The Adventures of The Big HELP, Session 11

General Summary

• After leaving the lava tube, Helena's embarrasment led the party onward. They came across another raging underground river and saw two points of opening as the cave continued onwards beyond the river. While the cave also branched off on the party's side of the river, they chose to ignore it. Eris Tisani suggested they use her pseudodragon, Pistachio, to scout ahead. Pistachio found one route took them through a calm underwater spring while the other route branched in several directions. She thought she heard whimpering coming from one of those directions.
• Petrichor used her ability to Shape Water to guide the HELP across the river safely in the direction of the spring. Most of the party was suspiscious of the calm. Petrichor took the time to use Detect Magic but Bigwig went ahead and drank the water. She felt rejuvenated and tried to drink more, but found the spring's enchantment had faded. Pistachio went back to scout the other path while the party listened to the sound of fighting further down their path.
• Pistachio told Eris that there was a whimpering, bolder-like figure along his path. Eris was unable to recognize it beyond it being a lava elemental type being. She realized that it was shortly about to cool to death.
• Worried that Helena may charge headfirst into battle, Bigwig distracted her. Hest snuck forward a bit and saw that several lost Pascatia soldiers were fighting undead. The party deliberated long enough that the two forces mostly exhausted themselves. One of the soldiers spotted Hest and began to tell his allies that she was leading them to safety. she used Phantasmal Force to kill him before this could happen but his screams caught Helena's attention.
• She hurried into battle while Bigwig, Larka, and Petrichor followed. Hest and Eris headed away from battle. Eris continued onwards to where she saw the lava creature while Hest stayed put. The party quickly took care of the undead and let some of the Pascatia soldiers flee. Before the last skeleton collapsed, the necromancer they had been chasing spoke through its mouth. He asked the party to consider diplomacy and, if they were willing to talk calmly, join him by stepping through a portal. He suggested that the necro-thralls, and magic in general, were slipping from his control.
• Eris found the lava creature and tried everything she could think of to keep it warm and alive. Telepathically, she learned that it had been wandering the edge of the lava tube before the explosion allowed an underwater river to break through the cavern and carry it away. As it cooled, it was slowly turning to stone. Pistachio relayed this information to the rest of the Big HELP. The HELP spent the next 20 minutes figuring what to do before they remembered, with almost no time to spare, the lava tube and the crystal and thought it could restore the lava creature. Larka and Bigwig hurried back and Bigwig was able to race the crystal to the lava creature just in time. Though the creature needed time to rejuvenate, it opened a hand and revealed a red ring that Eris took.
• The party returned to the portal and found themselves in the necromancer's workshop. He had left a note and some mint tea for the party. The note read: “I suppose if you’ve made it this far alive, it might be time to try a more diplomatic method of quelling our budding rivalry. First, I’ll apologize for sending my necro-thralls to kill you. That was my fault most of the time. You’ve had me fairly frazzled the past week or so, taking my family relics as evidence, waving them in my face at the Catchief’s Hall, acting dumb anytime you could have used those pieces of evidence. Still, bygones shall be bygones, right? I’ve sealed myself behind a little puzzle door up ahead while I rejuvenate myself. I’ve got a handful of problems to deal with, you, the Pascatia forces, Ghispar’s spreading illness, my own condition (tell you more about that when we meet in person). While I’m doing that, why don’t you prove you can help me with my little problem. Solve the puzzle and we’ll talk more. Enjoy the tea. -LM stamped with a blue seal of the moon and wave. - The party believed that Lemore Mondicrell, Advisor to the Catchief was responsible.
• Eris took a sip of the tea. Hest moved onwards to check out the puzzle door. The only signs of an opening device were two keyholes and a disc shaped notch on the door. Eris, Larka, and Petrichor went one way looking for keys while Hest, Bigwig, and Helena went the other. Hest, Bigwig, and Helena found a key floating in the middle of a room surround by a lightning sphere. Hest looked at the floor to see six sigils surrounding the orb. She recognized the sigils as chromatic orb sigils and saw that the lighting and thunder sigils had already been lit. Hest used Chromatic Orb to activate the other sigils. One of these spells triggered her wild magic and she felt herself rejuvenated. Lighting all of the sigils caused the orb to shatter and Hest grabbed the copper key.
• Eris, Larka, and Petrichor found a mirror room. Most of the room was wildly messy, though the mirror reflected a tidy room. In the reflection, there was also a silver key on a table. Eris went in cautiously at first before realizing the room was safe. She and the others did not their reflection and Eris eventually wondered if this meant that the room needed to be organized as it looked in the reflection. The party organized the room, left, and came back to find the silver key on the table.
• The two groups reunited and tied the keys but realized they needed something else to open the door. They found a room filled with gold coins the size of the indentation. Immediately suspiscious, Larka used her psychic daggers to attack the gold and realized they were coin mimics. The party dispatched the mimics, with only Petrichor and Bigwig having to deal with coins stuck in their fur. They found a loot ooze and realized it was eating coins and turning them into mimics due to being sick. Larka and Hest immediately adopted the ooze, bottling it for later and adding a health potion to the help heal him. Bigwig wanted to squash the ooze.
• The party returned to the puzzle door and tried both keys again alongside the gold coin. The door swung open to reveal...
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Report Date

14 Jan 2024