Session 52 - Phosidaeus the Beholder

General Summary

We read about the eye tyrant in our new book! There’s a forward, it’s their third heretical tome and dedicated (as always) to the memory of their parents, but there’s no name given to it. The full forward reads as follows: “Pray and forgive, wise Apnosis, the inquisitive mind that cracks these ink sodden pages, and the humble scholar who made them so. For this, my third heretical tome, unworthy of the mythic shelves of Vivilotheca, a mortal manuscript of most ungodly things, shall by my own hand remain altogether unburned and in the realm wherein it can be most useful.”
It’s covered in this oily substance, it’s a fire-retardant oil to prevent it from being burned. It’s written like an anthropological text; the author describes their journey through the underground realm beneath Koss. Sprawling passages that run like veins beneath the surface. They’re in search of someone to repair a set of melted armour described in a previous tome, but that tome is not named nor is the event expanded upon. They found a settlement of Duergar and met a blacksmith who introduced the author to his son, Banmill, who went on a doomed expedition to excavate further beneath the earth and encountered a great beast with many eyes but one at the centre. It was capable of strange magic and killed everyone else in the expedition. The author then convinced Banmill to take them to where they found it, encountering strange creatures along the way. When they found it, some Duergar were dead, some had been turned to stone, some were missing.
They found a tower that contained a labyrinthine structure in which the creature lived. The author had a magical woven cloak that they used to hide in the tunnels and observe the creature. They observe that each of the eye-stalks has a unique magical property. One carves through stone, one lifts objects/individuals, one turns individuals to stone, and some that allow it to magically soothe other creatures or help its interactions with them. It’s frustratingly slow in its movements. A group of adventurers stormed its tower and found that its central eye can negate magic in a cone wherever that eye is focused.
The author calls it a Beholder. It was paranoid, always talking to itself, inventing enemies or recounting ancient enemies and coming up with all manner of plans to defeat them. It has a vast hoard of magical items that it uses to defend itself and its lair. In its sleep, the Beholder had some sort of influence over the world around it. The layout of its lair would change based on its dreams, it has some kind of unconscious psychic influence. It had a nightmare and spawned a second different Beholder, and the two had a fight which brought the lair down as the author escaped. It ends with a brief study of a group of Svirfneblin that took them in after they escaped.
We make some plans, and settle on assaulting the Panopticon with an illusion of another Beholder to draw Phosidaeus out of its central tower and fight it out in the open. We need to prioritise the safety of the prisoners and also the safety of Nicanda, who arrives and is brought up to speed on the creature and our tactics/plans. She has a really cool spear that looks like it has been burned 100 times over. Ionessa and Neo have a conversation about the soul and reincarnation, and whether each soul is made from a previous one or whether new souls are being created all the time. Ionessa says she will discover the truth of this, perhaps by asking Kono, who has been around long enough to know.
We visit Theages and give him all of our information so that it can be made more public if we bite it in the Panopticon (no offence Xanthos). He gives us a scroll of Animal Messenger and tells us to contact him when we’re about to go in, he will make sure the Archons know so reinforcements can be sent to contain the situation once the Beholder is gone. IT’S GO TIME! We meet up with Nicanda and begin our assault! We start rapid casting buffs and send the Animal Messenger, Kestor summons the illusory Beholder and begins calling Phosidaeus out. He responds! He thinks it’s an old enemy, and dares us to try to get inside. Xanthos turns into a wereshark and rips the door to the Panopticon off its hinges! TIME TO FIGHT!
Holy moly what a nail-biter. It’s so close but we defeat the Beholder as it flees into its tunnels, with Xanthos diving into the pit after it, biting through its central eye and slaying it monstrously, and then teleporting back up to the top of the shaft! SO MANY CLUTCH MOMENTS! We almost died so many times. Neo was getting slammed up and down by a gravity ray, Ionessa dodged like two or three disintegration rays and who knows what else, Xanthos was almost turned to stone (in addition to almost dying in the pit), and Kestor… got pretty lucky and hid a lot.
The Beholder falls and hits an invisible wall of force about 15 feet down. What the heck!? Remember to get Silanos and Jangles next session!
The end.

Notes

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Report Date

11 Dec 2023