OttD Session 6: Black Magic and Black Gold
General Summary
The session begins with Zerrof trapped in an endless sea of water. This quickly turns to a nightmare, when he is attacked by what turns out to be a kraken. Meanwhile, the rest of the party is at The Window, surrounding him and attempting to render aid. (well, Pestle and Vun Roade help. Tornac is too busy "helping" himself to Penguin's sword)
After a fair amount of floundering, Penguin finally manages to seize some control of the nightmare, and teleports Zerrof to a peaceful beach. Unfortunately this peace does not last long, as the rest of the party attempts to awaken him. Eventually Jane is brought to the scene, but she is hurtled away from the ritual at great force when she attempts to stop it.
The party then proceeds to have their first skill challenge, using the Lord Kensington Rules for Skill Challenges. The party comes very close, but ultimately fails to awaken the sleepers safely. Vun Roade, who failed the final check, was hurtled against the wall with great force. Penguin and Zerrof do awaken, but Mazu does not, and the sleepers felt awful.
After some debate on what went wrong, Penguin and Jane decide to do some more research before attempting the ritual again. Penguin also charms the entire party to retrieve his sword from Tornac, though not before Tornac overturns the bag of holding and spills thousands and thousands of undead spiders into the room. These eventually faded away on their own.
Penguin takes Zerrof through one of the many doors and negotiates with him as a proxy for Mazu. He offered them a vial of black smoke, which he said was a "rescue in a bottle". They could break the vial to get out of any disaster, and then fair payment would "be negotiated after the fact". Zerrof reluctantly agrees to this bargain, on the grounds that it is difficult to save Mazu if they are both dead.
The party ultimately decides to return to Polaris, where they take a long rest. In the morning, Pestle decides to plant some of his magic beans. The first bean produces a magical campfire, and his second produces a geyser of oil. Disaster was narrowly averted, despite Tornac showing disturbingly pyromaniacal tendencies. After the fire problem was resolved, Tornac claps his bag of holding on top of the geyser, and manages to capture a significant quantity of oil.
What proceeded was a very long and convoluted chain of events, but the short version is that the party debated for quite some time before finally agreeing to sell the oil. They first purchased 53 barrels and began pouring out what turned out to be 13 barrels of oil. Tornac returned the remaining 43 barrels (worth about 4.3 gold) to the merchant as "an investment" and then the party sold their spoils to a nearby weaponsmith. The negotiation was long and drawn out, and the smith tried to skimp out on them multiple times, but ultimately wound up overpaying slightly, netting the party a tidy profit.
Zerrof, having abandoned the rest of the group while they were arguing about barrels, was praying to Mazu in the chamber of diligence. Unfortunately, he was not able to reach her. Eventually, however, Penguin did come to offer consolations, and informed Zerrof that he believed the kraken was Mazu's nightmare. Supposedly, multiple gods were slain by a kraken during The Shattering.
Rewards Granted
Gold, "a rescue in a bottle", shenanigans.
Notes
Music credits:
Pre-game: The Call (instrumental version), by Miracle of Sound
Zerrof's nightmare: Fluidscape, by Kevin Macleod
The church of Olidammara party music: Galway, by Kevin Macleod
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