Sessions 40, 41, 42: Don't Dead Open Inside
General Summary
We solve the issue of ghosts in the lighthouse fairly simply and by fairly simply I mean graverobbing. With Industria and Ilyana managing to convince the sailor’s mother that his alleged “harlot” of wife deserves to be buried next to him on the family’s land, the rest of us are tasked with finding her remains and bringing them there. The park she’s buried in is packed for the day and not wanting to mentally scar many children cuz we’re a group of famous heroes digging up a grave like a pack of socially inept animals, Elathera throws a magic screen over us to obscure our morally questionable deed. It’s for a good cause though!
With the body in tow, we manage to get it back to the family’s yard without issue and put this ghost to rest. After some major teleportation fails that left us separated and Elathera’s confidence for the day more broken than our moral code of conduct as this is our second graverobbing of the campaign, we collect our reward for jobs well done and rebuild the bridge to the lighthouse before we’re off on our journey once more. We pass through a small town that boasts about having the largest windmill on the continent, but me and Industria are thoroughly unimpressed with the display. The next week, we find ourselves riding on until we reach the desert.
Our first stop here is a large city that has many wonders such as a zoo and a rune ink shop. Some of us get tatted up with the magical ink and we all enjoy a trip to the zoo and spend too much gold at the gift shop. Just like real life! The immersion gets too real sometimes, guys. But by far, our most exciting sight was our ridiculous trip to the black market. Once again, a group of heroes finding themselves in morally questionable situations, but luckily with my help, I disguise us all and nobody suspects a thing except for a former member of Industria’s order which…what the fuck are they doing here? We do a little shopping, some pawning, get a map of lich locations, and then go check out the new plane of existence Elathera created. You know, just a casual outing with friends.
It’s a beautiful plane with a giant oak tree that sprouts watermelons and cherries. Oh, and it hurts! Elathera asked us for our ideas of paradise and I told her somewhere that wouldn’t hurt me and what does she give me? Because of Lucky’s undead state, this plane decided “no thanks, bro” so being a living phylactery, I take Lucky’s pain instead. Me and Lucky leave this plane in tears, holding each other and crying as the others try and think of a way around this. Eventually, Elathera just summons up a genie and asks for an amulet that will help Lucky resist positive energies so now we can enjoy this plane to its fullest.
The next day, we have to decide what we’re gonna do with our time in the desert. Go clear out some tombs and do a little treasure hunting? Nah! Why do that when you could hit up some lich lairs instead? So we do that and on our way out of town, me and Rikius are greeted to the sight of an old…not friend. Jordeira, an undead catfolk who used to work under a lich and is now a monster hunter. Being Lucky’s boyfriend, he gets the opportunity to travel with us, despite me and Rikius hating his guts because of a ripe, prime Fuckening that happened over the time skip. Industria ends up coaxing this information out of us, and by coaxing I mean she just kind of went on a spiel about how we all need to get along and let the past be the past, and is horrified to learn that he tortured us at one point.
After that uncomfortable moment, we all ride on in silence to our destination. This lich’s lair is quite unassuming upon first glance and that screams “I’m full of traps!”, so as a rogue, I take point and begin looking for traps. Industria decides to go traipsing about this room as elegantly as a golem learning the waltz and sets off the trap I was about to disarm. Luckily the pit trap can’t do much to her as she has wings, but it and my frustrated sarcasm are enough to hurt her ego. Further in we go, encountering ghosts on the way and a strange click, and soon we’re winding through catacombs. Elathera’s greed gets the best of her yet again as she starts poking around coffins for magic items.
She tries to tell us she’s simply looking out for us by making sure the dead inside stay that way, but after Jordeira calls her out on graverobbing (third time’s the charm!), Elathera gets embarrassed and flustered and runs off to avoid his prodding. I call out to her to let me take point cuz traps and guess what? She runs right into a trap. She goes rolling across the dirty, dusty floors of the catacombs as she hits a trip wire and after, I begin my political campaign against party members who don’t let their rogues do their jobs. Because after all, why even take a rogue along if you’re just gonna run into the traps yourself? After I sufficiently destroy their confidence and have them hoping I run into a trap, I flawlessly disarm the next trap and we all surprisingly manage to work together well enough after all that shade to clear out a room of undead with no problems.
We come across the lich’s personal library and pick up some loot as well as a note written in abyssal that has directions to this lich’s lair. Weird as shit, but we don’t think much of it for the time being. The bedroom has a beautiful collection of perfumes which Industria wastes no time in looting and I notice that one of them is the lich’s phylactery without a doubt, so now thing’s have gotten even more dire. After traveling further in, we realize we’re on the lich’s personal plane and trapped until we find a way off as there’s a mysterious clicking somewhere all around us. I theorize the lich is hiding out on the abyss and after some probing of the phylactery’s memories, Elathera confirms my theory. With the note, we find the gate to the abyss and reluctantly head inside. It surprisingly doesn’t take us long to come across the lich’s castle surrounded by an army of undead because why wouldn’t he do that?
Lucky easily gains control over them enough to get us to the front door and once we get inside, Elathera picks up on the entire castle being made from magic. Industria jokingly mentions dispelling the castle and with that idea put in her head, Elathera attempts it and it works! Now this is where you learn a valuable lesson about destroying so much of a DM’s plans, kids. With the castle destroyed, we managed to thwart the lich’s ambush as he knew we were coming, but we also just brought an entire dungeon’s worth of enemies our way. The fight is not as flawlessly executed on our part as we’d originally wanted it to be as some of us are stuck on crowd control and I’m left blinded as the lich caught onto my sneaky ways quickly. But with luck on our side, we manage to dwindle the mobs down and with Jordeira helping me (hate that guy), I’m able to take down the lich.
A piece of Elathera’s grandfather’s soul is down here next to a gate to heaven and she really wants to grab him on the way out, but nobody is up for that after fighting through a horde and a lich, so we manage to convince her to leave it behind for the time being. Back on the material plane, we stumble across the ruins of a past civilization and collect some religious text. But the levers that opened this ritual bathhouse have other symbols on them, so as the night progresses, Jordeira and Lucky are tasked with switching the levers and another staircase opens up. As we do down, we’re greeted to two mummy guards who tell us to leave. With the password “despair”, which absolutely, totally does not raise any concern with any of us, we’re let in. Inside, another dungeon is before us.
Character(s) interacted with
Created Content
Elathera's Paradise
Report Date
03 May 2021
Secondary Location
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