Today’s summary is of a One-Shot DM’d by the lovely @langstymclangstface. Go visit their page and give them some love, for they are a talented writer and we had a hellaciously fun time playing this one shot together!
(Aka Nelatha’s Coochie Quest. The sequel title no one asked for :eyesemoji:)
It has been. A short while since our heroes have been in the city of Crystalgate, Capitol of the country of Aetorumia.
A costume festival is being held, bright and shining lights illuminating the night time sky above the wandering citizens as they pass by booths and tables of contents, finding entertainment for themselves and their loved ones.
Each and every one has made it their goal to wear a costume as ostentatious as the next, a sort of challenge between each other to see who can be the most in the spirit of the event.
High spirits are in the air, in spite of a problem that has arisen for everyone. Or most of everyone. A sickness has hit a substantial part of the populace and thus, people are using this evening as a gateaway from the bad vibes of their relatives being down for the count.
Some call it the end of the world, but they’re honestly being overdramatic dramatic.
Amongst the walkers of this town, there are four of the five members of the party “The Cultbusters”. Sadly, Belli is at home (I headcanon that Mournimar left Morgan with her, as we didn’t get a description of Morgan’s costume. So the good direwolf is there to be her comfort animal, along with familiar, Orion.) and she is siiiiiick. And thus, she is locked off at home, as are all that have been hit by this flu.
The rest of the party are lucky.
And the rest of the party are dressed up to their heart’s content!
Amelia wears the proud costume of a sea corsair. A daring, romanticized fersion of a pirate, with Archie as her fat little shoulder griffin, a pair of wings strapped to the chunky, hunky kitty’s back, a little beak on his face. He’s living his best life and loves his catmom.
Walking beside her, Nelatha Shadowspire’s joined the group yet again. Accompanying her lady friend Genasi, she is wearing a sexed up version of a Cleric’s uniform. Particularly, that of a Honos cleric. (She is basically a fantasy sexy nurse) And she is confident as hell in that outfit. She makes it work and she knows it.
Flanking them is Mournimar, who, while initially planning some other attire, has opted for the costume of a favored character of his from a classical play. He wears the rags of the infamous drug dealer, tomb raider, bard and poet, the Graverobber. And he is blue screening real bad on account of not being used to such festivities. With Belli on the sick bed, he is but inchest away from touching shoulders with his fellow tiefling.
He, of double disguises. Who, along with the elf baby have dressed up as the characters of Fangface and Fangpuss respectively. They are goofy outfits, but Luctan is having a ball with it, enjoying the cartoonishness of it all and the hilarity that he, someone already in disguise, is wearing a third skin now. And the baby is baby. He don’t care none.
Last, but far, far from least, Malak walks with his new traveling companions, wearing a skeleton costume. A onesie, his face painted up to appear skullish.
Together the five, plus the baby and cat, walk amongst the people as streamers fly overhead. People dance and play and drink to their heart’s content. In a various level of dress.
What catches their attention is that amongst the chaos there’s a man selling candles. A sign upon his booth states the title “The Candle Man”, as their noses are attracted by multitude of scents from these particular ones.
The closer they walk, the musical tunes of The Living Tombstone’s “Spooky Scary Skeletons” hail in repetition, much to the frustration and disguist of Nel, who’s bardic pride feels poked at with the ridicilousness of that tune.
Along the way to the Candle Man’s booth, Malak’s eye stops at a nice old fashioned game of bobbing for apples. His curiosity overtaking him, the human man gives it a go and dunks his head in the water, trying to be as dexterous as he can with his chompers.
He tries his best. Swinging his head left, right, center. Up and down, trying his damnedest to nab one of the apples. But alas, he fails at the task. From the outside perspective, someone has to walk on over to him and pull him out and back, as the Death Cleric looked like he was drowning.
Trying to give it a go himself, Mournimar enters the “battlefield” of fruit and preps to dive headfirst (as you do). Malak is the ever helpful man he is and places a hand on Mournimar’s shoulder for encouragement, casting Guidance on him.
Through a combination of the ranger’s skill in handling items and the Cleric’s holy magic, the tiefling nabs an apple. But not just your regular Granny Smith’s apple! This one is of a golden color.
“Congratulations, you won the grand prise!”
He is the victor of the game and earns himself a bag of candies from the vendor, a kind lady speaking in her best Applecore accent.
“Excellent!” exclaims Mournimar and offers the bag around. But be it because of a distate in sweets or a lack of hunger, he is left to feast on the candies himself. All the more for himself!
As they continue on, they pass by a number of establishments. From new age bars, to meat houses. Bakeries and the like, all theming their foods after the holiday that has been bestowed upon the masses, with skulls and pumpkins and bats and all sorts of crawlies.
Luctan asks around about the sickness. Most people suggest it’s a cold time of year, so it’s normal. There are a couple of people out of town, panicking a bit regarding a pandemic. Performers say they’ve lost a hood half of their act, because of this. Lost their voices and shit.
Mourni’s type of Orc walking around, basically looks him up and down, shakes his head and says they tried, but shit didn’t work
A fire genasi performs a juggling act with flaming knives nearby. Luctan, being the boy, who loves his pointy things that he is, goes for a closer watch of the show. The Genasi man waves at Luctan, between throws and tosses and twirls and spins of the burning blades.
Impressed with the performance, Luctan gives a gold piece and a bunch more Fire Genasi come out, juggling. Despite that they are very excited to perform for him and stuff, they haven’t said a single thing. To Luctan, it appears that they are just very dedicated to their craft. And he appreciates that.
(He loves a man, who can handle a blade. Somewhere Ficus has himbs a sneeze, probably.)
Nel is not amused. Why? Aside from the juggling, her resting witch face is earned from seeing Amelia approach a pet store, where they have cats dressed in little costumes.
And you can pet said cats.
Set up as advertisements and stuff. You can buy treats themed for each cat.
She picks up the quiet mewing of kittens from the back of the room, where people pay to have kittens crawl and paw over them.
