Session 16 - Things Fall Apart

Jalan: ...you guys are terrible tactitians.

Drant: Maybe if you DIDN'T do that-

Fritz: COMMUNICATE before you throw caltrops!

Plot points/Scenes

Winds of Change

• Gurk arrives on our doorstep with some more questions
• Drant gets Meghan to call a company meeting
• “The next questions are…. Hy-po-the-ti-cal?” (F: “good job!”)
  • G: “How would you guys react to getting assaulted by an army of kobolds?”
    • J: “um...violently???”
  • G: “How would you guys feel about an unknown entity performing an unknown ritual to release magic back into the world?”
  • G: “How would you feel if this ritual summoned sleeping monsters in the wilderness?”
  • G: “What time of day are you guys most unprepared for a siege?”
    • F: “Definitely noon.”
    • D: “That’s right after we have brunch when we’re all taking morning naps”
  • G: “What if that siege happened right now?”
    • F: “I feel like you’ve got to give us 24 hours’ notice first…”
    • G: “Good point!”
• Jalan panics and packs all his shit and goes to get Terrence to hire some mercenaries for him (12 ‘mercenaries’ with rusty swords), Fritz also begins packing the essential stuff from her workshop just in case, Drant starts thinking about how he can safely/efficiently transport his hive mind
• Going to town
  • Fritz becomes aware that the demographics of the city have changed drastically
    • More monstrous races than civilized races, more kobolds/bugbears/goblins/orcs than before by a long way
    • Goes to a seedy tavern to get the rumors
      • Large group of very drunk orcs, clearly making fun of Fritz for her height as she walks in
      • She retorts but doesn’t get violent, asks the barkeep what’s up with the new populace
        • Mountain tribes all “visiting”, doesn’t know where they’re staying in/around the city, “not to be racist or anything…”
  • Meanwhile, Jalan gambles (we decide they probably make trips into town together to avoid the headache/painful separation), blissfully unaware of the drastically changed populace
    • F: “Jalan, we’ve gotta go. Now.”
    • J: “If you think you can pull me away from gambling just by asking-”
    • F: “I’m leaving without you then”
    • J: “no no I’m coming”

Rude Awakenings

• Fritz/Drant awaken in the middle of the night by a thick choking feeling of static energy
• whispering/chanting for about 1 minute, sounds like it’s right in our ears but we know innately it’s very far away
• After the minute it gets louder and louder, right when the dubstep bass is about to drop a voice says a word out loud that we don’t understand but we can feel the power and then a shockwave boom
  • Drant can now cast prestidigitation, Fritz can now cast mending, Jalan gets friends
  • Only happened to us because of our proximity to the blast (though we technically don't know this yet)
• Drant calls for Nymph and Drac
  • Radio silence, they don’t respond
• Fritz
  • Moves to wake everyone and gather in the meeting room
  • Meghan already awake staring at her hands, which are on fire, she’s panicking
  • Gregory is still sleeping soundly but is levitating, Fritz tries to wake him up without startling him but he still goes full ninja, goes to wake his security detail and Jalan’s new entourage
  • Robin is sleeping as if nothing happened, fun fact sleeps nearly nude but really fast at getting ready
• Jalan 100% sleeps through it, he’s actually the last one Fritz wakes up cause she assumed he was up

Meeting Interrupted

• Everybody meets in the lobby
• Jalan: “why the FUCK am I awake right now”
• F: “show of hands, who actually heard that?”
  • Fritz, Drant, Meghan, and half of the mercenaries
  • F: “In summary, static, whispers, dubstep, magic”
  • Jalan suggests we check to see that Ralodithius/Nevermore/the rest of the prisoners are still interred
• All of a sudden, a screech emanates from deep within the facility, near the cryochambers, and a crash, shatter, screech of metal, then footsteps marching
• Whatever it is manages to avoid the facility’s hallway traps, get closer; moment of indecision what to do (J: run, F: post up by the doorway)
• A group of 4 draugr in exoskeletons formed around them, puppeteering them and with drill arms blast through the door
• ROLL INITIATIVE

COMBAT - So we’re a little rusty, okay?

