Scizzord: Twice Removed From My Life

Life, Trauma/ Loss

Myska's Menagerie have their first meeting with Scizzord.

Making their way in to the Davendall Residence early, Millie, his attendant, and Astrid made their way to a junction chamber with a well used for storage. With his cart, Millie looked as if he was getting ready to move in. The two then sat and waited for their appointment, chatting and playing cards. Within a few hours, Scizzord would arrive. Shambling into the room, the robbed tortle's form sagged. Where Millie expected a beak he saw a minor trunk. Where he expected a large tortoise-like shell he saw a comparatively 2D, warped plate. His old colleague looked positively putrid and sounded worse, slobbering threw his own words in his extended mouth.
  Millie introduced Astrid as hired protection. Scizzord discounted her saying that if Millie wished to work with him she would not be needed. He was working on a personal project that he needed to keep close to his chest. He alluded to having competition but would not say who or even stay consistent on whether they were actively working on the same job or would be starting up soon. Scizzord needed an academic assistant to speed up his work to stay ahead of his rivals. The sickly tortle wanted Millie to serve as the researcher to figure out future sites and problems while he was actively in the field. Millie inquired about compensation which Scizzord was happy to pay in lump sum, salary, scrolls, whatever the gnome needed for his skills. The gnome, trying to negotiate his way through the situation, buttressed his position about simply needing to make sure that payment would be sound. Scizzord did not look good at all and if it was this job that was doing it to him, Millie didn't want his employer to drop dead on the job and leave him flapping in the wind.
  It was this phrasing that caught the tortles' suspicion. Cocking head and sniffing with trunk, Scizzord went searching for something... and found it. He rhetorically questioned Millie on his intentions of reaching out, made claims that the little gnome may have already found something of interest, maybe even already been approached by a competitor. He drew Millie's attention to the side of his head. The gnomes hand reached up to feel the bobbing mote of purple sand behind his ear previously unknown to him. Whether or not the gnome new of the mystical blessing, the tortle now sensed the energy of the Shade Crystal. In spite, he began to incant out against the gnome and his bodyguard.
  Despite Scizzord being the one to begin to lash out first, Millie managed to finish a spell first. Recognizing the public space they were in, the gnome raised a wall of stone to blockoff all three passages that led from this storage well chamber. Scizzord came on hard and fast finishing his spell as he raised a grey crystal wrapped in shadowy chains causing a flare of light that seared Millie's skin and cause the sores to fester. Moving his bulk in next to both the gnome and his body guard, he cause raves of energy to invisibly flow from him that rippled across the pair. Both felt this bubbling unnatural looseness to their forms to their forms. Millie concentrated against this feeling and fought off the aberrant force. Caught offguard, Astrid didn't even attempt to fight off this surprising effect and her body began to swell. Filling every crevice of her armor, she found herself bound with it it causing painful constrictions and an uneven movement.
  Chupta and Crush dumped out of the amethyst ring on Astrid's hand as the full conflict came under sway. More waves of mutating energy issued out from Scizzord with all of them being fought off though Astrid's exertions beginning to exhaust her. Chupta conjured protective wards as Crush lashed out with Spores and Microbooms. Scizzord was bounded against the stone wall but did not relent. Finding himself trapped inside with the companions, he made the most of it by conjuring a sickening radiance to fill the space, searing away at all of the companions and sapping their very energy. Millie's automaton body guard moved forward to attack the tortle but in reaction to it, Scizzord bound himself in shadowy chains like wibbly wobbly coffin of protection. Chupta lobed a flask of Alchemist's Blaze at Siczzord trying to break the spell as he dived into the well trying to flee the light. As the automotan fought, it crumbled to the ground under the influence of the light.
The companions attempted to fight it off the light but it wore them down. In the end, Millie incanted out a spell to gather up all of the light and snuff it out in his bag. Astrid began to fight through the chains bashing them with her flail but did so half heartedly not wanting to waste any more energy on what might be tedious work to get through. As she lashed out, Scizzord let the remaining chains drop away. With the Sickening Radiance no longer hurt his enemies while entombed, he did not want to give them any more time to regroup while he remained locked away. More waves of mutation pillowed out from him as Eldritch blasts and microbooms hammered Scizzord to the wall and through the boxes.
  Beginning to feel all the blows through his slopping skin, he spoke out to Millie in spite. He spoke about finding an attack dog to come after him in refernece to Crush. Looking to Astrid, he asked the gnome if she had been the one to contact him. He spoke a fell word that caused the bloated woman to instantly drop dead. Scizzord continued to taunt about taking her with for questioning but before he could incant his own spell, Millie mirrored the idea and plucked Astrid's invisible soul from the air and placed it into his back for safe keeping (inside a cage that is). In anger, Chupta assailed the tortle. In self confidence turned to fear, Crush rushed forward to revive the woman but as the diamond shattered, no soul was found to place back into the body. In disbelief, Millie cried out about Scizzord's underhanded tactics but this was mirrored back to the gnome as Scizzord charged and grabbed at the gnome throwing the words in the gnomes face. Scizzord had come in good faith, had come to hire the archaeologist for a job and brought enemies too him. The sound grew muffled as the gnomes ears grew with more waves of mutagenic energy. The ears flopped out like large elephant ears. In that moment, chains began to wrap around the tortle agains but bound tight and shrunk him down to sizzling point in the air and a pop from existence as he plane shifted away.
  Millie then pressed Crush on if he had a second diamond but ushered him to wait. The gnome retrieved a tiny silver cage from his bag and stomped on it. An urge to cast his spell now allowed the woman to be resurrected from the dead in a terrifying and confusing ordeal. Chupta remained ready to fight conjuring a feathered sword and the rubbled walls showed curious onlookers. Few questions led them to hiding away knowing better than pushing to far or else get themselves killed. In the aftermath, Chupta and Crush found fragments of Scizzord's rubbery, rotting skin and a torn note with the partial word "hkala" that the well traveled smuggler interpreted to be Mount Fohkala.
  It took time, but slowly the party processed and slowly the party decided to return to the one true safehouse they had in the city: Gozni's. The two men welcomed the companions in as food and drink were provided. The parlor was filled with stupor and recollection. Millie pieced together a cure for Astrid's condition that Crush could administer. The gnome delayed requesting a cure for his condition choosing to instead down a Sulaman turbin to bind the ears up. While Astrid and Crush had their moment, the woman confided that the knowledgeable gnome might be worth keeping around. She got similar feelings to him as her perspectives on Fozz. Dark, but not bad.
  The companions absently tried to find answers to what happened. In seeking them, Chupta delved too far. Going into his tome to find the section of magic that he had copied from Jibrom's scroll, the man delved his mind into other planes to find answers. The room trembled, candles' flickered, and porcelain rattled. What waited for him was a flashed image of the Myska's locked away enemy, bound in chains and rattling. Millie slammed the book shut as Chupta came back to consciousness broken, his mind shattered for the moment as he had looked beyond rational reality and tried to comprehend it. The man would cause a bit of chaos that night before eventually being put to bed.
  In the quiet moments after Crush and Chupta had gone to bed, Millie requested information from Astrid. He knew of the history between Scizzord and Crush but this all was much more than he had knowingly signed up for. In the end, Astrid provided the Shade Crystal for the gnome to study. A basic divination ritual came back inconclusive. He understood it to be called the Shade Crystal but the name almost seemed false. Millie had asked the woman if the item was a sentient artifact or something more. The divined but somehow false name at least confirmed aspects of his suspicions. He would need more incense for a more powerful ritual if he was to find anything else out.