While Malak enjoys a variety of Pumpkin Spice Lattés (And there are so MANY Pumpkin Spice Lattés) Amelia goes to the cats. There’s a nice lady holding two fat cats. And she gets to pet some cats. Lennard and Harry. They were married and had a ceremony last week and the kittens are in the back.
Amelia is tearing up. This is the best day of her life.
Good work is being done for these cats. She is warned about a certain cat boi who jumps on people and demands cuddles. Amelia seems to be prepared for this. Heavy is the ribcage that must contain so much love for felines.
Out of nowhere areally fat Scottish fold jumps and descends on her, which causes Nel to scream a loud screm.
In response, The cat looks at Nel and bleps.
This is the happiest day in Amelia’s life.
Cats are available for adoption.
With the cat on her head and the two in her arms, as well as Archie on her shoulders, she is virtually in cat heavan. If this is a dream, don’t let her wake up.
All the while, Malak gets free gingerbread with every latté. (Nel feels like the world’ll collapse around her over all the coffee.)
Eventually, with cats in tow, the party find themselves at the Candle Man’s store.
One very bored teenager fiddling with a candle. He looks like he can’t be bothered. As they get closer to inspect them, each one looks like a person. They seem to be made expertly, made in order of famous people, but they don’t recognize any of them.
Except for one.
Luctan vaguely recognizes one of the figures as the dancer!Zitra! But something seems off about it, like it was done in a hurry. Almost like someone wasn’t used to this, as opposed to the expert.
The young one explains that the candlemaker’s sick, so the kid had to rush ‘em. Luctan buys one of the Lady Zitra and an unknown dude. Then hands the young salesperson a pamphlet and encouraging words. He believes that they can do better!
Curious, Malak wants a candle made of him. But gets the strange explanation that a personal hairstrand is required for the wick. And backs off immediatelly.
Luctan and Mournimar have no idea what this is about. To Nel there seems to be more than he’s letting on. Sinister vibe coming off of him.
She’s noticed he hasn’t’blinked once since they met him, but a few minutes prior.
He’s very cagey about what his general job is, as opposed to the summer job.
It’s mostly, you know, ehm, bar keeping and cleaning.
At the Busty Wench. The one in town.
Nel doesn’t remember a franchise opening here.
On these revelations, the shadyness of the character, if Malak hadn’t changed his mind before, he most certainly had now.
Malak casts Zone of Truth.
The moment he casts the spell, something odd happens. No. Something horrid happens. The ground begins to melt.
All around them? Everyone starts melting as blobs of flesh and clothes and then they realize they’re surrounded by wax, which starts to pull and move towards the stand, which is slowly changing form until they start in front of a vague humanoid figure twice of Mournimar’s height.
Yeah...
The sign is very litteral.
Much to Amelia’s horror, all cats, but Archie, begin to melt. Gordon and Harry and the one on her head crumble and fuse and melt off and down to the ground below. Even the cats were fake.
The wax man has a big as smile. Whatever he is. the party had never heard of it before.
As he says that, he rises into the air and drops down and suddenly everything is melting into wax, white and overpowering scent of burning candle and the floor is disappearing beneath everyone’s feet.
BOGUS!”, to say the least.
Thinking fast, Nel uses Polymorph and changes into a giant eagle and grabs Amelia and Archie to move them to safety. Once in the air, she looks out into the horizon and in a perfect circle? She sees that the city is surrounded by a desert. And slowly-an-and- and melting?!
Malak is noticing that the fire jugglers, who but moments prior were catching and throwing burning blades, were now sleeping and drowning in wax.
He tries to save them, but isn’t strong enough to do a thng about all this.
From what the lot of the ‘busters can gather, apparently the sick people are the real ones. And they are sinking.
Wasting no further time, the rest of the party start climbing.
Arriving at the top, they see that the area they started from? There’s this vast and expanding black hole, going outwards. Up top, Luctan has a vague feeling that something isnt’real here, but there’s so much magic surrounding him, he cant’pinpoint what the illusion is.
All the while Mournimar strategizes with the polymorphed Nelatha.
Malak takes a notice that the hair sticking out of the wax candles is still there and he realizes that the figurines at the stall are left completely in tact.
Luck realizes that some of the people he tried pulling out had wax figurines.
The ones he was shown were selected so he wouldn’t recognize them. It is by mere chance that they had met the Lady herself. And thus, he acts upon a gut feeling. He removes the hairstring and the figurine cracks, before beginning a climb down to the candle booth. To repeat that on a grander level. And Mournimar follows, in spite of Luctan’s protests.
Nel is tasked with carrying the others away.
(And here we have a bit of a 2-3 minute break, because Cat’s mic was off for a good while. Because her kitten, the Little Man/Little Bastard as she calls him had turned it off. It was the funniest thing ever.)
As they part ways, Amelia casts Levitate on Luctan. Yell heah!
As Luck flies, he remembers he left Belli asleep in the Shadowspire Manor, which from his perspective, begins to melt. Cursing under his breath, he takes the figurines with a box and removes the hairs on the way to Belli’s as Mournimar sprints after him.
As they move, Mourni notices Luctan’s in tiefling form. And has a tail?!
The levitation drops eventually and Luctan falls on the ground. As he turns around, he sees he’s been chased by a fellow tiefling, but it’s not someone he recognizes.
Nel turns in her normal form forcibly as they travel and they are surrounded by strangers. Making her 3 point landing, Amelia notices a bird turning into a humanoid form and sadly doesn’t recognize Nel.
Everyone’s... surrounded by strangers.
A figure about Amelia’s height rises from the wax and says “Hello there, don’t be frightened. You’ve been saved.”
Luck see this form as well, but it’s smaller and childlike and feels an eerie sense of calm.
Mournimar, unfortunately, fails on a wisdom save and “ knows everything’ll be alright”.
As he realizes this, his features starts melting off, until Mourni is gone, replaced with a lump of wax.
Seeing all this madness happening around him, Malak casts Protection of Good and Evil and protects himself.