• They roll a -1 initiative so we get a surprise round, Drant and Jalan both get natural 20s (thus an extra extra turn) making Fritz’s natural 19 utterly unimpressive
  • DM *disappointed*: “These guys will be dead before you even get to see their cool moves.”
    • Oh how wrong we were. Oh, how wrong...
• Jalan throws caltrops, Drant deals damage and moves to the front line, Fritz shoves one of Jalan’s mercenaries out of the way, he takes a swing at her but misses, Jalan yells for his mercenaries to circle up and let the enemy come to them
• Drant attacks, manages to find an opening to hit the draugr inside who retaliates with a sonic scream, which hits one of Jalan’s mercenaries whose eardrums burst and he collapses
• Drant/Jalan deal damage, draugr screams again, another mercenary collapses, creates a convenient bridge across the caltrops that Fritz attempts to cross but fails and is stuck (F: “Jalaaaaann…” J: “I told you to stay back”), takes a defensive stance
• Gregory suddenly remembers he’s here, pushes his way through Jalan’s crowd of mercenaries clogging up the hallway, doesn’t get hurt by the caltrops and also takes a defensive stance
• Draugr circle up on Drant and scream simultaneously, 3 beams hitting Fritz and 4 hitting Drant, Fritz crit fails 1, norm fails 1, and crit succeeds 1, Drant crit fails 2, succeeds 1, crit succeeds 1, Fritz takes 17 damage total, Drant takes 31 damage total, both are knocked prone but both will be immune to the screams for the next turn
  • Jalan laughs pitilessly from behind his wall of scrubs
• Another of Jalan’s mercenaries’ head explodes
• Drant does some Odic shit, 3 OF THEM CRIT SUCCEEDS their saves and 1 CRIT FAILS, what the fuck is with the criticals tonight, then tries to flee, gets 10 feet away because the caltrops slowed movement
• Fritz moves to attack the draugr in melee finally, fails once and CRIT FAILS ONCE omfg what with the criticals, her hammer malfunctions and is an improvised weapon until fixed
• Gregory finally gets into melee and starts dealing damage, reveals his trap card Great Weaponmaster and finally kills one of them
• Two draugr follow Drant and knock him unconscious, who then fails a death save, Fritz manages to get to him and pour a potion in his mouth but can’t do anything else
• Gregory deals some good damage but doesn’t kill anything
• The two draugr above Drant/Fritz attack Fritz, deal a good deal of damage
• Jalan’s mercenaries pick up the caltrops he threw, he screams “charge, men!” and starts melee attacking them, Fritz deals a measly 7 points of damage with the only weapon she’s got now, a light hammer, mercenaries bunch up around the draugr, the draugr scream, Drant fails a save but finally remembers to use his Absorb Elements, a draugr rips out a mercenary’s heart with his drill, draugrs scream AGAIN and knock both Fritz and Drant prone, dealing damage to both of them with their drills
• Jalan dagger-rapiers the draugr in front of him, Drant hits the draugr in front of him and absorbs some HP, Fritz hits the thing’s knee joint (with heavy hitter knocks it down), swings hammer across the jaw shattering it and splattering decaying flesh everywhere, remembers that she’s a really dumb fighter and that she should’ve been doing 2 attacks all along, takes an action surge to turn and do the same to the draugr right in front of her
• The mercenaries finally deal some damage, Gregory swoops in and finishes the last one

