Session 23: Bring us some figgy pudding, and bring it right here. Report

General Summary

Some of the companions briefly flickered, and moments later a gnomish individual approached, and introduced themselves as the "Pudding King". The party asked about a Cubic Jelly, and the gnome mentioned "Yes, that is my friend". They gestured and a green slime flew from their hand, and gestured again as a black goo flowed up out of the stone floor. One of the companions reacted in horror and asserted that the creature must be destroyed, and the Gnome replied "We cannot have that now, can we.". This began a combat and the party once again found themselves fighting for their lives in this massive complex of deadly ancient tunnels.

Cigfran , moving quickly as usual, backed up and the black goo lashed out around the corner, damaging his armor and his flesh in equal measure, permanently reducing the effectiveness of his armor. Cigfran launched an arrow at the black goo, watching the arrow dissolve as it impacted the acidic creature. Boris followed with a magical Guiding Bolt against the black slime; burning it with holy energy. Roy followed up with a blast of rainbow energy; burning, dissolving, blasting, freezing, shocking and poisoning the gnome, although some of that harm seemed less effective, and Roy noted that the gnome was unphased by the thunder blast. The Cubic Jelly squeezed down then expanded into Roisin Marshfield's space, but she dodged back. The cube continued forward and engulfed Boris while Roisin Marshfield danced back and Jeeves leapt aside. Boris called upon divine favor to transform into a giant Water Scorpion, a massive creature he had seen but once in his travels, on the shores of a large lake. The corrosive black pudding flowed forward and attempted to bash Roisin Marshfield, but missed embarassingly, giving her an opening to dance back even further. Quirico manifested his echo behind the pudding king and attacked that individual, quickly discovering that a bludgeoning weapon against goo is completely ineffective. Quirico also received the benefit of two more tokens of divine favor, blinding the Pudding King and gaining extra alacrity. Quirico then chose to use a magical paper cannon to shred the Pudding King and the Cube, but also endured a portion of that harm himself. The Pudding King then conjured a vast mass of dark and foul webbing that drained the life force of those caught in the web, delivering that energy to restore the Pudding King. Roisin Marshfield was restrained by the webs, and those webs then weakened Roisin Marshfield. Roisin Marshfield ordered Jeeves to attack, but the pudding king avoided the magical attack. Quirico , in reaction, bashed the cube. Roisin Marshfield then consumed a magical potion to generate a bit of foresight, and the Pudding King transformed into a Black Pudding. Jeeves stepped close to the black pudding and used a holy word to launch a wave of radiance around himself, damaging the cube, but the black pudding resisted. Cigfran backed further away and tried to hide, but the creatures seemed able to keep track, and the magic of the Pudding King prevented harm from subtle attacks. Quirico stepped as far toward the edge of the webs as he could, then used a bow to attack the Pudding King, hitting once. Boris then, in scorpion form, managed to escape the cube. Roy then burned the cube that so frustrated the efforts to attack the Pudding King. The cube then tried to attack Jeeves , but missed. The black pudding moved behind the party, and attempted to strike Roisin Marshfield, but missed. The Pudding King summoned a brown patch of mold, and Jeeves had his body heat torn away, freezing his limbs. The Pudding King then drew more life force from Roisin Marshfield to restore himself. Roisin Marshfield tried to break free of the webs, but failed. Jeeves then used his mental skill to avoid the webs while attempting to toll the dead against the cube which Roisin Marshfield had forseen, so it was severely harmed. Jeeves moved out of the webs, and the Pudding King summoned a rainbow mist filling the area. Quirico broke out of the dark webs and took a moment to catch his breath, regaining some strength. Boris attacked the cube and clawed it effectively, destroying the cube which popped like a bubble filled with oil. Boris then struck the black pudding with another claw, piercing it, and suffered terrible cold as the brown mold sucked the heat from the area. Roy teleported forward, then charged through the webs, where he discovered he could not see or find the Pudding King. The black pudding tried to attack, but missed, and the Pudding King attacked Roy , bludgeoning him, and dissolving his skin. Roisin Marshfield managed to resist the cold, and directed the scorpion to strike the black pudding again. The Pudding King launched a powerful spell at Quirico , draining much of the moisture from his body. Jeeves launched a spell at the black pudding, weakening it, Cigfran chose to hide and hope his friends could handle this without help. Quirico then patched his wounds and moved around the corner to get a better view, and summoned his echo. Boris then again struck the black pudding, but also again suffered terrible cold. Roy launched a magic missile at the Pudding King, pitting it's form. The Pudding King again struck Roy , and would have killed him if it were not for Roisin Marshfield. Roisin Marshfield ordered Roy to attack and he struck the Pudding King with a bolt of fire, while Boris struck the black pudding, killing it. Roisin Marshfield again suffered from the extreme cold around the brown mold, unfortunately. The Pudding King sumoned another black pudding to replace the one that was killed, and Jeeves became restrained in the dark webs. Jeeves attempted to break free, and thanks to his power of mind he was able to do so. Cigfran elected to continue hiding in a far corner. Quirico attacked the Pudding King again, with his echo, tearing off small pieces that deliquiesced into acidic goop. Boris broke free from the webs, and moved south. Roy then drank a powerful alchemical draught, and launched a powerful line of cold against the pudding king, killing it, but also became caught in the webs. Boris struck the black pudding at Roisin Marshfield's bidding. Jeeves used a spell that issued radiant energy against the webs around him and burned them to ash, freeing Roisin Marshfield. Quirico stepped into the webs and was restrained there, but still struck the still form of the Pudding King, killing him; he then dissolved into a pool of fiendish ichor, which rose up to become another ooze. The creature struck Quirico and tore at him and his equipment. Boris then struck the black pudding, and also suffered again from the extreme cold being near the mold. Roy tried to break free, but failed, and tried to misty step, but the strange magic turned that into Bitter Chains, which fizzled. The horrific ooze formed from the fiendish ichor of the Pudding King the attacked Quirico and dissolved, not his equipment, but his flesh. Roisin Marshfield carefully moved away from the black pudding in an effort to stop being frozen and dissolved. Jeeves moved forward and emitted another pulse of radiant energy, burning away more webs and also was frozen by the heat-sucking brown mold, then moved back to avoid being further frozen. Cigfran found his courage and rushed forward to fire a bolt at the black pudding then stepped back behind cover. Quirico manifested his echo, then imagined trading places; allowing his echo to be destroyed by the webs but freeing himself, but realized he could not do so immediately, and threw oil on the ichorous ooze instead, calling on Roy to burn the thing. Boris again became caught in the webs, was frozen again by the brown mold, and struck the black pudding with one claw. Roy then tried to break free from the dark webbing, but lacked the strength. The ichorous ooze again dissolved the flesh of Quirico , further draining his life. Roisin Marshfield then called on Jeeves to cast a cantrip, and the strange mists twisted it into acid splash, which was ineffective against this acidic pudding, but the scorpion form of Boris managed to strike with a claw. Roisin Marshfield then rallied Jeeves and Boris , and Jeeves stepped forward to clear more of the dark webbing, but became caught after stepping into the remaining webs. The black pudding, finally becoming aware of the threat, struck at Boris but missed. Cigfran then stepped up and shot the black pudding again, before hiding once again. Quirico traded places with his echo, then lit a torch, or at least tried to but realized he had no torches, then stepped close to the edge of the webbing. Boris struck the black pudding twice, and Roy again tried to escape but failed. The ooze again attacked Quirico , but missed, then spit acid at Roy who survived only because Quirico used a divine boon to transform him into a turtle instead, after he declined to respond to Roisin Marshfield's cry to save his life. Roisin Marshfield called on Jeeves to attack, and he fired a bolt of fire at the vengeful ooze and the scorpion reacted by lashing out at the black pudding with a claw. Jeeves then fired another pulse of radiance, clearing more webs, then stepping forward. The pudding again tried to strike the scorpion, and again missed. Cigfran stepped out, fired at the black pudding, and backed away. Quirico stepped into the webs, and became restrained, but then manifested his echo behind Jeeves and dodged. Boris attacked the pudding with the scorpion claws and killed it, but the cold from the brown mold ended his scorpion form. Boris then moved toward the remaining threat, and became restrained again in the webs. The vengeful ooze struck at Quirico , but missed again, and then spit at the turtle, leaving a bleeding Roy in it's space as the magic making him a turtle ended. Roisin Marshfield ordered Jeeves to attack, and he tried to toll the dead, but launched a thunderbolt instead due to the strange magical mists, striking and slightly disorienting it. Jeeves then healed roy with his Chiurgen's skill, bringing the wizard back from the brink. Cigfran looked around, could not quite see his friends, and stopped where he was. Quirico traded places with his echo, which was again torn apart by the webs. Quirico then fired his longbow at the ooze and managed to damage the creature somewhat. Boris tried to launch a guiding bolt, but the strange mist caused it to be cure wounds instead, healing Roy slightly. Roy then moved through the webs, just managing to get around a corner. The ooze tried to attack Quirico , but missed, then spit at Jeeves , scarring his arms. Roisin Marshfield ordered Quirico to attack, and he used his longbow, but missed. Boris reacted again by swinging his magical rod, and struck, but did no damage to the flowing ooze. Boris also used the magic of the rod to paralyze the ooze. Jeeves struck with his rapier, stabbing it twice, destroying the creature, but permanently damaging his weapon.