Luck feels Danger as he sees that someone start melting, which causes him to have... the freaks out. It’s this reason why he probably only too late notices he has his tail back?!
Feeling threatened by this wax fhild, Luctan casts Sacred Flame, which burns a hole through the child’s chest. Not falling for whatever niceties the child propheces, the red tiefling burst into a dash towards Belli’s location.
Mournimar is ordered to attack Luctan. And he does so, chasing after him, unsheathing the swords from his hips and attacking. All the while this big lump of wax follows along as the floor seems to start to swallow him.
Luctan gets attacked and the seering pain feels like fire. Looking at the wound inflicted by the possessed Mournimar, he realizes he’s made of wax. Out of anxiety and rage and frustration and pain, he goes on to react with a Hellish Punishment at his attacker and melts Mournimar?!
(BEGONE, TIEF!)
Malak makes an attack, casting Litch Slap on the monstrous child. He hadn’t prepared any combat spells, but at the very least he had this.
Chunks fly and hit Amelia and Nel and reveal wax underneath.
Nel bounces. Not recognizing anyone, she has no reason to be here.
The thing goes after Malak.
Amelia bounces as well.
She takes two steps, before a hand reaches out from the ground and grabs her, squeezing and burning.
With a strength, unmatched and one powerful crushing motion, Amelia’s head pops off. And she poofs out of existence.
Malak attacks with his axe and that has no effect. As Nel runs, tendrils are grabbing at her feet. “Nope-nope-nope-nope-nope.”
One successful tendril grabs and pulls her down.
Nel feels herself being pulled down into the wax and it pours down into the ground. She suffocates and no longer is within this realm of existence.
The tendrils go after Luctan, shifting into vicious spikes, but melt behind him, due to him perpetually casting Prestidigitation, applying sparks in the viscinity aorund him.
.He carries on like this, until the sensation of emptyness under him catches his attention.
And he starts falling.
And falling.
And. While still dressed in the Fangface costume, he tries to concentrate on hsi wings. Figuring he could create them at this point, he does so. Wax versions of his wings shape from his shoulderblades. And for a short moment, he manages to fly up.
Until the wings break apart.
And he starts falling yet again.
As spikes portrude from around him and impale him, taking him out as well.
And then there’s Malak.
“ I’m the last survivor, you guys.”
The kid begins to clap with a wicked smile and congratulates him.
Then we all open our eyes. Peppery Pete stands over us as we wake up.
Basically. What it comes down to, as we catch our bearings and get up, is that Pete explains Belli hired Pete to drug us with some strange drug.
It was whack.
The party are not amused. Nel is confused.
They just stand there. Being menacing.
Malak takes a knee and rests a hand on Pete’s shoulder.
“Look, mistakes happen.”
“ But if you ever do this to us or anyone again, I will personally sever your soul from your body.”
Pete is. To say the least. Terrified from the death glare.
And Amelia basically realizes that Pete is bullshitting them and Belli had nothing to do with this. It was meant to be a team building exercise.
“Yeah, but why am I here, though?!” - Nel’s still confused.
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Following the shenanigans from last session, our heroes get together with Nelatha in the tavern, where the melee fighters with the pointy weapons get quizzed on what they got themselves into. What with the blood all over them.
Luck explains what happened. Sort of. Barfight and all. But due to a misunderstanding, with Mournimar forgetting that Amelia and Nel are behind him, he comes off as though he’s drunk (because Luck rolls SO BAD!!!)
With everyone together, we talk more business and learn that Belli will be meeting an influential figure in the local cáfe, a very snobby establishment and it would bequeef her to bring alogn another person. While Mournimar suggests Amelia, Nel makes an observation that Luck would be an easier choice.
Luck agrees after a bit of cnversation and gets some wet wipes, for his troubles, from Belli.
As everyone, but Luck go to bed, Luck understands clearly the implications of Nel and Ames going together for the evening. But before he hits the hay, he borrows some books from the library, getting into some enthusiastic learning and edumacating.
Amelia gets a good night. Joke’s on us, they just fucking cuddled.
Th following morning... Mournimar asks Belli to not get in any trouble without him. “What’s the worst we could do?” – Belli, 27th February, 2019
Everyone gets together in the tavern, after Mournimar and a rolling Belli go in from a cuddle pile with Samson and Morgan, who stuck to the carriage.
Nel helps Belli with some prestidigitation and after some more shenanigans, the trio go to the Fancy Cafe. Very high society.
There’s a dish that looks like meatballs, but white and is very heavily seasoned. Dancing lights going about. - Towards the back of the room, there’s an elf woman and a guard, who Nel introduces as Morticia.
There is a discussion of the Narah family, who apparently “went into temporary retirement”?!
The gig that Belli is to work on is the Winter Solstice celebration at Morticia’s mansion. “It’s important this time of year to celebrate our accomplishments.” And as such, they are invited to perform at the festival.
But as we register, we must put a name for our party.
After some whispers and references to future events (see below),Belli and Luck come to a consensus: “ You can call us “The Cultbusters”. (And we’ll probably NEVER fight another cult again.)
After agreeing on pricing, the rest of the party get invited to come to the cafe. Sadly, the stay doesn’t last, because Mournimar helps the party learn that the locals eat the unborn babies of Bullywugs from the swamp. Bullywugs being sentient creatures.
Luck and Mournimar freak out about the eating of frogpeople babies and each leave pretty quickly after this, with Belli swearing she’ll write a bad review for the establishment.
The boys literally have to be talked down by Nel to not cause havoc in the restaurant, out of their pure outrage at this cruelty and Belli throws a chair.
They agree to make their leave, but beofre doing so, The Chaos Siblings (Belli and Mournimar) and Luck go to Peppery Pete’s to restock on supplies.
After making him bamf in and out several times by ringing the bell of his shop, they make their purchase. They get potions of healing of various levels (One greater and 6 lesser)
Luck also gets the Wizard’s Folly potion from Pete.
We also learn that Belli apparently mixed potions at one point.
We also learn about a Potion of Dwarf’s tongue.
