and work with each other, was taken away as punishment and became the sirens, while the other half stayed and were just hush-hushed. Then some new people whose descriptions kind of match with the Olarins swept in to take their place as the defenders of the ocean, and they were the new stewards of the ocean, essentially. So that's what we learned. The authors of the book say that it's an interesting mythology, and unfortunately they can't really cross-reference any of it because the tritons are kinda protective of their stuff, so if we want more info, we'd have to actually go to Shandeg or another triton settlement. Nadyn remembers the thing that was on the tip of Nadyn's tongue earlier, related to all the triton stories she's been told: somehow, Tritons were not necessarily invaders, but outsiders who happened to settle in the waters of the world. The authors are like, "Wow, triton diplomacy sucks, we sure wish it was easier to investigate their stuff." Nadyn gets a pit in her stomach. Tsuki: "Welp, I guess Clara's gonna just have to live with the sword." Like yeah, we're just gonna live with the evil sword, we can't go to Shandeg. What could go wrong? Clara: "Very comforting." Really, though, there's not much left in the underground tunnels, so we may have to go to Shandeg. Alternatively, we might want to learn more about Tsuki's weird patron thing, which certainly is possible, but we'd have to do some eldritch stuff, and Tsuki has to know something about what the nearest thing to his patron might be. Or Clara and the sword could try to become lovers, just like in the books... but alas, the sword is not her type. No hugs, no cuddles, just cut-tles. (rimshot. applause.) So now that that's out of the way, we have places to go that aren't just nearby settlements! Though we could also decide to go find Martha if we still wanted to. If we really don't want to investigate eldritch abominations or Shandeg. Or we could go to a different triton settlement; President's sure we could prove ourselves. But now we can be real adventurers rather than library nerds. We do also have shopping lists though... Nadyn wants to sanitize the minotaur bones. They're kinda stinky by now, but if she puts a lot of elbow grease into it, she's sure they can be cleaned. Nadyn starts greasing her elbow in preparation for elbow greasing the bones. She finds the local mortician... Mortician: "Yeah, sure, I can sell you some chemicals." They're not particularly dangerous, just poisonous to ingest, but only small amounts can be sold at a time. The chemicals themselves are cheap to produce, but it's not the industrial era, and it's not exactly mass-producible, so the exact amount needed would be about 5 gold. So she gets the chemicals, thanks the mortician, steps directly outside the door and whips out these minotaur bones to start cleaning. Afterward, Nadyn tries to find a xylophone to play with her super cool new sanitary minotaur bones. Bard College is certainly a weird place. Draco wants to get a bunch of monster parts and gems price-checked. The luriyl is about 50 gold; the decursed blue gem from Ricardo is worth about 100 gold; the emerald embedded in a staff is reasonably pricey; the black sapphire is enough to make us all pretty rich; the basilisk eye is maybe like 1 copper; the basilisk glands are useful medicinally so 10-20 gold depending on bargaining skills; the metal wasp stinger may be spare change from the blacksmith; the random jewelry (some well-kept, some tarnished) would require visiting a jeweler i.e. give President some time. But given all the prices, we can decide on which stuff to sell or keep. In terms of selling things... the black sapphire is worth an insane amount of gold. Like, 5k total. We could sell it in the capital, but it would be hard to liquidate here. Draco DM's President a list of stuff to sell. Other than that, he just wants some empty bottles and new clothes. He buys a new outfit for about 3 gold--nothing too fancy--and for high-quality bottles that don't shatter easily, he gets 10 for 4 gold. The bottles are put into the pocket dimension so they don't break. Luna wants to get some bird snacks for Stellara! Bird feeding is pretty popular, so she can take her pick of seeds Stellara might like. Sunflower seeds, safflower seeds, unsalted stuff birds might like, and she could buy a whole bag of it for a gold piece; it's not very expensive. Stellara's definitely interested in it. Luna realizes she should probably keep this in her pocket dimension or she might wake up in the morning with Stellara having poked a hole in the side of her bag to snack from all night. Luna gives a handful to Stellara first. Stellara: "Mmmm, thank you! These are the most delectable seeds." She chirps happily and faux-preens Luna's hair a bit. Luna: "Aww, I'm glad you enjoyed them." Stellara: "Thank you so much, Luna!" Clara goes and gets some food, mentioning nothing special about it. Next session will be right after Kat's birthday! We gotta think about what plot thread interests us most: Martha, triton stuff, or figuring out Tsuki's patron. Some of these might segue into each other, so it's not a huge choice, just a starting point. That's the session for now! Next session we will be going on an Adventure! - July 22 2023 Last time we had a shopping trip and learned Hannah's cantrip, found out the Oat Sword is possibly connected to Tsuki's patron, the tritons, or Martha(?)--all of them could loop back on each other but we need to decide which to go on. Tsuki and Nadyn play rock-paper-scissors to decide who gets investigated first. Scissors beats paper, and while Nadyn has mixed feelings about going back home, she figures it's less likely for us to literally go mad from the investigation. But Shandeg is also in a very inconvenient place, being at the opposite end of the continent--so either going out-of-bounds around borders to enter, or just crashing through the front lines. Sooooo maybe we can investigate Tsuki first. (Not his patron. Him personally.) Tsuki, conveniently, doesn't remember most of his background. Great start. Just being locked up and almost sacrificed, really, and nothing before that at this point. He's got a book and a creepy doll's head, which is a good start. At the moment he mostly just wants to figure out what his patron is. He asks that by... screaming into the sky while holding the book. Unfortunately, some constabularies approach and say they'll arrest him for noise disturbance if he does that again. One of the disembodied voices in his head chimes in helpfully.
Voice: "...Guys? Do we know the patron's name?"
Some internal arguments erupt over this question. The rest of us could try to figure this out with the power of investigative technology.
Another voice: "Hey, weren't we rescued by halflings? Couldn't they know something, perhaps?"
This voice gets cussed out by the crypto/NFT voice... which again tells Tsuki to invest in electrum. Tsuki does remember that Lara, his adoptive-mom halfling, who he last saw in Bordeauriva, and actually should be in Cadako right now, could maybe give him some pointers/tips/hints about the nature of the cult he was following, since he doesn't remember anything. So we go back into town and hunt down the halflings.
Currently, they're selling weird halfling knick-knacks, and also working as personal chefs and butlers in an odd-jobs kind of role for people who want a taste of that Halfling Hospitality TM where the halflings just make them a ton of food. We go to the marketplace and find the halflings gathering around trying to hawk stuff.
Halfling: "Hey, buy this; it's homemade and halfling made. It's not elven gracefulness, but you know what they say: a halfling's touch is, like, very soothing, and you'll always feel like home wherever you go, so buy this necklace."
We do recognize Lara in that group--we haven't spoken with the group all too much, but we also recognize Relach (the one that doesn't like Tsuki much) talking with her. Lara runs up to Tsuki and gives him a big kiss on the head because he's her little baby.
Lara: "Tsuki, how have you been?"
Tsuki: "Been better..."
Lara: "Been better? Aw, what's wrong? Do you want some hot chocolate?"
Tsuki nods and says yes. She goes, and we get the impression she just made a bunch of hot chocolate, since she quickly passes some out to the party. It's possibly the best we've ever had, if we've even had any before.
Lara: "What do you think? It's a new spell."
Nadyn: "...It's MAGIC hot chocolate?"
Lara: "Just a little bit of halfling magic, dear!"
Tsuki: "Mom magic: the most mysterious of all magic."
Lara: "I see you're still traveling with your new friends. I don't think you've ever had friends for this long of a time before, Tsuki!"
Tsuki: "We keep just getting caught up in things..."
Lara: "You should tell me all about it; what are your names?"
Tsuki goes around and introduces everyone quickly. For fun, he says it in our own voices. Clara is used to this by now, but it's always a bit shocking.
Clara: "Does the halfling magic do anything, or just make the hot choclate taste real good?"
Lara: "It just makes it taste real good."
Luna: "Well, it certainly did a really good job!"
Lara: "Thank you! So, you look like a ragtag group--not judging, we're a ragtag group ourselves. What's got you traveling together?"
Nadyn: "...Circumstance, mostly?"
Tsuki: "And zombies."
Lara: "And zombies. Yeah, they're quite a problem. They're not very reasonable. I met a zombie; it would not listen to me. It just kept going forward trying to eat my brains."
Clara: "I know, right? Such a drag."
Lara: "Yeah, I know! But y'know, it's just gotta be a problem to be dealt with. But what's funny, people don't talk about these zombies that much."
Tsuki: "Freaks 'em out too much."
Lara: "Probably. Already in a civil war, so no use also worrying about an apocalypse, am I right?"
Tsuki: "At least it's not vampires."
Clara: "Don't jinx it."
