Session 32 - Osh-Shit - The Whole Gang's Here

Plot points/Scenes

Osh Is Back

• And he doesn't pay attention
• Jalan asks Osh why he's travelling with us at all and there's way too much sexual tension I don't want to dirty myself transcribing it
• Some bullshit like J: "well I hope you stick around" O: "I'm sure your stick is round" or some equally stupid thirsty banter
• But we decide to do a couple of quests, namely finding a stone in a cave (lel) and running a few courier packages west with us on our way to the coast
• Courier missions
• Sheriff - Worav
• Woggugat (owner of Brewed Incubus Alchemy Shop)
• Cave with gem requested to turn directly in to the lord of Stalwartz, Hik'wana
• (keeping in mind that the lords/sheriffs around here are agents of Ragnar)
• We decide to go to the lord first and we push Osh into talking first
• The two guards laugh at Osh, seem to not believe that we're up to the task, but wave us through
• The whole house is a little rickety, they wonder where the town's funds all go to until they step into the office, which is immaculate, and see the little male kobold lord dressed in extremely nice finery
• He also sort of laughs, says we're the 10th group to try to find this stone
• Osh immediately tries seducing him
• D: "before you go any further, you do realize this guy's a little lizard person, right?"
• O: "I don't discriminate"
• D: "I more mean he might not be interested in you"
• He's been told by the government to retrieve this stone from the cave, he doesn't know what it does or why but he's just following orders; they bargain a bit on the price
• 3 months of rations? 250 gold? Keep the artifact?
• But Osh and Jalan let him know they're not alone, they've also got a gnome and a tosculi
• He seems very skeptical that there could be a sentient bug (F: "for a lizard person living in a literal zoo, this guy's not very open minded") and wants to see it and then keep it in exchange for both a cash reward and the artifact
• They bargain a bit and settle, and Jalan signs the papers - under a fake name, and doesn't actually read the contract that he signed
• On their way out, Osh and Jalan stop by the sheriff's office - he's a male leprechaun (DM: "what is with this thing")
• Looks a little rough, got a cold
• He's got the package that is heading to Gloomhaven ASAP - as in like a week minimum
• Is a little skeptical of their capabilities, asks about the size of their travelling party and even surprise-chucks a dagger at Jalan to test his reaction skills
• Jalan gets touchy: "You can't just throw daggers at random-ass people"
• Sheriff: "I very much can, this is my office, and I need to make sure you're capable"
• J: *lights a stick of dynamite and sets it on the desk*
• S: "....."
• J: "......"
• S: "......"
• J: *backs up slowly*
• O: *snuffs out the dynamite with his fingers*
• S: "What you just did, sir, is highly illegal"
• They have a bit of a pissing contest back and forth but they ultimately take the package and head out
• They next head to Woggugat and the alchemy shop, a quiet little orc who meekly counts out 20 silver out of his coin purse as payment
• Jalan scoffs at it, he offers potions in payment instead, then medical supplies and cures for illness
• J: "nah, but the potions sound good"
• DM: "......and Alvira walks into the room"
• Because Alvira is totes interested in the medical stuff
• They bargain a bit, he ends up giving them 100gp worth of general flu cures etc. in exchange for them spreading his name across the land and keeping whatever profits they make on top of the 100gp; and 4 minor healing potions and 1 potion of mind reading
• Selling magic stuff
• Spell scroll of skywrite (40gp), various spell scrolls (100), goblin staff (300, but 200 fake)