Before they make their leave, Luck... learns something that makes him go serious. He asks about the Traveling Gentlemen again and their member, who had recently left. It was the elf, Felaern, who was currently in Victrum (the town, where Gorruck operates from) and will remain there for the next few weeks.
Luck goes grim. And freaks, repeating the names that only Mournimar had heard by this point, as he leaves the establishment.
As they walk, they go to the carriage, where everyone else has reconvened. Mournimar asks Nel about Victrum, which, she tells him, will take 9 days of travel. They agree to travel to Victrum directly after they finish the festivities in Morticia’s mansion.
The trip is short and Samson waits with the horses and Morgan, while the rest go in, wearing their “best faces”. Luck somehow smiles through this.
One Dungeon Mastered by our Half-Orc Bard player, @langsty-mc-langstface
This is really cool, ok?!
Our heroes enter the building, fashionably late. Belli had come in quite earlier than the others on that day, so she could prepare with the other performers. But the rest are coming fashionably late. Repearting myself.
The place is fancy-shmancy and everyone invited, but the party is wearing bright pink suits and dresses. There’s glitter and wreathes and stuff and Mournimar is dressed all “Mean girls” style.
How to describe Luck? Luck is generic. Except not. He found a Winter Solstice sweater and dear horns. YOU HAPPY MOM?!
Burk’s painted his armor red. So he’s red and green.
Amelia’s wearing a sweater and pants.
That said, Nel is possibly the most expectedly dressed of the bunch. A fashionable dress.
Guards collect everyne’s weapons, but Luck’s, due to prejudices...Nel manages to sneak in a weapon, a dagger of sorts.
The four get lead around by Nelatha after this display of racism and make their way to the buffet. There’s a lot of food and from this point the party can see Elves, dressed like wizards, upon the podium, who do funny shit to keep people from overeating.
There’s a massive fire place, where people are gathered around. Commonly, the people here are mostly humans and elves, but there are the outliers...
The party find an angry Belli, performing on stage. Angry, because she has to wear pink for the celebration.
As Mournimar and Nelatha go for drinks, Luck examins their surroundings and notices that the help is mostly made out of humans, halflings and a goliath. This catches his interest and approaches the man, who introduces himself as Richard.
Richard the Golath.
Luck gets a couple of wine glasses from Richard, who he notices had recently smoken weed. While he’s taking well to the alcohol, Mournimar is sloshed 2 glasses of Brandy in. RIP.
Amelia and Nelatha notice a very tall Elf Woman with long black hair coiled up in a angry bun. Black dress and the biggest sapphire neckless around her. Morticia enters the scene and Luck inquires about her, while Nel and Morticia have a verbal spar of words. Trying to overpower each other on the scene.
Nelatha ultimatelly outsasses Morticia in defense of Burk, Amelia and Mournimar and causes her to make her leave. None of the party, but Luck notices an almost cool wind blowing off of her that sends almost a shiver down his spine. Apparently, according to Richard, Mortitia comes from old money. Hers is the family responsible for construction of half the city.
There is suspicion from the party’s human as he watches her make her leave. There’s something odd about her, but he can’t put his finger on it. Either way, he parts ways with Richard, after getting another glass and gives him a gold coin for his trouble.
Mournimar quickly sobers up, while Nel gets a drink of her own from Richard. Shenanigans ensue as Burk tries to toss some meats over to Belli, only for it to be zapped away by an invisible barrier. This goes for a while. Burk does not succeed. But damn it if he didn’t try!
However, whomever set up this barrier didn’t count for Burk’s stubborness as he eventually succeeds to push through some bacon for the Half-orc Bard lady.
Having failed to repeat Burk’s success, Mournimar slinks into a corner, feeling self-conscious over his identity.... until a little tiefling boy approaches him.
The boy smiles a toothy, shy smile at Mournimar, referring to him as pretty. His parents are performing on stage.
Mournimar gets a note from the child. He gives the boy 3 gold for each member of the family. The two hug it out, before going their seperate ways...He takes note of a small gaggle of children running around the room, unsupervised. Some of the rich, some of the lower classes and staff.
Burk and Amelia go to check the hotsprings outside and Ames gets a disturbing view of an orgy taking place, while Burk makes snowballs with rocks inside.
Nel makes idle conversation with the creme of the crop on the continent. A title for each person in the immediate area of the conversation. While conversing, a uniformed guard pulls Nel aside and takes her and Luck to an upper floor library, where she simply whispers to Nel that they need to be careful, they can’t ask questions. They don’t know what’s listening.
She can answer questions about Mortitia, but this can’t be traced back to her. “Not everything’s as it seems. There’s always a cover, there’s always a lie.” she whispers and runs off.
With that, the red haired half-elf then makes her leave. Nel turns to Luck. They agree everything is whack and should gather everyone.
Meanwhile... All of Burk’s snowballs melt and a very cross looking wizard is looking down at Burk from an upper floor and talks down to him. Which, in turn, earns the wizard a response of a melted snowball to the face.
The duo are made to go inside. There, the party reconvenes and Nel notices Amelia’ traumatized expression.
Much to everyone’s shock, Luck doesn’t recognize the most famous bard in this plane of existence, Fantasy Beyonce. All the while, Burk feels a strange chill in the air for a second time.
Their attention is brought to a scurrying noise and they follow it with their eyes to the kitchen. The lights go off, then on again and everyone, but the five heroes of this story, are frozen solid.
They try to help them in some way, but unfortunately that doesn’t work out. A man gets shattered, even!
Even Belli is frozen, much to Mournimar’s horror. Burk gets some frozen hair and Nel is almost blinded. WITH MAGIC! Because everything around them is basically enchanted in some way???
A few people aren’t frozen. The tiefling wife and Richard. Some of the dignitaries. None of the wizards are frozen. The orgy is frozen. One guy is not. He’s in the center. He’s stuck.
Mournimar finds footprints. Almost like frozen into the ground, leading towards the rest of the house. Lying on the floor near the door there’s a familiar sapphire necklace (Mortitia’s).