As we say this, Relach is working in the background and giving Tsuki the "I don't like you" glare--a glare Tsuki's really used to, so much so that he just ignores it. Lara shows Tsuki all the upgrades they've made to the halfling cart, with the resident doctor who happens to be a gnome.
Doctor: "Hey, do you need a checkup, Tsuki?"
Tsuki: "I'm all good."
Doctor: "Did you ever check in with a kenku doctor about your missing--err, very irregular heartbeat?"
Tsuki: "...No, not really."
Doctor: "Well, Tsuki, that's really bad. You need to take this stuff seriously--it's your heart!"
Tsuki hasn't really run into any other kenkus...
Doctor: "Well, that just won't do. Your cardiovascular health is very important. Have you been getting enough exercise?"
Tsuki: "Probably a bit too much."
Doctor: "Well, if you ever feel short of breath or feel pain like this, then seek medical help immediately."
Tsuki turns to the two people who know healing spells and just stare at them.
Nadyn: "Hey, I just sing the words, I don't know what it does to your body."
Clara: "Does Cure Wounds even cover it?"
Tsuki shrugs. Close enough for him.
Doctor: "Well, you know, magic's good and all, but for chronic conditions, see a specialist. Prevention is the best cure."
Nadyn: "...So THAT'S why he's always using False Life."
Luna, being the most Goth-looking of the group, is scrutinized by the doctor. She's significantly taller than him.
Doctor: "Listen here, young lady: you need to remind your friend to see a doctor! It's very important!"
Luna: "I'll try to remind him. Getting him to listen, on the other hand, might be a bit more tricky."
Doctor: "Well, Tsuki, you should listen to this nice young lady over here!"
Tsuki shrugs.
Doctor: "Don't shrug! Promise me that you'll listen to this nice young lady!"
Tsuki: "Yeah, I'll try."
Doctor: "Good! Young cursed birds these days don't listen like they used to."
We ask the gnome doctor's name. Gnomes have rather silly names. This one is named Rickety Pickety, which said out loud in retrospect sounds like an inversion of Pickle Rick, which was not intentional, but it's fine. President regrets choosing this name. Thankfully Pickle Rick is not a thing in this entire multiverse and we want to keep it that way. None of us want to be turned into pickles. And polymorph doesn't have that as an option. Closest might be elephants to avoid family therapy. But yeah, Rickety wants Tsuki to follow up with a specialist, like a real doctor! What did he come here for again? Tsuki's probably blanking out at this point. But eventually he might ask about the cult to try to figure out something there.
Lara: "Ah, the cult. Right. Well, I'm sorry, I don't like talking about them that much, but when we found you, you were at the side of a road. There was this local religion group thing, and they gathered in this little ancient ruin, how long since we found you--I guess that's Vanecian territory now but used to be Corrozan--and it was some kind of historical structure that they were convinced held the secret to this forgotten god. It was a really weird heresy; they thought the god of life and death was actually dead and was now an old god that they had to contact in some way, and that would grant them infinite life free of suffering. And I think their little heresy also involved Tokin somehow, but I'm not exactly sure." We remember that Tokin was the chaos god Tsuki likes. "I know it ended badly for them, but when it comes to gods, it's hard to tell what's going on and who's doing what. It's not like they can just talk to you. But if you need it..." Lara points toward a site a little east of Mettei on the map. "Over here is where they were located. I got this notebook from them; I'm not sure why I got that, really, it just seemed kinda neat."
We look at the notebook and realize that whoever owned it loves hearts, and it has a very cute design carved into it. With cats and everything.
Nadyn: "Okay, we can't possibly open the notebook, it's too precious."
Lara: "I've tried looking through it, and it's half-understandable? The other half might be Deep Speech, though I guess it could be any other language. Maybe I'm racist for thinking other languages are interchangeable. Maybe I should be more educated."
Nadyn: "Yeah, you should at least be able to say 'hello how are you please don't sacrifice my soul' before you can say you know a language!"
Lara: "Right--Tsuki, do you know how to say those things?"
We assume Draco's router melted at this point, but we figure Tsuki helpfully told Lara how to say these things, and also "please buy this hot chocolate" in Deep Speech. Marketing. Lara has successfully learned some common Deep Speech phrases! When she says it, it definitely lacks the oomph of some other Deep speakers he knows, but the pronunciation is getting there. Anyways, she's pointed out a location and provided a notebook from one of the cult members.
Tsuki doesn't really trust a happy-looking notebook from this cult... but it did come from the cult. Lara's mentioned that it's only half-understandable to her. But to Tsuki's awareness, the cult is basically the opposite of happy hearts and cats. Still, he figures we could try to figure out what the notebook says before trotting across the country. And we have two places across the world to go now, though the cult's location is significantly closer; we'd just need to go to Bordeauriva again, but then cross enemy lines! Though since none of us are Corroza citizens we might be okay? Wait, no, Tsuki's a citizen.
Nadyn: "He's also Tsuki."
President: "The weirdest one is a citizen, and he can even vote... do with that info what you will?"
Tsuki opens the little cute notebook, and the contents are pretty much what he expected. It's some sort of diary that mentions a bunch of cultists whose names he recognizes, so it's definitely someone who was part of the cult. It mentions a bunch of rituals, the cult leader, the "experiment", and in the Deep Speech part, that the experiment was headed by a lady named Andromeda, and that the experiment refers to Tsuki. Tsuki knows that, for whatever reason, this person left the cult, but didn't take Tsuki back with her, so maybe she's just a girlboss? (gaslight gatekeep girlboss) Essentially she worries because the transformation process is not complete and the ritual will go poorly if this research isn't done, and she expresses some doubt about continuing the ritual anyways, which as he knows ended up in complete and total disaster.
Nadyn: "I guess we all know that firsthand by now, huh?"
Tsuki: "There were pieces of people on the ceiling."
Yeah, it did not go as planned. But Tsuki knows he was some sort of experiment, and as he reads through, he picks up some stuff on who Andromeda is. Rolling Insight 19: he gets the idea Andromeda is a cult member that people doubted was a "true believer", and figures they went back to their hometown (Recuse?) to escape the cult. He gets the impression this Andromeda person was a real setback to the cult. But they also live in Vanecia...
Tsuki: "Sooo, should we go hunt her down?"
Nadyn: "Maybe not 'hunt'; more like 'have a pleasant chat and some tea'?"
Tsuki slowly puts away the knife that we didn't even see him take out... Clara doesn't question how he pulled it out in the first place. It's just a Tsuki thing. Some of his feathers can basically just turn into knives like Wolverine, it seems. Regardless, he's withholding judgement at the moment--he does understand what's going on in general but doesn't remember everything still. Maybe if he learned more about what exactly she did?
We take the horse bus 3 days back to Bordeauriva. We're frequent flyers; the guy sees us for like the third time and is like, "Yeah, you guys, this one's on us. But! In exchange, you have to advertise our company to everyone you know!" and gives us a bunch of flyers to shill. Nadyn puts hers with the other flyers she already had. When Clara's not looking, Tsuki sticks one to the back of her armor. She figures it's penance for almost chopping Tsuki's head off. It's not her fault if the ad falls off anyways... but Tsuki has many more flyers, so he can just replace it if it gets damaged. After being given the flyers, Luna thinks to herself, "Oh, nice, more kindling!" But with ads in hand, we get back to Bordeauriva. It's much the same as we last saw it: still very guarded, with a heavy military presence. President doesn't want to tell us what to do, but informs us that we could go outside the borders of Corroza to the neighboring elf village Kadu-Vi, which has a truce with both Corroza and Vanecia. Or we could just directly hop the border, out of the frying pan and into the fire. With the former we might even be able to figure out what the other group did way back in their Session 1.
Tsuki: "Probably not getting in trouble..."
President: "They're probably TOO nice. Dunno if y'all heard about Sokka the Siren, but... it was something. She was like, 'I love eating people, it's my favorite food, I wanna do it all the time' and the group was like 'we can fix her!!!' Anyway they're in another country now, but we could follow their path into Kadu-Vi."
Tsuki: "Hard to run away when there's a bunch of zombies right outside."
Kadu-Vi isn't far from Bordeauriva, maybe a day and a half. We travel and arrive at the village--more like a town on the verge of turning into a city, with the type of layout that has a central core and grows out in concentric circles. As we arrive, we see these elves zipping through trees (because they are wood elves). Note that elves in this setting are androgynous in an additive way, and pure elf cultures don't have a strong concept of gender. Anyways, we get stopped by a gruff-looking elf in a dark green uniform (basically just camo in the forest out here) who asks, "What do you want?"
Nadyn: "We kinda wanna go... that way." She gestures toward Vanecia.
Guard: "You want to go that way but are coming here to Kadu-Vi..." He raises an eyebrow. "Understandable, but... into Vanecia. Well, unfortunately, due to the high volume of people passing in here, we must keep records, there's no way past it."