The combat ended, Jeeves healed Quirico , and set about removing the remaining webs. The group talked about burning the brown mold, but Cigfran , experienced with dangerous places and underground hazards, warned not to burn it, as it would grow. The group waited a while for the magic hazards to dissipate, then froze the mold, destroying it. Quirico and Jeeves patched people up a bit, then the group gathered and headed over to where the OctoLibrarch had told them it could be found after a short rest to catch their breath. They found nothing but a strange door in the wall of the space where they had been told to go, and found the door locked, so they knocked on the door loudly. Quirico heard a query, and they were invited to enter as the door opened. Entering this door they found themselves in a magical extradimensional mansion. The creature was waiting for them in the entry hall, and answered a few questions about where it came from, a place with infinite books. It was quite happy to hear about the end of the Pudding King. Asking if they would like to remove the void cultists, and reminded of their deal, unrolled a tentacle with a scroll. The scroll was offered to Roy , and described as a map to their quarry. It described the cultists as vile creatures, and asked if they wished to rest for a bit, up to about 18 hours, warning that the mansion would go away then. The party accepted the hospitality, and the creature warned to eat their own food as they likely would not want to eat the same food it did. Quirico asked about weapons, but was informed nothing could leave the mansion, so they could practice with the weapons in the armory, but could not take them out of the mansion. The creature then floated off to its own pursuits. Roy and Boris chose to spend the time continuing their training regarding "special" components. Quirico asked about weapons in Roisin Marshfield's hole, but the group needed to work that out separately. Cigfran needed bolts, and fortunately Jeeves and Roy offered to give him some. The group settled in for the day, although a few of the more adventurous chose to explore the mansion before resting.