Nel checks for the barrier. It’s not there, while Nel puts out the fireplace so people don’t get melted..
Mournimr notices the little tiefling boy is also frozen. As are almost all of the children. Mournimar has gone protective big brother mode. “Footprints, this way!”Luck follows. All the while. Amelia and Burk go to the kitchen. The food and the staff are frozen. What draws their attention is that one of the windows is broken, glass is everywhere inside the room.
Burk investigates that some of the glass is broken like it has been walked on. That leads to the toilet’s door. Which he kicks down.
Mournimar and Luck follow the footsteps and reach the door with the necklace.
Mournimar sees that the room is very cold, but the door seems colder and ice is forming around the hinges and door handle. Everything metal is being covered in a small sheen of ice. This ice seems to be covering the ground With things developing as is, they decide to restock on their weapons, so they can be able to defend themselves. This definitely is the work of a mysterious being of ice and the like.
Meanwhile, in the bathroom, everyone, who isn’t our heroes right now, is frozen. Some seated, Some in mid expulsion. There is a vent, but it doesn’t seem damaged, so no one came through there, if they were responsible for these shenanigans.
All the mirrors have been punched with violent contact. There is dark red blood over the crack of the window near the window. Burk uses a step stool and investigates the bloody mirror. He then notices chalk in the sink. Almost rubbed out lines in the mirror. Burk touches the chalk and realizes the chalk isn’t on this side of the mirror.
Upon trying to touch the door, Mournimar is repulsed backwards from an unknown impact. Luck has better.... well.... Luck with it as he opens the container of the others’ weapons, being greeted by solid block of frost. Through the ice he can see into the ballroom. It’s like it’s carrying on like nothing happened.
Mournimar uses thaumaturgy. It’s not effective. It’s almost like this isn’t ice at all. The two theorise that this could be special glass. Was this-Was this all a trap? Did this half-elven woman bring them here to get revenge on Belli in some way?! She was, after all, aware of the Narahs in some fashion?! (AND WHAT ABOUT SAMSON AND THE BOIS?!)
As MarMar leans closer, it looks like a mirror. On the other side, it looks like we’re the frozen ones.
Amelia and Nelatha see them run past and bond over things as Luck shouts that they’re in the mirror universe. Nel notices that the shards of the shattered man are vibrating faster and faster. Nelatha casts message to Burk and mentions to Burk that the others are onto something.
But... ah... Everything around Burk seems to shift. He can’t tell what exactly’s going on, but something’s not right. He notices a foul smell from one of the stalls.
Upon kicking the door open, he sees the man, who was previously frozen in mid poop, doing his business. But Burk isn’t noticed by said man, who is now very much not paralyzed in cold. In fact, Burk almost appears spectral and transparent??? It’s almost like Burk isn’t there, even.
He looks out of the bathroom and finds himself in a Summer Solstice celebration, with fruits and vegetables as the course of feast, but no meats involved. A musicion gets on stage and begins to play country music.
Back with the anxious duo, Luck and Mournimar are in a hallway. At the end of the hallway there’s a door, surrounded by lights and Mournimar notices that the door was recently forced with a dagger.
Luck Picks up the Necklace and the two go inside the room. It’s dark. It’s a study, but most of the furniture has been moved. There’s a single round mirror with a golden frame. On the mirror there are runes drawn in chalk.
In Infernal it says “As one door opens, another one closes.” Mournimar senses that this mirror is some sort of gateway. The duo are so preoccupied wiith the size of the room and it’s dark decor that they don’t notice when Nel and Amelia first come in.
Once they see them in, Luck asks where Burk is, but gets no answer on the subject. Nel is focused on the mirror.
She can feel massive amount of magic from the mirror. This kind of magic is all about teleportation, but someone’s messed with this in a way that no one should have tampered with it. Most of the magic seems to be coming from behind the curtain. As she shares her findings with the others, Luck dashes back outside to go and find Burk.
As if on que, a hand of glass shoots out of the mirror and drags Nel through it. It shatters once Nel passes through. Freaking out, Mournimar and Amelia go to find Luck and Burk.
Nel finds herself in a room. She’s safe. But she’s in a room. A child’s room, as she is surrounded by toys and a dollhouse, sprawn around it. There is a little girl in a massive bed, Black haired and with elven features, it isn’t hard for the blonde elven woman to realize she’s seeing a terrified little Mortitia.
- Nelatha lies she’s “Judith” the maid, when asked who she is. Mortitia says that everyone calls her “Morty” all the time. Her bear is Mr. Boop Boop. Nela notices a window and fighting outside. There’s a war going on outside.Having a realization, Nel tries to distract the girl from the fighting with talk of music. And they bond over it. According to Morty’s dad, Bards are “hacks”.
Even so, Nel tells the young mistress of the house some stories.
In turn, she learns that Morty’s mother isn’t around anymore and that her father’s fighting in the war. As they discuss Morty’s mom, an explosion goes off nearby, outside of the building.
Amelia and Mournimar run after Luck. But… the doors slam open and identical hands reach for them.
Amelia finds herself in a cloak room. And she’s not alone, as there is an injured soldier of Orcish descent, who is clearly hiding from some fighting transpiring outside. He’s a teenager and scared. Not just ‘cause Amelia suddenly popped in out of nowhere, but because of the conflict going outside.
While Amelia treats his wound as best she can, she tries to build a conversation with the young Half-Orc, whom she learns is named Riico. This is the “Great Base” that they were told to defend with their lives and protect the civillians. The voices outside get louder and the handle of the door begins to shake. Amelia tries to buy them some time, while she ties a rope to the door handle. There are many coats in here. With many pockets. But nothing of note inside them.
An explosion occurs outside and then the person shouts. And people start running away.
Mournimar falls into a dressing room full of outfits. Upon a quick inspection, this looks to be the dressing room with the design of a tiefling in mind. He notices that there are flowers everywhere. All folded from various colored paper. Mournimar follows the flowers and enters a bedroom. There’s a tiefling with a rose in his mouth in the bed.