The Dust Settles...and more shit hits the fan

• *a moment of silence*
  • J: “.........you guys are terrible tacticians.”
  • D: “maybe if you DIDN’T do that-”
  • F: “COMMUNICATE before you throw caltrops-”
• Jalan lines up his mercenaries: “well, good news. You get your dead comrades’ pay.” (5 of the 12 died)
  • They actually seem to brighten up, as Terrence got people who were strangers and they don’t care about their comrades
• Jalan packs the pleasure barge for immediate departure
• Fritz/Gregory investigate the basement
  • There is a makeshift machine that def wasn’t there last night in the center of the floor, churning out these draugr things - Husks (apparently the people who were previously drained by the power facility become “husks” and are stored in the furnace)
  • Jarvis approaches and said “I did as you said, master” and motions to the machinery in the center
    • F: “Jarvis...who told you to do this?”
    • Jar: “You did!”
    • F: “Was this a remote command?”
    • Jar: “No, it was direct!”
    • F: “Was it me, in person, face to face?”
    • Jar: *thinks* “....no!”
    • F: “What exactly did I say?”
    • Jar *spews a bunch of unintelligible technical babble*
    • F: “......good job, Jarvis.”
    • Jar: “I sense some sarcasm, miss.”
  • Fritz gets Jarvis to lift lockdown so we can leave, set basement spider thing to kill anything that comes out of that machine, and set statue defenders to kill any unfamiliar creatures that try to enter the facility
  • Fritz releases Nevermore
    • For a moment he looks angry and violent, but it passes after a moment
      • ((psychosis! Sets in faster than we thought, and DC is determined by the number of times a creature enters the cryochamber))
    • She quickly yells “don’t kill me!” then explains what’s happening, “do you know what’s happening??”
    • Nevermore looks over at the machinery in the center of the room, casts a spell, and bluish light surrounds it and everything within grinds to a halt
      • N: “This won’t last forever, but that thing is very dark magic and we need to move now, can you lock down the facility?”
      • F: “we don’t have a back door, if we do that we’re trapped.”
      • N: “Do it anyway”
      • Jar: “It seems the door is jammed...manual override!”
      • *hear a crunching sound and some screaming*
      • F: “oh gods….Jarvis, who was that??” Jar: “Some small green humanoid!”
      • F: “....oh that’s fine then”
    • Start hearing metallic screeching and pounding and muffled noises from outside, clearly trying to get in through the fortified front door
    • Fritz, Gregory, and Nevermore head back up to meet the others, leaving Ralodithius and the other two prisoners down there
• Meanwhile, 3 goblins with crossbows manage to get past the front door before it closes again, into the space where Jalan/Drant/everybody are
  • Gbl: “Put up your hands!”
  • J: “okay, okay!” *headshots one of the goblins with his crossbow*
  • Other goblins fire, one fatally shoots his friend in the back of the head, we dispatch of the other fairly quickly
  • Jalan runs to grab Ralodithius’ armor and shit
  • Drant enters the ventilation system to convene with Nymph and Drac bc his hive mind is disconnected for some reason
• Drant
  • Brother gurp was attacked by a group of goblins, he protected the holy cattle and there are now “blood puddles” (Nymph’s words) where the goblins stood, Jack and Jill (the wasps) are nearby but not really close enough to be useful
• Nevermore takes control
  • Proposes that his magic can hold long enough for us to rest up and be as prepared as possible to leave, if we agree of course, party votes to do that
  • Drant/Fritz take a short rest, Jalan and his mercenaries create molotov cocktails with the alcohol in the pleasure barge and some oil from Fritz’s workshop, also strap some sharpened metal pipes to the front of the pleasure barge to make it rather unapproachable
  • Fritz gets Jarvis to make a hard drive copy of the whole system so that she at least has an archive to look back on and troubleshoot and pinpoint the source of the problem when Jarvis gets out of wireless range of the facility
• Barge has room to seat 9
  • Jarvis (shoved somewhere so doesn’t take up a seat), drant, meghan, isabelle, robin, nevermore, 4 crossbow mercenaries in the barge
  • 3 mercenaries and fritz and gregory walking alongside the barge, Jalan scouting out ahead/beside

Plot type

Session

Parent Plot

Act 2: Uprooted