Session 33 - Lobotomy? No, Loboto-You!

Plot points/Scenes

Cashing In

• We completed the sorcerer’s stone contract, and have two courier missions to run: one to Gloomhaven within 7 days, and one to Streamwalk whenever
• The Stone
  • Jalan for some reason doesn’t want anyone to know that he found the stone, so wants to dupe the lord
    • He tries to get Drant to draw a copy of the stone since he’s proficient in painter’s tools….but he crit fails
      • D: “I don’t think I’ve ever drawn before”
    • He briefly looks around town for someone who could draw a bit better but then realizes that he knows minor illusion and can just show him an illusory copy instead
  • Projects an image to the lord, and says we had to destroy the stone to destroy the bad lady who guarded it
    • L: “Ah, so I see you met my ex-wife”
    • A: “Dayuuuuum”
    • L: “By the way….how did you manage to destroy that gem?”
    • J: “I smashed it against a rock”
    • L: “....”
  • He doesn’t seem to believe us as the stone would not have been destroyed by a regular stone and the bug lady would’ve lost her power had we actually destroyed the gem, he asks Fritz for her take and she tells the truth - she didn’t really see much
  • He pays out 25 gold (whoo boy) and we go on our way
• Jalan goes to a bird man jeweler to get both the Onyx Lion and the stolen gem turned into necklaces
  • Wants to get the Onyx Lion set into a platinum lion’s mouth, and the cave stone set into gold over his family crest
  • Offers 500 gold for a rush job, in 2 days, but has to describe this lady that he so wants to impress - he tries to describe Zavala and has to make a history check to even remember what she looks like (we briefly laugh our asses off but he rolls a natural 20 and even pronounces her name right the entire time he’s describing her
• Fritz and phantasmium
  • Imps vs. pureblood unsosen
  • Jalan yelling at her for ‘not taking responsibility’
• Drant notices a bunch of hooded figures walking and weirdly limping in perfect unison into the nearby alchemy shop
  • He just turns around and leave the conversation
    • F: “-so I mean we could at least ask, the worst that could happen is - Drant where are you going”
  • Hears a gruff voice demand all of the mushrooms in his stock, they’d pay well, Woggugat tries to ask a question but is rudely shut down, goes to hand the mushrooms over and asks for 120 gold and the other guy extends his hand and dark eldritch energy force-chokes him off the ground, he lets them have it for free
  • They turn around and see Drant, who haughtily says he saw the whole thing, they threaten him by force-choking him
    • Dude: “now I’ll say this again...you didn’t see anything”
    • D: “nah, I’ve been choked harder than this”
    • DM: “no, you’re actually choking”
    • D: “I don’t have lungs”
    • DM: “....fair enough. He changes the magic, now he’s crushing you”
  • Drant looks at their life forces, they’re oddly dull and linked somehow
  • Drant can’t think of anything to do, so they take him out to the street by the throat, and Fritz and Jalan and Alvira can see them now
    • Dropping him, Alvira catches him
    • F: “What happened??”
    • D: “They need to die”
  • Jalan stealths ahead and reports back
    • J: “OOH! Maybe they’re having a rager!”
  • Decide to go with us four and Gregory to follow them, the stealthy three at the front and the two fighters and Nymph at the back
    • Not very far out of town, the three break apart - Jalan decides to go after one of them, and Alvira decides to send her owl after another
    • But then the one in front collapses to the ground - Drant perceives for traps and rolls so high that he notices a bunch of things hiding in the trees above - ROLL INITIATIVE