He gives us all forms to fill, government bureaucracy style.
Guard: "State your name, business, and occupation, please. And put it in writing. If you have any documentation, it would be nice, but we understand not everyone has any."
They'd basically just have us fill out more stuff, more paperwork. In any case, we start filling it out.
Name: Nadyn Shandegath
Business: Self-employed
Occupation: Bard
Which is. Not wrong. She realizes she can write down "Student" and scribbles out "self-employed" to write that.
Tsuki sits down and starts scribbling.
Tsuki's like:
Name: Tsuki
Business: Self-Employed Potato
Occupation: Reverse Necromancer
He then looks over everyone else's to be safe.
Clara's from a prestigious family... she's not in the family business presently, but puts down her family business anyways.
Name: Clara Cordova
Business: Textiles
Occupation: Paladin
She sits there and drums her fingers waiting for everyone to finish.
The elf guard helpfully stares at us, because everyone loves being stared at while filling out a form. Just hovering over us.
Tsuki: "Greatest feeling ever."
All of us have this experience of being looked at like we're taking a test, even though we're just filling out paperwork.
Luna's the singular brain cell and the only person who did put the correct thing down for "Business".
Name: Luna
Business: Travelling to Vanecia
Occupation: Wild animal caretaker, Traveler, and Alchemist
Tsuki scratches his "self-employed potato" out and puts "traveling".
We fill out this paperwork. We see the elf look a little bit disturbed at how we fill in some of the fields. We see them get a pen and start correcting things.
Guard: "You are all traveling to Vanecia, correct?"
Clara: "...yesss?"
The guard corrects some things on the form.
Guard (sighing): "Well..."
There's another guard standing and sketching really fast, and we see these really nice from-life sketches of us, though Clara's nose is a lot bigger in the picture than in reality. Clara wrinkles her nose after taking one look at the picture, but doesn't complain because we've already been at this long enough. She shakes her head like "nevermind". The first guard helpfully informs us of the location of the Vanecian representative to Kadu-Vi; there's also a Corrozan representative, and for kicks and giggles, the elves housed them right across from each other. We get the impression this is a new-ish development, having representatives from both warring countries. We don't know how diplomatically smart that is--maybe 100IQ, maybe 200IQ, maybe 0IQ.
Tsuki: "Good idea, but right across from each other? The elves are just having fun with this now."
President: "Yeah, they're doing this for kicks."
Near the council of the elders' hall, we find these two houses carved into trees, bending the trees to create buildings with them. As we pass by, we notice a new restaurant chain! in town! it's their grand opening! and it is called Paul's, and it has an extremely pretentious typeface. Apparently it's a fine dining restaurant. It exists. There's a byline to it saying "sponsored by the saviors to the council". This new business apparently got someone to shill for it, but we're not sure who. Clara's aware of the flyer on her back now as she passes by this restaurant chain--probably saw the reflection on the glass. Great advertising, though we're gonna head to Vanecia and they'll be all "what is this company". Eventually we reach where the Vanecia and Corroza representatives to Kadu-Vi are, and it's heavily guarded with elf guards. One house has Vanecia's flag, the other has Corroza's. They're almost the exact same flag, except the Vanecian one seems a little over-designed. Clara takes the flyer and puts it in her pocket for now because she doesn't want to draw too much attention (maybe later). (No, she's not a racecar, it is not professional to be covered in ads. Her speed is only 30 ft.)
We approach the Vanecian representative. The elf guards there stiffen up like Buckingham Palace guards real quick at our approach.
Guards: "Er-hem; what brings you here?"
Nadyn: "We want to go to... (What's the name of the town from the diary again?)"
President: "Utel."
Nadyn (waltzing up): "Hi, we wanna go to Utel."
Guard: "Ah, Utel... Quite a mess."
They look at each other briefly.
Guard: "Eh, we'll let the representative deal with it, I guess."
They knock on the door and someone opens. We are led into a lobby, and eventually we get an appointment with the Vanecian representative.
Rep: "Why would you want to go to Utel?"
Nadyn: "Archaeology? Or religious studies? One of the two."
Rep: "Does anyone have any proof they are part of an institution that studies archaeology or religious studies?"
Nadyn probably has a Bards' College student ID or something. She shows it.
Rep: "As you know, things are very tense right now; people think everyone's a spy. You are not Corrozan...?"
The triton is obviously not. The representative looks at the catgirl; probably not. The representative looks at Clara... Their eyes stay on Clara for a bit until spotting her family emblem, then they turn to Tsuki, and to them Tsuki is OBVIOUSLY NOT a Corrozan citizen. Tsuki puts on his best innocent face. So yeah, we need a good enough reason to just say we're going to visit to do a little study. But they're gonna need some proof, or something that will allow them to look the other way.
Nadyn: "...It's a group project?"
Tsuki: "Any tasks you need help with?"
Rep: "You desire to prove your trustworthiness that way? Alright. Actually, there has been something personally bothering me, and this task will prove you aren't working for Corroza, so that's a win-win. Every night, somebody attempts to watch me from this window right here." They point to a nearby window. "Unfortunately, magic being as it is in Kadu-Vi," they scoff at the idea of how unregulated it is here, "means that it is quite difficult with my resources to ascertain who is doing this, especially as the elves are saying there is no foul play. But you know, you can't necessarily trust them; who knows where their true loyalties lie? I would like to make certain--just double-check--if someone has been watching."
Tsuki: "So keep an eye out on the window."
Nadyn: "Yeah, let's do a stakeout!"
The rest of the group agrees. We hunker down and spend the night keeping tabs on this house.
Guards: "Yeah, sure, you can do that. But if you try to kill someone or something, we'll put you in jaaail." They wag their finger at us.
Nadyn: "We promise we won't kill anyone who doesn't deserve it."
Guards: "Or grievously harm someone?"
Clara: "Hey, no killing."
Nadyn: "Yeah, person with murderous sword, no killing."
We stakeout. Tsuki and Clara don't have Darkvision, but Nadyn and Luna do, so it's a lot easier for them to stay under cover of darkness and stay useful. But Tsuki and Clara have to look inconspicuous...
Nadyn: "...Are you gonna use the Leg again?"
Tsuki: "No, just cast invisibility and hang out by the window."
Clara tries to find a place to store her armor--she'd be vulnerable, but less cling-clangy. She figures she could find a cloak. The most common human around would be very poor. Clara wouldn't mind looking like that. Nadyn has a beggar costume from way back in her entertainer's pack. Draco has the Leg. The Leg for the beggar. The leg chosen specifically to get electrum for the beggar. So she borrows that too, sticking it out from under the beggar costume. She's disguised as a poor beggar with an amputated leg. Unfortunately for her, it's night and not really busy. Clara's not suspiciously dressed, but this part of the city doesn't really get a lot of traffic. The Vanecian and Corrozan representatives are mostly for a LARP on the elves' part, basically.
We do, in fact, stakeout. Eventually we all roll Perception. Clara having this beggar costume has apparently made her extremely bored which makes her extremely perceptive, because she got a nat 20. She sees a slight change in the shadows while she's looking--enough for her to think, "Oh, there's something at that window," but when she looks into the darkness, she doesn't even see a shadowed figure--just almost-nothing--and only manages to catch it because of that shimmer in that general direction heading toward the window where the suspected spying was. Tsuki is much closer to the point of impact and rolls 17: not well enough to see anything, but he gets slightly pushed by something. Just Because, he casts Inflict Wounds. It's just about the only effective thing he can do--he can't exactly grapple. Rolling 14, it's exactly enough to hit; he sees a figure very briefly show up. It seems humanoid-esque. Rolling damage (16 necrotic damage), even though he does 16 damage, he finds that the figure does not seem as hurt by the spell as he'd think they kind of should be. Aaaand we now roll initiative.
The thing goes first; it looks down at Tsuki, and he sees these red claws coming to swipe at him. First one crit misses, second one crit hits. Or would, except Nadyn silvery barbs which makes it just a regular hit. And Tsuki does a Hellish Rebuke--the thing passes the save but takes 6 fire damage. The fire damage sears it quite effectively. Next, Luna casts Faerie Fire such that its edge ends just before Tsuki, so the creature has to make a DEX save. It fails badly. So now it's glowing with violet light, we have advantage, and it can't benefit from invisibility. We were all relatively close: Clara's coming from the side of the house, Tsuki was just near the window (which is why he was ground zero and got found first), and Nadyn and Luna are further back in the backyard garden place. Now that the creature is Faerie Fired, we can see it more clearly: it's half shadowy, obviously undead (there are bits of bones hanging out), and it has a few tentacles on them, wow. Nadyn runs up to it shouting like a battle cry and tries to stab it, but misses. She hears a guard in the distance very audibly and piercingly say "WHAT THE F--" like Batman (wouldn't exactly say he has a piercing voice, but okay. More like he pierces through the night? So the guard's voice is like Batman himself). Then she uses Bardic Inspiration on Tsuki.