To the Cave

• As we get near the cave it's clear it's the right one, we end up getting assaulted by swarms of pestilent locusts and rats, Alvira immediately contracts some sort of disease but is able to ward it off for some time with her medicine, though she'll need to actually address it later
• Alvira sends her owl in to scout ahead, there are absolute hordes of the same locusts/rats and some scary mutilated zombie chick - a plague maiden - who seems to be controlling them
• Jalan goes in a bit alone and notices that all of the bugs on the walls seem to be following his movements and watching him, he pulls a rat out of his Bag of Tricks and sends it forward to scout, it is almost immediately devoured into bones by locusts (RIP rat 3/25/19 10:02pm-10:03pm) he quickly nopes the fuck out
• Drant jokes that since they're bugs he should be the one to go in first
• Planning our entrance
• Fritz suggests that we might not have the best chance at killing everything in there and we should just try to grab what we need and run, Jalan is volunteered to cast Detect Magic and be the spry slippery little rogue he is and run in and grab while the rest of us do distraction tactics
• Jalan pulls out his Bag of Tricks again and summons a Giant Goat this time, which wow okay that's a thing, he rides it into the cave like a steed
• We line up and march forward, Jalan and Fritz get a little bit ahead of the rest of the group and WHAM behind them the plague maiden suddenly appears between them and Drant leading the rest of the party and she charges at Fritz, who decides to charge in rather than defend and crit fails her attack against it, hitting herself with the damage and allowing the maiden to knock her prone before it disappears
• Fritz tries to maintain some dignity as she gets back up
• Drant decides to be way more cautious moving forward because he hates getting snuck up on, realizes that the whole cave is lined with tiny cracks and crevices which are all filled with bugs, so not only is there no hiding from She Who Wrangles the Bugs, but She Who Disintegrates Into Bugs can also appear wherever she damn well pleases by travelling through those cracks
• Drant takes the lead, notices two swarms of rats flanking the mouth of the tunnel into the main cavern waiting to pounce, he and Vincent take position by one swarm and Fritz and Gregory take the other, they leap out simultaneously and attack while Jalan rogue-sprints forward looking for magic glowy rocks, the rest of the party a little further back charges in to catch up and IT'S COMBAT TIME

Combat - Plague Maiden

• The two flanks wail on the swarms of rats but don't kill them, Alvira makes it past where Jalan did and spots the stone we're looking for in the back of the cave, in a little alcove blocked off by swarms of locusts
• Osh and Jalan get up around the same area and all have a round of actions to attempt to hold off or charge through the plague maiden - Osh Suggests that she "Stop attacking us.....(*thinking*) we come in peace" (F: *snickers* O: "okay then what would you rather I say I have ten words") and she surprisingly dissipates
• Alvira decides to make a dash for the crystal and turns into an angel WHAT, takes a swipe at some of the locusts on her way by so doesn't get all the way there but what the fuck did anyone know she could do that
• Meanwhile back at the mouth of the cavern, Fritz and Gregory absolutely annihilate their rat swarm, with three crits between them in just one round (Fritz's was a crit fail but we don't have to mention that), Vincent screams out "I've got this! HEIMDALL SMITE THEE!" and charges his and Drant's rat swarm alone, Drant and Fritz are both free to run deeper into the cave to assist the chaos that is now descending
• Alvira's an angel flying towards the back, Jalan finally spots the gem too and charges his goat that way, the plague maiden reappears and looks super pissed and starts screaming and radiating some pestilence plague shit, now there's a zombie horse involved in the fight that we didn't see earlier
• Jalan moves first and vaults his way into the back corner, grabs the gem and starts dashing his way back out, but there are swarms of rats surrounding him so he casts Levitate on himself and floats himself up to the ceiling out of their reach, the swarms of locusts who were guarding that back cavern start growing in size and looking super angry
• Fritz catches up to Alvira who's being newly assaulted by this zombie horse, Alvira attempts to coax it into being friends
• DM: "what"
• A: "yeah, I mean I dunno maybe it'll work"
• F: "we could have a zombie horse pet, nobody else has one of those"
• DM: ".....what is wrong with you guys"
• Unfortunately the zombie horse befriending technique doesn't work and it tries to bite Alvira's face off, Fritz gets in a few strikes at it
• Drant also catches up to Fritz/Alvira and casts Spike Growth centered on and a little in front of the plague maiden, Nymph doubles down and Webs her up too
• The plague maiden screams and the swarms grow even larger and more angry, she starts moving forward through Drant's spike growth but doesn't break free of Nymph's Webs so is having a real bad time
• Jalan's got the gem and is peacing the fuck out, he's on the ceiling and crawl-climbing along over the combat happening below, he gets way past even Osh and is practically gone (O: "what the fuck how can you do that")
• Everybody else starts fleeing, Osh catches back up to Jalan, Fritz turns to run but the zombie horse gives chase and bites her, starting to hold her in place, Alvira hits it with a booming blade strike and the next step it takes it explodes with thunder energy and its form wavers a little bit and it drops Fritz, she and Alvira run towards the entrance together
• Drant is standing his ground
• D: "I have to kill this for my god"
• Literally everybody else: "Drant no"
• Turns out he thought this chick was undead, not the physical embodiment of pestilence, and for some reason is suicidally committed to pleasing this god he adopted 36 hours ago
• He retcons that and nopes out with the rest of us
• Drant spots Vincent (who took on that rat swarm by himself) like basically nearly dead in the corner
• D: "god damnit Vincent why you gotta take on that shit alone"
• (F: *having flashbacks to basically every combat Drant's taken on alone*)
• Drant Thorn Whips Vincent and pulls him along behind him and Nymph
• But now there's a slight problem - there are a couple of locust swarms blocking the tunnel entrance out of here and we might not all make it through, at least without getting slowed down or the vulnerable (*cough cough Vincent*) getting killed
• Fritz is ecstatic and pulls out one of her brand new toys - the Flashbang(!) and tosses it into the tunnel (I mean it's not a concussion grenade but we'll see)
• It actually works and clears the path for a little bit, everybody dashes through but Osh is a little too far behind to make it before the gap closes, Fritz tosses her second and last flashbang into the slowly closing corridor and dissipates the swarm again but also temporarily deafens basically everybody in the party because that shit's got a 15 foot radius
• We all make it out of the cave system and back into the forest but we can hear the screaming plague maiden finally escaping the spike growth and webbing and her swarms are coming closer
• Jalan bundles up three of his remaining dynamite and chucks it into the cave entrance, collapsing the tunnel - a few insects squeeze through the cracks but they can't swarm and we're safe