They try to figure out who each other are. And what’s what. The man is skeptical and there is a wand he is reaching for, but Mournimar tries to defuse the situation as he elaborates what exatly happened to him and his friends.
He and the taller tiefling begin to piece things together... And quickly realize who the other person in this dialogue is. Mournimar recognizes the man as the boy that he met in the ballroom not too long ago, when everything was normal.
MEANWHILE!
Luck enters the main hall, the door slams behind him. He forces the door open and is met with a mirror, showing him a dark version of the ballroom. With no person in sight.
Resigning to his fate, Luck takes a few steps back.... and then dives headfirst into the mirror, finding himself in what appears to be a war room. There are heavy black curtains on the windows. Chains barricarding the door. He can smell dust, which clogs his nose.
He investigates the window. It’s been smashed in and on the glass there is old dried blood. Outside there is nothing. It’s a wasteland. There are skeletons and corpses of various decomposition strewn everywhere
He checks the hallway. It’s pretty much the same as before, only no doors. Walking past, there are only three mirrors. One leading to one at the far end, one towards the double doors. Luck enters cautiously, asking if someone’s inside... And feels a presense nearby.
Back to Burk, he finds himself in the middle of a harvest festival. Everyone’s happy. As he looks around, he recognizes some people. Most importantly, he recognizes an older looking Goblin with familiar armor. He looks similar to Burk, but something’s off.
The older Goblin is focused on Bacon... And Burk tries to get said Bacon, but only startles the elder, wearing Burk’s armor. Our Barbarian notices that the man is very mucb blind. He doesn’t say a thing to himself. “They have an understanding.” as Hayden puts it. Upon closer inspection, though... He realizes that isn’t his voice. But that is Burk’s armor.
Who the fuck are you?!” in stereo. “Is this a meme?” asks the not Burk Goblin. The man elaborates on the armor... This armor is 7 generations down from his great-great-great-*zzz*-great-great-great-grandfather Burk.
As they talk, Goblin kids run past and kick Burk in the shin.
The “descendant” wants to know who Burk is. Burk simply wants to know how Burk died. But the descendant has no damn clue. Burk begins to wonder if they’re even related. The guy could very well just have looted Burk’s grave or something.
Burk finds an older Nelatha and asks her about Amelia. Nelatha is confused, at first, but then remembers what happened. Burk concludes that she’s useless.
Back with Amelia, the noise outside goes to a quiet tone and Riico visibly relaxes. Amelia questions him about what’s going on, what that noise was. Riico has apparently abandoned his duty, something which clearly angers Amelia for some reason.
They check outside. Outside there are storage boxes and tents, people hiding. Outside there are civilians fleeing from the main hall. People are setting up a barricade at the main entrance. Some of them are soldiers, some civilians. Amelia sees a figure in a dark cloak outside.
He smashes his hand through the window, leaving blood on the shards. And then an army charges through. Civilians begin running for their lives.
She pushes through a sea of people. Riico isn’t in the closet, neither are most of the coats, but his is there. He abandoned his coat and took a civilian one. Amelia runs towards a familiar double door. Thrown open.
Mortitia is there, ushering folks through the mirror and her necklace is glowing as she’s helping people. She is distraught, looking like she’s about to break. Amelia decides to help, directing people in the direction of the mirror.
She notes that, wherever they are going, it appears peaceful and meadow filled.
BACK TO NEL! An explosion occurs outside the bedroom. She tells Morty to keep away from the window. Outside, Nel sees a single man waving a wand and doing horrible things. An elf man with dark hair. She puts 2 and 2 together that this is Morty’s father.
Morty’s looking up at Nel, she’s not seeing her dad, but is aware. Nel puts Morty back to bed. “Daddy got sick when mommy died.”She heard from servants. He did shady stuff and it made him different. It’s said that if he kills enough, Morty’s mom would return.
If you try and break the cycle of life and death, it could turn out dangerous, even for you.” – Nel states to a much understanding little elven girl.
She leads Nel out into the hallway and moves quietly, afraid to be heard. There are double doors at the end of the hallway, which the bard can recognize from earlier. Er. In the future. Inside, there is no curtain. Instead a cage. Inside the cage, there’s a chained elf woman. Her form is flickering, almost as if she can’t stay in this plane of existence and she seems to be in agony.
Nel covers Morty’s ears and whistles a brief tune on the screaming lady and puts her to sleep. It is a woman with a large bloody wound on her chest. They converse some more on what to do. Runes glow and light is pouring into her. Before their eyes, the woman is restored, wound closes, like it was never there.
Morty reveals that she has seen this before. Nel asks if she’d like for her father to stop this. Morty believes that no one can stop him. He’s not her daddy anymore. She points at her necklace. She has a job to do and only she can do it. She learned from her future self about it.
Nel understands, if vaguely, what this means. She will have to go back to the future, but before she does, she gives Morty some make up tips to keep for herself in the future.
Morty knows what she must do. The war’s been going on since before she was born. Nel gives Morty the talk of power and responsibility and in turn, Morty helps Nel with the mirror, while Nel gives her a pep talk.
As Nel boops Morty’s nose, she gets teleported...
We cut back to Mournimar, who is being escorted by the taller tiefling down the stairs. And they’re in the same place of the party, except it’s been converted into a studio with recording equipment and instruments everywhere. It’s a bardic paradise.
Apparently the tiefling had a crush on Mournimar back in the day. There’s someone who he needs to talk to. There’s an old woman in a wheel chair. Dark hair down. She’s softly playing a lute. It’s Mortitia.
It takes them a moment, but they discuss what happened.
Mournimar spills the beans. “Ah, the old hand! Some day I’ll figure out what the fuck it’s doing.” Mortitia states. She stands up and uses a stick to hobble to MarMar. Checks his face and yes. She definitely remembers the drunky boy.
Usually the hand takes people, who (and she has a real hard time remembering) are capable of operating the mirror. That must mean the party can also use this. And she gestures to her necklace. It’s been handed down the line daughter to daughter. And they’ve made doors through time to prevent disasters.