Clara's turn; she can hop a fence or get there a little late. She hops the fence and wants to Divine Smite the creature. We see Clara in a beggar's outfit--fun fact, Tsuki had upgraded the Leg to a club, so it's technically a viable weapon. She decides to use it.
Sword: "Wait. Use meeeee."
Clara: "I can't. I'm in disguise; the sword would give me away. How about next time?"
Sword is extremely grumpy about this. It can't come up with a coutner-argument, doesn't really know what's going on either, and can't present a compelling argument at this point anyways.
Sword: "Fine, but I desire blood!"
Clara: "You can deal with it."
Clara manages to hit with the Leg. The eldritch undead thing looks up at her as she prepares to smite the crap out of it. 4 damage, plus a disappointing 6 from the divine smite. The paladin power of smiting evil things she tries to call (maybe she doesn't know how to use a Leg properly yet), the radiance that visibly comes off, is kinda pathetic. But luckily for her, the eldritch undead thing reacts a lot more strongly to it than she'd expect. Clara stares down at what just happened considering she did this with a Leg. The undead thing shrieks at the blow. Tsuki uses Word of Radiance, but the creature passes the CON save.
The thing realizes things aren't going well for it and teleports 20ft away, not in a way that can allow opportunity attacks, and we all make a DEX throw. Luna and Clara take 10 damage, while Tsuki and Nadyn take 5. It uses the rest of its movement to try to get away. Unfortunately for it, the elf guards saw the bright purple glowing thing that is trying to get away and can't turn invisible because it failed even more saving throws against Faerie Fire. So we have some backup to catch this thing! Though it does seem kinda fast. It has 40 speed. Next is Luna; she casts Eldritch Blast and hits for 11 damage. Nadyn fires off a shortbow shot and crits for 10 damage. It shrieks again, and while it's not too gruesome, if we've watched the 1998 movie Blade for comparison, it turns into a lump of ash and falls away. Which is unintentionally funny in the movie, but in any case, the visibly undead bits--the stinky bits, the bones--kind of evaporate now that it's reached 0 health, so all that's left is this eldritch thing. Immediately we notice that it gets slightly smaller because it's dropped some mass, but the Faerie Fire ends abruptly. Clara's next; 60 feet away from the thing, she can't really move there and hit in one turn, but can dash and then try that next turn. She could try throwing the Leg as an improvised weapon, but it wouldn't get very far. She casts Cure Wounds on Luna for a disappointing 2 health, but Luna thanks her anyways.
Next is Tsuki; he hits with Eldritch Blast for 10 damage (using up the magical inspiration from the bard)--or at least, he kind of damages it, and for Tsuki, the experience is very unpleasant. He passes the CON save but still takes 3 psychic damage. In turn, he reacts with another Hellish Rebuke; the thing passes the save but takes 5 fire damage. He specifically (nobody else) hears an awful piercing scream, which gives him a bit of a headache, and it's like the voices in his head are all screaming in unison. But no one else has voices in their heads, so they can't hear it. It's like when you forget to turn down the volume when YouTube goes to an ad break. Tsuki sits down and stares blankly in that direction. It's the creature's turn again; fun fact about its turn, nobody else but Tsuki knows what's going on during its turn because no one else can see it while it's doing this. It moves its 40 feet to Tsuki and, despite some Silvery Barbs, grapples Tsuki's arm. To everyone else it looks like Tsuki's being grappled by nothing, flailing around like a dummy.
Clara: "What the fudge?"
Luna sees that Tsuki's being grappled on his left-ish, and tries casting Faerie Fire in a box to his left, just beside him. The spell doesn't not work, but it seems like the Faerie Fire has almost engulfed the whole street where it was trying to escape...? So something kinda went wrong here. Nadyn goes up to Tsuki and Cure Wounds him for 9 health. Clara goes back toward Tsuki to try to help; she doesn't know what's going on, but taking the Help action, she gives him advantage when he tries to break out.
For Tsuki: The thing that has him in its grasp looks simultaneously very very tiny and very very large, like it's existing in both states at once, as if it could take up the entire city and also is as small as a beetle. It's very weird--and he can hear it saying something he can't fully make out, but that seems very angry with him. "Creature, did you think you could enslave me," or something along those lines. Tsuki (in Deep Speech): "I haven't tried to enslave anything yet! Or ever! ...Maybe those goblins eventually, but not right now."
It looks like something has been nailed into it, though it doesn't look gruesome, because it's an eldritch thing and stuff passes through it like butter. Still, it seems like it's in a lot of pain. Tsuki would like to try to help it but doesn't know how, so he tries to break out of the grapple the best he can. With Clara's help, rolling 14 and somehow overcoming the thing's insane modifiers, he manages to break out using his action.
Tsuki (still in Deep Speech): "What's wrong?" (Besides the enslavement part, because he's not part of that.)
The thing shows him the bone-like structures stuck into it.
Thing: "These things... bind me in service... to something insignificant."
Tsuki can tell it has some pride in its voice and finds this situation extremely degrading. Tsuki wonders if it's possible to grab those and pull them out--so he tells it that he can try and help. It looks at him almost as if that's a hilarious remark, and finds the idea almost laughable, even almost adorable. Tsuki (and only Tsuki) hears the thing laugh.
Thing: "Alright. You may assist me, young one."
As far as we know, we're out of initiative, but Tsuki's still talking to someone completely out of view. To the rest of us, he just seems to be very focused, since he hasn't been broadcasting anything.
Tsuki (to us): "There's a small but invisible giant thing freaking out about skeletons embedded in him and controlling him."
Nadyn nods and pretends she understood any of that. Clara does the same. As Clara does so, she hears the evil sword.
Sword: "I sense great prey. Hold me, and I shall reveal to you that which you cannot see."
Clara (to everyone): "Hey the sword's got something to show me so I can see what's going on."
Tsuki: "Attacking is plan B..."
Clara: "It'll show me what's going on. It's not going to attack yet."
Nadyn: "We can let Tsuki solve his own problems for a second."
Tsuki makes his way to the skeleton bits and tries pulling at it. He's able to touch it; nobody else here can. He grabs on and asks Clara to try yanking on him. Clara yanks. She's met with a surprising amount of resistance. She digs her heels into the road, trying to pull Tsuki with her magnificent strength. Eventually, something gives way. Tsuki had tried to pull whichever small bone he could grab onto--it's like grabbing something embedded in you; it kinda hurts to move. When it pops out, now everyone hears this scream in their heads, and we surmise it's more than just the party--not just the guards either, but even random people are starting to come into the street, saying, "What the hell is going on? What did we just hear?"
Thing: "Ah, that stings! But it is a start, I suppose." It goes onto Tsuki. "Well, little thing, I do appreciate your help." It sounds really charmed, but as if Tsuki is a kitten or something. "If you want, you can help me with all the small ones. Every tiny bit helps!"
Tsuki keeps repeating that process over and over. It's quite a few small ones that he can pick out of its body. Each time, we hear a scream, though eventually it gets used to the sensation a bit, so it's more like "Ow. Ow. Ow." And when he can't find any more small things, there's a crowd around him saying, "Wow, this is a great mime act, but where's the sound coming from? There's no direction, it's just random screaming." Nadyn puts down a hat to collect some funds and plays Thriller or something. People actually drop a few coins at our feet as the screaming is going on.
Stellara: "Ugh, that's so unpleasant. Where's it coming from?!" She's clearly not exactly happy about it.
Luna: "Understandable..."
Stellara: "Do you also hear that?"
Luna: "Unfortunately, I do."
Stellara: "Ughhhh."
Luna: "I think Tsuki's the only one that really knows what's going on right now, or where it's coming from."
Stellara: "Yeah, I've never heard something that doesn't have a direction before. This sucks."
In the distance, we hear someone's dog barking. Nadyn brings the creature's pained noises back into the song as if they were high-pitched Michael Jackson noises. Eventually Tsuki gets done extracting what he can from it; there are definitely a few big ones that are too hard to extract, but the creature looks at him and makes a show of patting Tsuki and Clara on the head with the tip of one of its tentacles as if they were good dogs.
Thing: "Well, thank you. I feel so much better." It stares at Clara, and especially at her sword. "Interesting that that thing has been touched by us." It narrows its eyes a bit. "It is not too dissimilar, though you should be careful; that sword wields a lot of power. And in the right hands, well..." It shows the bone still stuck into it. "It can do something like this. I would advise your friend to get rid of it as soon as possible."
With that, it flies? away? into the stars?