VINCENT NO

• Vincent meanwhile is literally dying - Alvira is able to tell that there is some sort of poison or disease coursing through his veins and that any healing she could give him would be immediately eaten away by the disease, we decide to hoof it back to town as quickly as possible while Alvira performs surgery on him to keep him stabilized
• F: "you can't die god damnit I paid you to keep me alive"
• Osh is able to bardically inspire Alvira so she's just barely able to successfully keep Vincent alive on the long ride back to Stalwartz
• We get back into town, and have to make a decision on who could possibly help - we decide to take him to the alchemist-healer's shop but send word to the wizards' enchanting guild to meet us there
• Fritz flags down some kid on the street and tells him to relay a message to the guild to come as fast as they can, she gives him 50 gold and tells him to give them whatever it takes to get them to come and to keep the rest, the kid sprints off like he won the lottery, Jalan looks appalled (F: "I'm fucking desperate alright")
• We get into the alchemist's shop, he immediately clears off a table and gets to work administering stuff to Vincent, he's able to stabilize him but can't actually do anything about dispelling whatever magical disease took hold
• At that precise moment, Garck the foot and a half tall leprechaun waltzes in
• She instructs Alvira (and Osh once more bardically inspires her, leading to another very near success) and together they're able to pull some sludgy black ball of slime out of Vincent which is viscous and alive and spiky and wriggling, Garck grabs it with her bare hands and casts some magic on it, it condenses into a solid mass and she drops it into her bag of holding
• Garck chastises us for taking on a plague maiden alone and that we've endangered them all, she hopes we got what we were looking for.....which speaking of, "what was it?"
• D: "a rock"
• G: "did you find it?"
• Everyone: "....."
• F&J: "nooo"
• G: "oh, pity, at least none of you dumbasses died"
• On her way out, Fritz asks Garck if the kid that fetched her gave her money, turns out he actually gave her 45 of the 50 gold, Fritz asks who the kid is and where to find him, she might pay him a visit later
• Garck also asks if anybody else got sick, Alvira said she did and Garck casts something on her, Alvira sort of testily says "I don't like having things cast on me that I don't understand, what did you just do" and Garck sheepishly admits that she didn't actually do anything, if Alvira had actually been sick with the same magic she'd have been dead before getting back to Stalwartz, she was just trying to create a placebo effect

Plot type

Session

Parent Plot

Act 3: Cults and Companions