He needs to go through the summer solstice mirror, then through the winter one. And she puts the necklace around Mournimar and she gives him instructions. He needs to go through the bathroom first. And to be careful. She lost her temper earlier and punched the mirrors.
As she says that, the tiefling he recognized is very annoyed and blushes brightly as he brings Nel into the room. She just arrived. She’s seen plenty worse.
Team bathroom mirror is a go!
Judith, btw from your childhood.” The girls catch up quickly, before our heroes make their leave. And Burk has had an interesting conversation with future folk. Then he hears a crash from the bathroom. He investigates and reunites with Nel and Mournimar, who had crashed down on top of each other through the mirror. For a second Nel thinks she’s got black hair now, but it’s actually MarMar on top of her.
Nelatha goes to talk with her future self. She’s wearing a familiar sapphire necklace. Nelatha got something nice in Mortitia’s will. Future Nelatha gives past Nelatha the Necklace and directs her to the closet. Before they go, Nel gets a very important message from herself:
Whatever she does, never accept a makeover from Belli.
Back with Amelia, she is helping civillians through, until Mortitia collapses. She’s exhausted as fuck. Almost completely drained of life, basically. The necklace calls for Ames to put it on.
Burk, Mournimar and Nelatha fall through the portal in a tiny closet, stacked up. Nel at the bottom, Burk in the middle, Mournimar at the top. Nel’s dress is basically ruined by this point.
They see people running past them, screaming. No one is even noticing the trio, they’re just b-lining it. Burk splits off again. And checks what’s up in the back. He sees the fire behind the people. Seeing as he can’t punch that, runs the opposite way.
The trio get to Amelia, who is now wearing the necklace as well. Just as the door begins to freeze behind them. Burk sees a tiny little dragon breathing ice, breathing on the door and wagging it’s tail.
As Burk makes friends with the little one, Amelia and Nelatha hug it out as they reunite, finally.
BACK WITH LUCK! As Luck is standing in the room, it’s almost as if Ash is appearing on the walls and floor. He notices the ash seems to be the thickest in the center of the room. Luck nat 20’s his perception check. There are foot prints buried in the center of the room. As he’s looking there, the room starts getting cold.
The lights go out and once they go out, all the people, who were frozen in the party are unfrozen. Luck waves awkwardly at the people. Aaand gets glomp-tackled by a panicking Belli. They quickly catch up and come to a realization on what had actually happened.
Back with the others, Mournimar is slowly getting more anxious as they haven’t found their human buddy. Mortitia starts to wake up and she sees her dragon is taken by a goblin. She refers to the little one as Boop Boop”the dragon. Nel has a 1,000 yard stare.
Morty is almost annoyed at the situation and ties her hair in a bun (MUCH TO THE ENTIRE GROUP’S PAINED CHAGRIN).
They try to follow her through a mirror, but it breaks. The dragon chirps as they plan and the dragon points in a direction with it’s tail that takes the form of a hand.
The party gets to the main room, where the floor has been burnt into a mirror. Dragon’s pointing at the floor. They jump through, holding hands and pulling Burk along. And promply land on their other two companions.
The dragon came through, as well and the party begin discussing what the hell just happened to all of them.
There is a reunion hug in there, somewhere as the girls notice a very annoyed Mortitia. Nel uses”Morty”. Mortitia shudders. Apparently this is all “Boop Boop”’s fault.
Mortitia tries to call Boop Boop to her, but the little dragon is adamant to do so. Wanting to travel with Burk for a while. She sighs and asks for the necklaces back, telling the party that they’ll forget what happened once they hand them back. It’s important, but some refuse as they’d seen a future where they hold onto the necklace.
Luck and Mournimar hand their versions of the necklace to Mortitia. Mortitia is honest with them about what’s what and her opinion of the party has shifted. As things go back to normal, the once Low Wisdom Duo forget what happened, beyond their intitial experiences in the mansion, before things got weird.
The lot of them make peace with the mansion’s owner and Burk gets to keep Boop Boop, whom he renames “Rimefang”. Rimefang seems chill with this new name. The lot of them get 1,500 gold together for the job and their troubles.
Belli gives everyone a present and takes a “Still Image” of sorts with her friends. Inside, everyone finds a friendship bracelet. Mournimar has a t-shirt with “Best Big Brother” on it.
Once they make their leave, the party feel accomplished.
One could say that everyone has... leveled up, in a way.
Level 5! Level 5! Level 5! Level 5! Level 5!
Nel states that the lot will be able to meet heri n the capitol next. She’ll be veyr busy, apparently.
(Out of character, we learn that If the opportunity presents itself, Burk will jump in front of Belli to take a blow. He hates himself more than he hates the party).
Amelia’s gonna pull Nel aside and the two have a moment. Which Mournimar and Belli are absolutely extatic for. While Luck’s demeanor shifts slowly as he remembers what’s coming next on their journey...
Nel’s red in the face, once the two come back from wherever they came back. For the first time, the party see her visibly flustered. She goes invisible and heads off to the capitol.
The party commences their travels, with Luck taking a seat beside Samson, who has been coachmanning the shit out of the carriage.
4 days after setting off from Heraeia, they hear shuffling i nthe trees. Mournimar and Luck hear something more. Orcish grumblings and point them out to Belli, since the only Orcish the two bladed boys know are cusses.
Burk understands as well and what they learn is that a small band of orcs are sitting around a fire, bragging about their latest spree of murder and mayhem.
The party is talked into taking out the orcs for their crimes, Luck being the most eager to put a stop to them. With help of Mournimar’s spell “Pass Without a Trace”, the party of now 8 travel through the bushes, with Morgan the Dire Wolf being the top tier standard for stealth.
A fight begins and ends in almost an instant as the party are too strong for the orcs, who are overcome from all sides.
Belli being the MVP, quite frankly, as she had put the leader to sleep, before it even started!
To summarise the far, here are my notes:
- Mournimar Hunter’s marks a guy, then hits him. Hits him hard.