Tsuki (looking at Clara): "It says your sword's evil. If that thing doesn't trust it, uh..."
Clara: "Yeah, we already know it's evil, okay??"
Tsuki: "Apparently it's capable of doing what just happened here?"
Clara: "Ew... that's scary."
Sword (protesting): "Hey, I'm not evil, okay? That's just a label people use to demonize that which they don't like."
Tsuki: "I just prefer saying it's a 'delight'. But either way, it's gone now!"
Indeed, it's gone! And we've taken care of the thing that was spying here for some reason! Though, the big thing didn't really seem interested in spying, it just seemed interested in going away.
Tsuki: "We never did ask WHY it was over here, but okay."
Well, it did tell us it was enslaved. Something was forcing it.
President: "I WONDER WHO."
Clara: "Wouldn't we like to know."
Nadyn: "I wonder who has some association with undead."
We have solved this issue for the Vanecian representative! I guess we get back to him the following day.
Rep: "So let me get this straight: the spy was an invisible undead eldritch abomination? And that screaming that woke me up was its..."
Tsuki: "Imagine pulling shrapnel out of its leg over and over again. That's what we just did."
Rep: "Ah, okay, that does sound unpleasant."
The guards are able to corroborate.
Guards: "Yeah, these guys chased something down, and then this screaming fiasco happened."
Rep: "That's good, but... who do you suspect of doing this?"
Nadyn: "Rick." (Ricardo. The pickle)
DM: "Our best friend Rick."
We explain the lich problem.
Rep: "Ah, yes, the 'lich problem'. Yes, the undead have been an alarming development." He narrows his eyes as if he has his own ideas of how the undead managed to be coincidentally so anti-Vanecia. "That is fair, though; a deal's a deal. I will give you some documentation for safe passage into Utel. One for Nadyn, one for Clara Cordova--not that you need it, I'm sure they'd be happy to have someone like you--one for Luna, and finally one for this Tsuki--... You don't have a last name."
Tsuki: "Memory problems."
Since he's a bird, the representative doesn't take Tsuki that seriously.
Rep: "Keep an eye on it, will you?"
He writes something down and gives us our requisite papers.
Rep: "Yes, you may go to Utel and the nearby area within reason, but that is all you are permitted to go into. If you need to go anywhere else in Vanecia, you will be subject to a deeper check."
Basically, Utel isn't a very significant target, so they're not gonna spend a month background checking to make sure we're not huge spies.
Tsuki: "If we need anything else, we can always come back."
Vanecian: "That is the idea, yes. Anyways, enjoy your little trip into Vanecia."
Tsuki wonders if there's a Vanecian salute or phrase or something. Tsuki repeats whatever he heard in that context.
Vanecian (nodding professionally): "Well, good day. I thank you again for your assistance."
Clara: "You're welcome."
And Tsuki declines to collect the pile of ghost bones on the ground that only he can see. And only he can feel, in fact--everyone else just phases through. So they're not very useful. But we've taken a long rest overnight, and next time, we can go to a little town called Utel to track down whoever Andromeda is! Nadyn also gets a bundle of 20 arrows for 1g because that came in clutch and she's alarmingly low on them.
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Post by Coaster on Sept 30, 2023 16:27:41 GMT -5
My Recap Of The Petting Zoo Squad's Blasting Defenseless Objects Session 26 As Much As I Was Able To Process It - September 2 2023 We've filled in our passport forms, and the ambassador was kind enough to help us go to Utel to find Andromeda (the person who experimented on Tsuki). Next step: take a carriage there. Vanecia does have a horse bus; this one claims it's the original horse bus and the one in Corroza is the wrong horse bus, but we notice this horse bus is also much more expensive and caters to higher clientele. So we could instead rent a cart by a horse, which is slower, but more affordable. Carts can get us to Utel, a nice little town which is actually near this border area, in about a day. The horse cart is 1g per person, which we pay, and along the way, we get a good look at the Vanecian wildlife, including squirrels, birds... really just very similar to Corroza except there isn't a huge military presence on all the roads. It's rather peaceful. Nice peaceful countryside. And we just look outside the cart, rather than causing public confusion outside the carts. But President has finally redone the encounter table. President rolls a 6. No, Tsuki, it's not a beholder, just a boulder shaped like a beholder. So we can sit on our butts until the guy who's trying to make a living pushes it out of the way, or we can try to help. Clara helps the guy; we don't know why it's vaguely shaped like a beholder, it's just one of the mysteries of nature. Clara gets 16. She does a pretty good job pushing the beboulder out of the way, but there's a reason why it looks like a beholder, and that reason is that while we were pushing it out of the way thinking it was just a boulder that looked like a beholder, we crushed some of its tentacle things, and now there is a crying sculptor who's like "NO, NO, NO! My beboulder! My beboulder! How could you do this to my art?" Clara mildly panics. She tries to cast Cure Wounds on it. The Cure Wounds does absolutely nothing, but seeing the light shine on the rock makes the sculptor feel a little happier. Sculptor: "Perhaps the purpose of art is to be destroyed and remade again. After all, art is co-written by audience and author alike, and who am I to say the beboulder needed all these tentacle arms? Perhaps it lost its arms very unjustly. I can see it now. The tragedy of the beholder, in its scramble to protect itself, ends up harming itself." The sculptor looks at the destroyed beholder. Mentally she'd like to drop to her knees and profusely apologize. This is at least a better outcome than if Tsuki had his way (just to eldritch blast it). The horse guy that was driving the carriage for us yells at the sculptor a bit. Driver: "Why would you put it in the middle of the road?" Sculptor: "You don't understand; war is paranoia which destroys us all, and this beholder is supposed to be a grim reminder. How dare you besmirch art, you peasant--" Tsuki eldritch blasts the beboulder. He rolls a 17, which hits for 8 damage. Even more tentacles fall and there's a scorch mark on the side. It's now laying on its side as well. Sculptor: "Ack! You! I will get you for this!" Driver: "Get in the carriage get in the carriage get in the carriage--" Regardless of whether we do or not, he starts to ride the carriage away. Clara runs up to it and grabs Tsuki while she runs, not planning to leave him behind, but she asks him why the eldritch blast was necessary. Tsuki, as we're driving away, calls out in someone else's voice: "My name is Gail Garrison, reporter." Sculptor: "Gail Garrison, I will have your head for this!" Tsuki (in the same voice): "I slept with the mayor!" President notes that Tsuki spread these rumors about Gail and destroyed the beboulder. After all that, the driver leans back in the carriage. Driver: "Oh my god, ugh. Rich noble merchant families, am I right? Ugh, act like they own the place." Pause. "I mean, they kinda do, but it'd be nice if they were more considerate about it. Ugh." Clara says nothing. Nadyn looks pointedly at Clara. Clara: "Quite frankly, he has a point, so." After this random encounter, we just go and make it to this small sleepy town named Utel. One thing we notice about Vanecia is all the guards we see are male; in Corroza there was a nice mix, but here, no girlbosses allowed. Clara: "That's not very girlbossy of them." Nope, Vanecia is the kingdom of no girlbosses. You can gaslight and gatekeep as long as you aren't a girlboss. Manbosses only. Anyways, we get off the cart and say goodbye to the driver as he goes to pick up his next Uber. We are in this town. Description of the town: oddly enough, a walled town, but the walls are very old and crumbling, not well-maintained, no guards on the walls, just kind of hanging around them for the most part. There's a central building we assume is the town hall, and everything more or less extends out from that. All the structures are made of wood because duh, it's near the woods. At first it looks like a really bland town, things we've seen before, like Kaer for example. But Vanecian. It's one of the towns of all time. There are a few local taverns and a library (but not a public library, so that's a massive L to whoever's not of noble blood). And there is this emblem all over the place. Its economy is just logging, and it has this crest of a sort of dragon--seems to be some kind of family crest, but it's not like they put their names on everything, except when they do. The town has a measly little creek. The family on the crest, the local logging thing, is named Dandolo. Meanwhile, we are four very strange people. The townsfolk don't bat an eye at Clara, and to Luna, they kinda squint their eyes a little. To Nadyn they're like, "Wow. That's a fish person." And to Tsuki they really just stare at him because like, it's a border town, but not a lot of kenku come by. If we see something bird shaped in the woods it's usually not a good sign. So people eye him with suspicion as we enter the town. We think about how to approach a town in a place. Tsuki has been quacking (using the Discord soundboard) while everything's been going on. Luna: "I mean, he walks like a duck, he quacks like a duck..." Tsuki thinks there's a good chance we'll be run out of this town at some point. Yeah, starting a fire in a logging community would have no bad consequences whatsoever. Tsuki suggests going to the local tavern for information. Very creatively, it's named Dragon's Breath Tavern. Clara wonders if it