Session 34: Annoying Death Report

General Summary

Previously

After entering the Hive in the outskirts of the Runespace system, they party discovers a message from the Arcane, imploring any who made it this far to end the menace of the Ravager by destroying the ten lesser eyes, each of which dwells within its own domain. They soon learn that each eye has apparently developed into a sentient incarnation, over the centuries since the deaths of the Sazuar beholder nation (who built the hive).   The party destroys the Charm Person eye by killing Horan, Lord of the Dance, and learns that a crystalline starfish/scorpion entered the Hive, which they suspect it is an intruder from Runespace, They are worried what its purpose is, and what it will do with the "spiky armor" the golden people said it took.   They then discover a vast central chamber, with immense murals telling the history of the creation of the Hive and the Ravager, using the eyes from the deceased former queen of the Beholder nation. There is a large glowing crystal to one side, in a tunnel to another space. They suspect the crystal is (or houses) the central Queens Eye, but are unable to approach it in the Surprise, because of its magic-nullifying effect. They are able to decipher the markings on the various tunnels based on the murals, giving them the option of choosing which realms they enter.   The party then travels to the jungle-filled Charm Beast realm, where they kill the incarnation there, the Beastmaster. They obtain a huge set of spiky armor, presumably similar to what the starfish took. Windellian has mixed luck attempting to control it, and the crew straps it to the hull (on the far side from the shuttle).   Next, the party tackles the Slow realm, where they defeat the incarnation, a giant black slug at the center of a vast shell in a turgid, water-filled realm. In the process, they free dozens of nixies the incarnation had transformed (who they direct to the Charm Person realm), find another suit of armor (this one apparently infested with pink crystals, similar to the what the party saw on the derelict Vlleryn), and get a clue on how to survive the Death realm. "There are pods shaped like bells at the entrance. Rub the syrup on your bodies, or the undead will kill you."   The party is aware that the Hive could jump into the Phlogiston in as soon as a day or so.

Session Notes

After returning to the central chamber, the party enters the tunnel to the Death Ray room. As in the first tunnel, the party sees grey slime cleaning the inside of the tunnel. In this case, it is a blob covering about 1/3 of the arc on one side.   The room beyond is another colossal cube, about two miles on a side. A thin blue mist floats through the grey sky of this room. The air is cool and still. All is darkness and blue-tinged shadows, dimly lit by a black crystal floating in the center of the room, which produces a dull blue light.   The wall you entered is a bleak landscape of grey ash and hundreds, maybe thousands of humanoid corpses arranged in huge runic symbols (which Jessa deciphers as having something to do with the preservation or entrapment of spirits). Some of the corpses are active, stumbling aimlessly across the landscape.   The adjacent walls are similarly bleak: one is identical to the first, another is similar, but also contains hundreds of immobile globes the color of blood; a third is filled with grey mud, and the fourth is a featureless black plane, as smooth as glass. The sixth wall, directly overhead, looks like this one, except that an immense pyramid of glowing red stone stands in the center of the wall.   No sooner do you get your bearings, than you hear a soft, pleading voice in your heads: "Come to the light. . . come to the light..."   Standing outside the base of the tower your ship just emerged from, you see another towering, inert suit of armor. Surrounding the base of the tower are tangles of leathery, black vines about ten feet thick. Closer examination of the vines reveals bell-shaped white pods five feet long grow thickly from the vines. The pods and vines smell like garlic. When brough aboard the ship, the bell-pods open easily; each contains a thick syrup, milky white in color, that most of the party and crew proceed to rub on their bodies, based on the nixies' information.   Meanwhile, Zayer has decided this room is perfect place to attempt a divination to reach the ghoulish voice the party encountered when passing through the graveyard plane, the plane of the ghouls, while attempting to reach the Planar Research Station on the moon. Zreestram helpfully suggests Zayer do it in the hold, next to the shrine to Khurgorbaeyag (because, why the hell not?).    While Zreestram provides backup (by hiding behind a door, ready to slam it), Zayer casts the spell. He can feel the magic working strongly, enhanced by the ambient presence of the undead and corpses in this room, but nothing appears to happen. Confused and a bit disappointed, Zayer turns to say something to Zreestram, only to see a ghoul atop a pile of bones and flesh, gnawing on a femur, watching Zayer while he eats.   Zayer is startled, but the ghoul seems oddly friendly and casual, and happy to talk. It claims to be the voice the party heard, and wants to know how the party entered their realm. Zayer explains as best he can about the fractured planar boundaries, and how they fixed them. The ghoul avoids giving its name to Zayer, but is intrigued by why Zayer summoned it, and where they are. Zayer leads him up onto the deck (to the consternation and concern of the rest of the party), but the ghoul keeps its distance (it really doesn't like the smell of the sap). The ghoul seems intrigued by this massive graveyard that its kind were unaware of (commenting to itself that the area must be magically hidden). It identified the red globes on one wall as mummified beholder corpses (telling the party that 1. beholders don't believe in an afterlife, and instead prefer to be mummified, where they spend eternity in pleasant--for a beholder--dreams, 2. beholder corpses are rare, and a delicacy for ghouls, and 3. it is funny as hell, because when you start gnawing on the beholder corpses, ghouls can catch snatches of very surprised beholder spirits being quite outraged about it).    Eventually, the ghoul accepts the party's invitation to gnaw on some of the beholder corpses, and the ghoul leaps down. Before he does, he tells the party his name: Doresain. Zayer recognizes this as the name of the Ghoul King, the demon lord of ghouls and cannibalism.  As they watch, more ghouls seem to appear from nowhere, and along with Doresain, start to consume the beholder mummies, which bounce and attack ineffectively before they succumb.    Suddenly, the party hears the earlier voice in the heads, which says with outrage "What the F*CK did you just do?!?!?!". The blue haze that permeates the whole cube condenses down into a wraith-like image of a giant beholder, no doubt the incarnation of this realm, who is insane angry with what the party has just unleashed here. The party immediately attacks, switching to magic and energy weapons when Prax's bullets pass right through it. The guardian responds, enveloping Zayer and Prax and attempting to drain their life force. Together, the party manages to destroy the guardian.    As they do, the wraithlike form dissipates, and a fleshy eyeball the size of a softball drops to the deck. One of the party tosses it to Doresain, who takes a bite "Mmmm, aged, magically-processed beholder queen eyeball. Piquant!" They party notices the light from the black crystal at the center of room has dimmed, and Doresain calls up to them to say that it misses the invigorating blue glow, but now his ghouls can return to their realm if they want. He thanks them for the beholder buffet, and says that they have made a friend with the ghouls today.    The party is happy they've defeated this guardian by drawing it out, rather than having to enter the (no longer glowing) red pyramid, but do wonder what they've unleashed here.    While heading back towards the tunnel, they suddenly hear a massive rumbling, and the black tunnel extends itself, reaching towards the black crystal, and then recoiling as soon as it tries to grab it. The tunnel then retracts, and returns to its original form. The party waits to see if anything else happens. When it doesn't, they reluctantly enter the tunnel (which seems unchanged from what they say before), and return to the central chamber. There, the air is hazy with dust, which seems to be concentrated around the massive murals. However, the party cannot tell where the dust came from, and nothing else seems to have changed here.    Eventually, the party decides to proceed with their mission to destroy the eyes, and enters the tunnel to the Telekinesis room.