COMBAT - Lobotomy

• Alvira reactionarily casts Disguise Self on herself and makes herself look like one of the shuffling dudes
• Drant rolls shit on everyone’s initiative and we’re surprise attacked
  • The brains on legs swarm both groups - Jalan fails his intellect save, and one of the intellect devourers climbs on him and starts trying to burrow into his skull
  • The guy who collapsed on the ground sits up and casts the same force-choke stuff on Drant, who’s lifted into the air
• Drant thorn-whips the ground and pulls himself forward 10 feet because the hooded dude collapsed just outside a 30 foot range of Drant, then Thorn Whips the guy on the ground with disadvantage
  • Alvira’s an absolute boss an annihilates the two devourers attacking Jalan, calls her owl across the forest engaged with another robed figure to Help
    • She tries to intimidate the guy on the ground and a spectral tentacled creature appears in front of her and screams angry at her
  • Fritz, Gregory, and Nymph deal some damage but can only take out two of the creatures
• They retaliate!
  • The remaining devourers hit on Fritz and crit on Gregory, but they’re both super lucky with their intelligence saves
  • A guy across the forest shoots fire at Gregory, the guy in front of Drant tries to intimidate him into fear of death but he’s so at peace with his inner self that he gets a d4 inspiration to his next saving throw
• Nymph and gregory take out the remaining devourers by them, Gregory takes off in the direction of the guy that shot fire at him, Fritz takes off in the other group’s direction
• Alvira goes full power-angel - the spectral visage next to her disappears and she charges the robed dude on the ground, shoots a beam of light from her chest, and stabs a rapier through his eye - lobotomy-obliterating him instantly
• And combat’s over - let’s questio-SNOOORE - okay Phil’s asleep next time
• But like 5 minutes later he wakes up! Let’s go!
  • Fritz runs over and immediately tries to shake Jalan awake - he’s comatose but otherwise healthy - he just won’t wake up
  • Alvira gathers some herbs from the forest and makes a concoction that she feeds to Jalan, he wakes up and it’s the most foul thing he’s ever tasted
  • Drant starts questioning the two remaining robed figures
    • They start speaking gibberish and generally making threats
  • Drant tries to intimidate the cultists into talking, crit fails, and the same tentacled specter appears next to Drant and grabs him, and his mind starts getting assimilated into their weird hive mind
    • Jalan shoves his phantasmium arrow in between Drant and the specter and is now splitting the mind-absorb difference with Drant
    • Fritz starts taking swings at the cultists - every time she swings, the visage cringes, but eventually the two cultists snap to and look clear-headed and confused
  • Jalan snaps out on his own: “I can’t be part of a hive mind, I’m too important”
  • Drant gives in to the temptation to join the collective consciousness - he’s a hive mind addict and doesn’t even want to try to say no
    • DM: “Take three inspiration dice!”
  • He snaps out of it, and nothing seems weird
• Interrogating the guys
  • Fritz really smashed the one guy’s knees bad, but Alvira’s a dope healer and she may have actually saved his legs - he could walk yet!
  • They don’t remember anything, even when Fritz gestures to the intellect devourer corpses and asks, they scuttle back and are super scared
  • Alvira investigates the mushrooms they had, it seems to be a mish-mash of a whole bunch of kinds, but some of them she thinks could be brewed to put somebody in a trance
  • We deduce that something is mind controlling these creatures but is doping them up to do so, and thinking back to the illusory tentacle-face, he didn’t have legs, and we think the limping = tentacle dude trying to control people with legs
• Fritz gathers the two most intact corpses and we head back into town
  • Showing Zavala the lobotomized corpse - she gets distracted in her book giving us an explanation, which Fritz notices is “A Field Guide to Unsosen” - by Zavala
  • There is a fellowship of Unsosen that includes fey that can teleport, and replace people’s brains with these things: the Fellowship of Manipulation
    • Ooh Unsosen! (F: “I should’ve grabbed more bodies…”)
• We talk amongst ourselves about whether to get involved, ultimately decide yes - not for the morality, oh no, but because Fritz can make cool things with their blood (F: “Christ’s sake, guys”)
• We’ve had a super long day though so decide to do it tomorrow, and head to the wizards enchanting guild in the meantime to see if they’ve got any insight cause Zavala’s sort of stumped on ways to protect ourselves from the brain-eaters
  • Garck offers Mind Blank but it’s gonna be 640 gp a pop - everyone ultimately decides to pass but Fritz puts up the gold to get Gregory protected - it’d be real bad if he got taken over
  • We also realize that Osh and Alvira are basically broke, Jalan is surprisingly generous and gives them each 200 gold

Plot type

Session

Parent Plot

Act 3: Cults and Companions