has spicy food. It does, in fact. Dragon's Breath Tavern even has spicy wine and spicy beer, and in fact, they actually have a challenge where if you can down their hottest spice, they will give you a free meal. All of us are susceptible to spiciness... except birds. Birds aren't susceptible to spiciness, which we know because real life sometimes applies to this universe. So we nominate Tsuki and Stellara for this challenge. Tsuki downs the whole thing with no trouble. Stellara, being a raven, tries to down some of it, but gives up. Stellara: "Blech. This is salty. This sucks. I don't like this." (Clara and Luna are the only ones able to understand this, of course.) "How can you say I'm immune to this? It has so many weird flavors." Meanwhile, to Tsuki, this tastes like One Of The Hot Sauces Of All Time. Average bird behavior: Stellara, being a real actual bird, doesn't really like the hot sauce, but Tsuki, being a something and not a normal bird, downs the entire thing in one shot, and the owners are so surprised they give him the free meal but ban him from taking the challenge again. Tsuki: "Eh. Seems fair." They offer Tsuki whatever he wants to eat, on the house. What's his favorite thing? Tsuki: "Hot wings." They give him hot wings. They give him the hottest possible wings. Tsuki: "Eh." He just eats them like it's nothing. Everyone else wants to try one. Note that not a lot of spicy stuff can grow underwater, so Nadyn is very unused to spice. Luna's moderately used to spicy, but nothing extreme. Clara's probably eaten at some very high-end places, so she's experienced with spicy, but doesn't go out of her way to look for it. Her spice tolerance isn't too bad. Nadyn rolls a 7. Luna gets 19. Tsuki wastes a natural 20, but at least it's in character. Clara gets a 15. Nadyn takes a bite of the chicken wing. At first, it doesn't hit her very hard, but then she feels a lot of pain and suffering in her tongue and mouth. She really feels like a dragon for a few seconds, that with every breath she's about to set something on fire. Tsuki's completely fine--he doesn't even taste it, just "yeah this is the good stuff." To Luna, it feels a little bit spicy, makes her cough a little, but it's not terrible. To Clara, she keels over and coughs a lot. But Nadyn is having a really bad time. She asks for some water (her second mistake). The owners of dragon's breath offer her some water. Unfortunately, the water is not quite enough. The proprietors offer further aid. Proprietors: "Aha, we have the perfect companion to spicy foods!" And in the midst of her suffering they advertise this milky peanut buttery drink. Proprietors: "It's great, and if you like it, we have an alcoholic adult fun version." Nadyn coughs. Clara buys the non-alcoholic version. It's probably not spiked. With the emblem on her outfit she looks all official, other than her glowy orange eyes. Anyways, they give her the peanut butter milkshake thing. She wants to give it to Nadyn, and buys another for herself. Nadyn refuses for as long as she can hold out, but the spicy pain gets worse and worse and makes its way to her throat. She starts crying a little from how painful it all is. She thinks maybe she should not have gotten the spiciest chicken wings available in a tavern called the Dragon's Breath. For a moment she thinks she is losing her tritonness and becoming some sort of fire triton. Does anyone want to forcibly end her suffering? The milkshake is just sitting there. Seeing his friend(?) suffer like this, Tsuki... tries to force-feed her the shake. He's not evil. (The other idea was that he'd drink it himself right in front of her, but he decides against it.) What does Clara's sword have to say about all this? The sword doesn't really have an opinion, but if pushed would be like, "Nadyn can't suffer if she doesn't exist anymore." Clara doesn't do that. Hmm maybe not murder. Sword: "Well, you asked for my opinion, and the only thing I know how to do is kill. What did you expect me to do?" Tsuki suggets putting some hot sauce on the sword. Nadyn finally takes some of the milkshake, but because she's still all spiced up, she coughs some up onto the sword. Sword; "Right now I am a sword. My sole purpose is to slay things. But you are instead covering me with this brown and white fluid instead of the blood which I crave." Nadyn: "Are you sure? Because that was reeeal spicy." The sword meditates a while. "Yes, there is a very tiny amount of blood in there. Ah, this is not enough, I require more. Why are you torturing me like this, Clara? That's not a good deed." Clara asks if there's any dish on the menu having any form of blood in it. Tsuki: "Not suspicious at all." Normally this really would be suspicious, but she's from a noble rich family, so they expect some degree of erratic-ness. They don't have anything that comes with blood build in, just a bit from preparing meat and stuff. Clara: "Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what I need, thank you." She pays the 5 silver and grins awkwardly as she does, like "yeah I'm totally just an eccentric noble yes exactly". Tsuki: "Totally not a vampire." President: "Just an eccentric noble who likes blood." Clara: "She can go out into the sun and it's easy." Tsuki: "Not a dhampyr, then. They're daywalkers." Clara: "SHE'S NOT" President: "Just like Blade from Blade. Wow." Anyways, she orders some meat blood. Does she mock the sword saying look at all this blood it's not getting? Nah, she just says, "Everyone's free to dump the blood all over the sword or do whatever they want with it." Nadyn steps away because she assumes the sword gets more evil whenever it gets blood. Tsuki continues to eat but shakes his head looking at the sword. Sword: "Blood, blood. It is not an enemy's blood, but it'll have to do for now." Clara gives the sword the blood that it craves so much. Just to shut it up. Sword: "yes. bloooood." Clara: "Technically these creatures could be our enemies if they're mad enough..." Sword: "Well, what are you waiting for? You should make more enemies and slay them!" Clara: "We'll get to that later." Sword: "GLORIOUS COMBAT." Meanwhile, Stellara stares at the sword and is like, "Why? Why is Clara talking to the sword?" Luna: "Um. Her sword is evil. I don't really know much more than that. It wants blood." Clara: "I think that's pretty much it." Stellara: "Okay, but it doesn't eat, so why does it want it?" Luna: "That's an excellent question." Clara: "It's cursed." Tsuki: "Vampire sword." Stellara: "I kinda hate magic sometimes." She looks at the red-water blood thing and says, "Huh. Well, then." She's not very scared of it, seeing as she's a raven, but she's like, "Why would you kill something if you're not gonna eat it? Doesn't make sense to me. You need to eat to survive." She's very confused about the world of people. After having this, the owners go to the less-coughing Nadyn. Owners: "How would you rate our milkshake out of 5 stars?" Nadyn: "Sorry, just need a moment to think." and then just never answers. The owners then ask Clara, "How would you rate our milkshake out of 5 stars?" Clara: "I'd say 5; it did help." Owner: "It did help, it did, wonderful. And what family, where do you hail from?" Clara: "Cordova family. We make textiles and stuff." Owner: "Ah, Cordova, from the island, I see. Would you mind saying a few more words about our peanut butter milkshake?" Clara: "Yeah sure, tastes great, it's a good deal for 1 silver." (Oh gosh, she's doing product placement. First we're talking about whether she's a vampire, and now this.) Owner: "Ah, yes! Quickly, assistant, place this review on a plaque outside! Even a dragon needs something cool to quench his breath!" The other assistant who is not the assistant but actually the co-owner: "Okay. Listen, it's not going to happen. Okay? The tavern is called Dragon's Breath. we are not changing it to Lich de Leche. We are not doing that." Owner: "But Lich de Leche, it's so dramatic, how often do you hear of milk liches?" Co-owner: "Yes, but Dragon's Breath is the safer, focus-tested option." Nadyn: "I mean, this is just a tavern in a town..." However, the owners (who might know something about the town) are currently having this inane argument and seem to like Tsuki. Kat is surrounded by cats IRL. We fail to see the issue. She is merely declaring her helplessness in this situation. Send help, or not, she doesn't need help, she's good. Tsuki leans over to Nadyn quickly, even though he doesn't have to lean over. Tsuki: "Why are we here again?" Nadyn: "Sayyyy, owners, have you ever had anyone named Andromeda pass through here, or anyone vaguely cult-looking?" Owner: "Ah, I like cults, they are good for business, yes, they buy a lot of alcohol and stuff to keep their followers happy. Great money-making opportunity. But ever since the war, there are less cults around, I don't know why--you'd think having a war would make more cults--but apparently the Dandolos don't like cults. Anyways. Andromeda... Yes, indeed, Andromeda lives a bit away from the town, perhaps a mile or two from town. Maybe 1.6 miles really. 