- Sam does a cool plant whip move.
- Luck finishes off the dude.
- Luck misses the other dude.
- The an arrow bounces off his armor.
- Burk rushes in and crits the guy that shot at Luck, with the Axe.
- And almost kills him brutally.
- Amelia smashes another guy’s face in.
- Amelia gets the second kill of the session, after Luck.
- Then goes to punch another guy, but he just barely dodges.
- Rimefang ice cones a dude.
- Morgan takes a nibble off the sleeping dude.
- Belli claims another penis.
- Mournimar does a sord combo.
- Samson smashes the man’s ribs in.
- While Mournimar pats Morgan, Luck gets his dagger back.
- Belli finds 20 gold and 2 emeralds.
- Hell yeah!
- It’s dusk time.
- Luck finds 10 gold on the sword and shield and 5 on the guy across him.
- Belli gets 5 gold.
We have us a bit of a singing out of character on the subject of these country Orcs.
“Country Orcs, take me “ACK!”
The party camp further away from the orc band as they don’t want to atttract attention, in case there’s more of them. Though they could probably take them down.
Rustling comes from the bushes. Amelia and Samson hear it first. An brunette half elven woman with a bow appears. She introduces herself as “Noria” and offers her services as a guide on the road. Having had bad experiences with random beautiful elven women appearing before them, Belli uses Zone of Truth on the ranger.
“I just wanted to offer some advice to the people in the area. You have a wolf, I noticed.” She is clearly impressed by Morgan. And she tells the party that there is a tavern down the road, where they could spend the night, should they continue further. And a good cave, if they are so inclined to explore that as well.
Burk asks her if she’s a cannibal or knows a cannibal. Nah. Luck's just cleaning the blood off his swords and armor, while the ranger helps the party in gettign the war horses, Kevin and Killer, to move faster with the help of some infernal.
Mournimar goes to Kevin and Killer and will do Animal Speak with them.
(I wrote down that there is a Hannibal Lecter reference down here??? I think this is when I did my impression of Sir Anthony Hopkins).
Amelia insights Noria. She doesn’t hunt people. She eventually walks off. Luck tries to give her some coin, but she refuses and they part ways. (Smol Luck lore: He was a bit smitten with the lady).
Mournimar earns himself a star for “being emo”. Apparently Belli keeps all kinds of charts. All the while, Amelia pulls Luck on the side, far away from the others.
Softly, she asks: “So, did you notice anything strange about that.” Luck asks her what she saw. Her eyes didn’t move at all. Creepy. Didn’t blink. Second of all, she was watching her. She’s not “solid”. She seemed to fade at some point. The two take a moment to consider what they can do from here on out.
They decide to spend the night here, but in the morning they’ll check with the tavern on Info about Noria. Then come back to the others, right as they hear the mention of a name. Who’s Lazarus.”
Mournimar wants to discuss some things with the group. In the morning.
In the morning, they discuss turns on taking reigns on the carriage, so they can move faster. Mournimar is looking forward to seeing his old flame, Gorruk, again.
Luck gets to know Samson a bit. He’s been with the Bretheren for 4 years. To learn about his Craft. He’s very enthusiastic about their Message. Luck learns about a lot of different types of plants along the way, but he’s not very enthusiastic about it, given his current predicament.
Along the way, Burk and Mournimar teach their quadropadal companions some commands to varying success.
Reaching town, Amelia and Luck do a lore quest, while the others do their own thing. They find another Half-elf, an older woman, definite gray sprouting from her roots. Her eyes light up and she approaches them about how Noria was her grandmother and who the town was named after.
The swamp is magical, maybe it was an echo of Noria.
We continue on, after the party learns about the Spectral hero of the land. At some point during their journey they see a suspicious coin purse in the middle of the road. Belli pokes it with mage hand as they pass. Belli picks it up and opens it. There’s money in there. Belli takes the money. Belli gets 69 copper pieces.
She hands the money to Rimefang as his first little horde. And he grunts happily.
...
Eventually they make it to Victrum. And Luck makes a b-line for the Silver Hammer’s Inn, alongside Mournimar. With the rest of the party, except for Samson and the horses, and maybe Morgan??? Yes, definitely Morgan stays there with the others, at the carriage. The rest of the party joins the anxious boys.
A very smitten Mournimar catches Gorruk up on what’s been going on. They certainly have gained a repotation by this point.
Following a 21 perception (I had power outage for a couple of minutes sgaghasgh), Luck sees an elven man sitting in a corner. He recognizes him as Felaern.
Taking a couple of cups, Luck walks over to him and bullshits his way into a conversation with the man, making him believe that he is an admirer of The Traveling Gentlemen.
He is able to persuade Felaern to talk to him about his experiences, while also having him drink the Centaur Moonshine. Felaren leans in. And starts slamming drinks. All the while spilling his heart out to the fighter about all the hardships he’s faced lately.
How the Gentlemen became too mainstream and moneygrubby. How they started doing shady shit and weren’t as “heroic” as they were making themselves out to be. Which “SHOCKS”, SHOCKS I say, Luck as he makes it known to Gorruck that his perception of The Traveling Gentlemen was not all it was cracked up to be.
Eventually, as they talk, Felaren tells Luck that he was gonna be replaced by some other wizard. Luck just keeps pouring him drinks. Until Felaern eventually konks out from the Centaur Moonshine. (Nat 1, Baby!)
Luck picks the elven wizard up and starts carrying him outside, promising to Gorruk, in a twisted way, that Felaren won’t get hurt. And that turns out to be true.
As, by the time they reach the marshlands, out of town, by the time they reach a tree, by the time Luck disarms and undresses Felaern, just to be sure he is unarmed, by the time he starts tying him to a tree, he makes a quick realization.
Felaern was dead. Alcohol poisoning having taken him out.
In that moment, Luck freaks out and begins shaking and mumbling to himself, much to the worry of Belli and Mournimar. And then...
The party swear to help Luctan on his quest. And, as the body burns, the session comes to an end. With this reveal simmering along.