1.6 miles from the town there is a little mansion, you might say, private drive, bad rumors about it, bad rumors about it. Andromeda, Andromeda, part of the Dandolo family, part of the Dandolo family, anything that she does can't be part of a cult. Not part of a cult, no." Nadyn: "Okay. So. Can you say which direction?" Owner: "West. It's a rather big mansion, you cannot miss it." Nadyn salutes and then just starts walking west without the rest of the group. Owner: "Wait, wait, wait, do you want the adult version of the milkshake? Only 3 silver!" Clara: "It's okay, we're good, thanks." Tsuki grabs whatever hot wings are left and runs after Nadyn. Stellara blinks and says, "Hm. Nadyn seems somewhat upset." Luna: "Not sure if she's necessarily upset, or more just determined, but we should probably go after her." Clara: "We're going after her." Now, before we get out of the town, there are buildings in the way of being west. Nadyn deals with this by sidestepping slightly. Good move. She sidesteps all the buildings and everyone goes after her. She's a trailblazer. And President won't have her roll anything because it's literally 1.6 miles away, they say with the accuracy of google maps, and it's really hard to miss the mansion despite there being some woods. Clara and Luna hear some chatter, but not happy chatter or even vaguely chaotic chatter like we're used to in the forest the Lady of the Lake unwillingly inherited, but it is instead just hushed whispers. As we come up on this mansion that's on the precipice of a larger foresty-type area, what do we do? Clara listens to the forest. The foresty area is just a bunch of whispers, so she'd have to really focus to understand anything. At least they're not singing Welcome to the Forest. So yeah, the estate is guarded by a little wall marking its boudnaries, and there are guards all around walking. Nadyn just knocks on the front door. A guard responds very prim and proper. Has a bit of a twang though. Guard: "Hello." Nadyn: "Hi, we've got some lost property presumably belonging to one Andromeda Dandolo. Wondering if we can have a chat with her." Guard: "What is the nature of this property?" Nadyn: "Personal effects left far away." Guard: "I'm afraid I'll need more detail than that, can you show me the item?" Nadyn (aside): "...who has the book on them?" Nadyn shouts back to Tsuki: "Heeeey, can you get the book over here?" He digs through the macguffins, grabs it, and comes over. Guard: "Ah, a book. Well, please wait out here. Do not ruin any of the gardens or anything. I will double-check with Master Andromeda and I will come back to you soon." He shuts the door in our face and leaves us with two guards who have halberds with them that they're leaning on boredly, thinking, "Man, a fish, a human, a bird, and a cat." Tsuki quacks. They're not paid enough to care about the quacking, just to prevent security hazards. So they're just there. Tsuki: "But how's their health insurance?" President: "They don't have health insurance." Tsuki: "They'd better hope we don't get into a fight." President: "Yeah, they'd rather not." Luna: "No health insurance? They should unionize." We suggest unionizing the guards. We assume Luna would know the most about how to unionize. She thinks about this a moment. She walks to the guards. Luna: "I'm made to understand that you don't have any health care or health insurance. You know, something to think about is that your boss might deny you that if you ask them, but if you organize all your coworkers together, then you can present your arguments together, and you can threaten to stop working if they don't comply. You deserve health insurance, so consider that." One of the guards seems receptive to the idea. The other says, "Ah, rebelling against them, preposterous! No, it just causes more chaos. Look at what's happening in Corroza." Luna: "No, no, I mean, you don't have to look at it as rebelling. Just saying you'd like better treatment and compensation and here's why you should get that." Tsuki: "Paid time off!" Guard: "Paid time off... Ah, but what is stopping them from hiring someone else and throwing us to the dumpster?" Other guard: "Well, we have a very valuable set of skills. We know the house, we know the place, it's not a bad idea to ask for more." Tsuki: "Paid sick leave!" Nadyn: "Yeah, if your boss thinks they can just pull in fresh hires to do your job, they're sorely mistaken." Guard: "Yeah, we should demand better treatment from the Dandolos. My family has worked for them for generations, and we deserve at least some recognition. Pride in our jobs is not enough." Other guard (scandalized): "What do you mean? Everyone should be proud in their job!" They go with this back and forth and start arguing about the benefits of getting together versus the benefits of not getting together. Luna gives more arguments for why they should unionize. That's persuasion! She says to the one who's less receptive, "First, to address your concern of them just firing you: you are already trained and clearly loyal workers, and if you all join together, if they were to fire you, they'd be completely without security--which would not be in their best interest, so quite unlikely. And you work security, so you put yourself at risk of being harmed or injured on the job, so the least they could do is provide you proper health insurance in case you do get injured." The more receptive one is very onto this unionizing schtick. The other still needs a persuasion roll. She rolls 15. The guy isn't completely 100% on board, but he does say, "Hmm, these are some good arugments. We ought to be compensated better. You know what? You, me, let us go and we shall draft our demands. Stay here and don't do anything suspicious." They go off to draft their demands. Nadyn: "You know what we should do now? We should just go inside to demonstrate how valuable the security's jobs are." Luna: "That might get them fired though..." Clara: "Yeahhhh." Tsuki opens the door. Clara: "They'll get blamed if someone catches us though..." Tsuki goes invisible and goes inside. Clara just stands in horror. But Tsuki is, in fact, the only one who would recognize who we're looking for. So he just wanders around trying to find people. Despite being a rather spacious mansion, there are only 1-2 servants in there. He's been in a rich person's place once (the Brautzes'), and their home wasn't very empty; they had Things and Stuff going on. They had soap. It was a welcoming rich person's place. But here, it's just kinda empty and lifeless, and Tsuki feels, "Oh. Everything's dark. This sucks." He manages to find the person who was taking the book from us, and overhears them in a closed room talking to a woman. He hears muffled bits of conversation. Guard: "Visitors say that this belongs to you." There are some follow-up questions like, "What are these visitors names?" (Presumably he took them, unless we say we lied about them, which only Tsuki did--he says Derolo). Guard: "Well, there's a Derolo, a Nadyn, a Luna, and a Clara, all of them very strange people, except Clara the human--she is from Cordova." Tsuki hears a voice commenting how strange it is for someone from Cordova to be here, especially a Cordovan noble. Guard: "Why they are here, I don't know; but they say they came across this book." Andromeda: "Hmm, interesting. Tell them to expect an audience, would you?" Tsuki very deftly avoids the door as it opens and the guard walks back out to tell us. Tsuki slips into the room with Andromeda. He stands around and watches what she does from a safe distance, stealthily. The stealthiest person in the group. He observes what she does: she sighs, she does a perception roll and gets a crit fail, but she also disappears into a mass of black ashen stuff. Almost like she spontaneously evaporated from her position. And instead, from the desk, comes out a replica of her, or what seems to be a replica of her. Tsuki has a little spidey sense that whatever he's seeing isn't the real Andromeda and that she's somehow left. Tsuki: "This is creepy..." He sneaks a little closer to try to get a better look while keeping a safe distance. The replica, or at least what he thinks is a replica, looks very similar, except it kinda has these empty, soulless eyes. It doesn't necessarily act the same way, and it's very jerky in its movements. He hears it whisper to itself, its voice at first is whispered, then becomes a bit raspy, until it improves on itself and manages to imitate Andromeda's voice as he knows it. Tsuki moves around a bit more and waits for the others. Meanwhile, the guard comes back to the rest of us. Guard: "Hello! Master Andromeda requires an audience with you. Right this way, please." He very curtly leads us across the house. As we see, it's relatively empty, not a lot going on; we'd expect more family or servants, but there's kinda nothing. On the way, we repeat the unionization schpiel. Guard: "Ah, unionization? Why would I want to do that?" We basically repeat the same idea as we gave the other guards. Health insurance and all that. Guard: "Interesting idea. Unionizing, health benefits... Perhaps if my other colleagues enjoyed that sort of thing, I would certainly support them as civilly as I can." Nadyn: "Right, and since random adventurers are trying to unionize you instead of the ideas coming from one of you, it means you can't get fired, because that's how it works, right?" (President needs to figure out how exactly they plan to unionize.) As we walk through, we see all these portraits of the long line of nobles in the Dandolo family--and there's a lot of them--but there's definitely an ancestor that seems to have extremely strong and powerful genes, since all of her descendants look like this one lady. That's not suspicious in the least. We notice this as we are walking. And we don't know what to make of it yet. So we proceed as we're led into the place Tsuki found. Guard: "Um, well, here you go." He gestures to the lady sitting at the desk, waiting all prim and proper. She greets us. Not-Andromeda: "Hello; I have noticed that you have come across something of mine." Nadyn: "...Where's Tsuki?" Tsuki (telepathically): "She's not real. She left." Not-Andromeda dismisses the guard--maybe very strangely. Not-Andromeda: "Go wait outside; I can handle myself." Guard tries to protest, but she gets snippy with him. Not-Andromeda: "Go outside. I can fend for myself." Finally the guard leaves, with a quick goodbye, and shuts the door. When we notice Tsuki saying she's not real, Nadyn wonders if Cursed Sword has anything to say about it. But apparently, Cursed Sword doesn't necessarily know there's blood until it's tried to taste it. Tsuki: "This thing came out of the desk." As Tsuki warns us, Andromeda (or not-Andromeda, the debatably-Andromeda) says, "What you have found is extremely interesting. I have, of course, it says that there were four of you; where is Derolo?" Nadyn: "Um... Public urinating?" Somewhere far far away, Jake is really happy that he has tinkled passed on his legacy to us. But over here, Not-Andromeda's like, "I see. I was told that he was a kenku. And where might you have found this journal?" Nadyn: "Amnesia." She uses it as an excuse without specifying further. Not-Andromeda: "Ah, interesting. Amnesia. So you suffer from amnesia? That's very unfortunate. Well, it is certainly dangerous to be traveling while you cannot remember very basic information, especially if you felt the need to come all the way here to return it to me. Would you like to stay here until you feel better?" Nadyn: "Well, we'd have to ask the public urinating one, since that's the one that has amnesia." Not-Andromeda: "Well, I invite you to stay here until he comes back. He wouldn't abandon his friends, would he?" He's standing there invisible behind her, not sure what to do. Nadyn pointedly looks toward the desk and back to not where Tsuki actually is, while Tsuki thinks about what to do... Not-Andromeda: "Please. I will send a few servants to take care of you during your stay here, and perhaps your friend will come. I am very interested in seeing the good samaritans who have decided to come here." Nadyn: "Are you sure you wouldn't like to take a BREAK?" Nadyn very hintingly makes a motion of breaking something. Tsuki eldritch blasts the desk. Yyyyyes. The invisibility deactivates. Suddenly, from behind Andromeda, we just hear an eldritch blast and a quack. He doesn't have to roll to hit because the desk is an inanimate object he can't miss against, but he does need to roll damage. 12 damage. With 12 damage, the desk immediately explodes into pieces. For a few crucial moments, fake-Andromeda or whoever this thing is freezes like they're rebooting. Nadyn: "Okay, well, no need to pretend anymore." She walks over to the desk and starts rummaging around. Tsuki pokes at the fake Andromeda. Fake Andromeda, to him, doesn't feel like a construct to the touch, more like a person. Clara stands there for a moment, asking, "What is going on?" Nadyn: "Well, as you can see, the desk spontaneously exploded. Tsu--er, Dandolo Derolo was not here." Clara sees that Andromeda is frozen, but only for a few moments. The real one poofed into ash, this one came out of the desk, the desk blew up. Luna reminds us of the song "could the real Andromeda please stand up" in chat, but otherwise is a bit in shock and a bit nervous about everything. Clara feels that too. Tsuki: "We just started a war with the main family in town. Clara: "THAT'S NOT A GOOD DEED" President: "But you know what's an upshot of this?" Clara: "The guards have unionized?" President: "Yes, but do you know the other upshot? Your sword is really happy Think of the sword. Think of how happy it must be to finally have enemies around." Fake one is unfreezing from the reboot frozen stage. Tsuki uses Ward of Radiance on it and it fails the save and takes 3 damage. Fakedromeda tries to attack us. Nadyn finds a bunch of notes written in this eldritch language that Tsuki might have to decode, and a weird stick, maybe a wand. She'd need to identify it at some point, or wave it and see what happens. Nadyn is not smart enough to not wave it. Luna: "Oh gosh, is this another taser situation?" Tsuki: "Only if it backfires." We roll initiative, with us getting a free surprise round. Clara does nothing, since she doesn't know what to do. Nadyn waves the wand. Sleight of Hand totals 10, so she waves it very clumsily rather than fancily. The wand just has this burst of ice come out of it, and thankfully she has the right side of the wand away from her, and it goes directly into Fakedromeda doing 2d6 (7) cold damage! Clara belatedly realizes she has divine sense, and uses it. Fakedromeda pings the divine sense... along with something else on the storey below. It feels kind of like a haze--a bunch of smoke, almost. Clara: "I sense something on the floor below us, which is all evil and stuff and probably related to Fakedromeda." But she doesn't know what it is, just the hazy feeling. Luna casts Armor of Agathys. Top of initiative is Fakedromeda. Fun fact about this place: there is a little trail of sunlight coming in through the windows. First thing she does: all of us roll DC Wis save after Fakedromeda screams. Clara, Luna, and Nadyn feel very scared of this banshee-esque Fakedromeda thing and feel the need to spend all their movement running away from her since they're technically frightened. They would need to repeat the saving throw to stop being frightened. Nadyn's turn: she is very spooked of Fakedromeda. Something about her really really is very spooky. But with a 17+1 saving throw, she steels herself against Fakedromeda to start her turn, which uses her action. Clara's scared; mechanically she does have to spend her movement getting as far as possible from Fakedromeda unless she passes the saving throw, in which case she can move freely. With 15+4, she passes and she steels herself with the thought of having to protect her groupmates because she's the tank. Managing to shake it off, she moves in between Fakedromeda and her group members. Next is Tsuki who is not spooked. He is the unspookable. He's doing unspookable things. He uses Word of Radiance again. Fakedromeda rolls 12 vs DC 13 and takes 3 more damage. Luna retries her saving throw and gets 13, which barely passes, so she is no longer spooked. Fakedromeda next. Tsuki is President's favorite whipping boy of the group, so Fakedromeda hits with a 22, doing 8 necrotic damage. Tsuki does a Hellish Rebuke. Fakedromeda crit fails the save and takes 25 fire damage. Fakedromeda is kinda hurting right now, but she's still up on both perfect picturesque model-like legs. She floats to one of the blinds and shuts them so no more sunlight comes in through that window. There's another window where sunlight is coming from. Nadyn goes and opens the other window, then slices down the curtains so they can't be easily re-closed, and with a bonus action uses Healing Word to heal Tsuki for 5. Clara attacks Fakedromeda plus Divine Smite using the evil sword, hits with a 15, and with a bonus since Fakedromeda is undead, she deals a total of 15 damage. Clara: "I hope you're happy now, sword!" President: "We'll get to that." Sword slices through Fakedromeda quite easily. As she drives the sword through, Sword is very happy. Sword: "Finally, the taste of the blood of one of my enemies. Please, please, let me do it again, let me do it again!" Tsuki stands in the background right behind her like  And hey, if she does it again, she gets a free hit! There might be downsides to letting the sword do it, but she'd get a free attack that auto-hits too... Clar: "Wait, that's kinda cursed, isn't it? Sorry sword, you get one shot." Sword: "You COULD destroy this thing that is threatening your friends. One day, Clara, your hesitancy will not bode well for you." After that is Tsuki! He Eldritch Blasts the window that's closed. It's an inanimate object. He's doing that a lot today between Beboulder, Desk, and Window. The property damage is quite good. Clara likes that we're all getting a lot of Vitamin D from this. Tsuki deals 13 damage. The curtains burn up, maybe some other things too. This is fine meme. Luna: "Oh no." It's Luna's move! She Eldritch Blasts Fakedromeda. With 19 she hits, and deals 4 damage. Fakedromeda is still mad at Tsuki because he's doing a lot of damage. Maybe if he wasn't doing so much damage, she wouldn't go after him. However, even after a Silvery Barbs (which at least can still benefit Tsuki next round), she still hits him 12 damage. Tsuki uses Hellish Rebuke again, and Fakedromeda passes the save but takes 9 damage. Nadyn tries stabbing with the rapier. She rolls 2, super bad (par for course tonight), but Bardic Inspires Clara. Clara attacks and hits for 7. Sword: "Let me attack again, I can taste it!" Clara: "Bro, you just did." Sword: "But think of it this way: what if Luna misses, what then? You saw what Fakedromeda did to Tsuki." Clara: "Eh, he'll be fine. I trust my people. My role is done." She's defying the sword with the power of trust. Luna's up. She eldritch blasts. 16 hits, and Clara feels vindicated ("Take that, sword!"). Luna does 12 damage. Fakedromeda screams again, but we're not spooked of it anymore, having had her scream at us before, and she kinda just dies very anticlimactically, falling to the ground like a dead person, because sometimes dead people die. The office is also on fire. We hear the sound of someone worried coming to the door. We should probably collect any information we might need, and also Clara has detected this weird undead presence downstairs. We clarify that the room is about 15x15ft, and the flames are going from the curtains to the wood in the office place. Nadyn could try blowing wind really hard at it...? But Luna's Druidcraft can snuff out a small campfire, and she could try that to slow it a little bit first, but it has started spreading. At least it's a cantrip, so she uses it repeatedly to snuff out what she can. Nadyn remembers she can also Prestidigitate out some flames, so she helps to extinguish it faster. But there's our cliffhanger for now! There are probably guards coming! Tsuki maybe found something in his rummaging through the stuff at the desk! Luna and Nadyn are trying to put out the fire with their cantrips! Clara uses Lay On Hands on Tsuki for 20 hit points, many many hit points, back up to full! President is off to be tortured by Agile and user stories. 1 like = 1 prayer! That's all folks, WB ending. Quack.
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