Session 34 - Ill[ithid] Intentions and Meeting Strudel

Plot points/Scenes

Into the Lair of the Mindf(lair) I'll stop now

• Drant leading the charge through the woods, seems to uncannily know exactly where we need to go but he's super good at tracking anyway so nobody really pays any mind
• Alvira spots brains running in the woods parallel to us (D: "what, I didn't see them? I rolled higher" DM: *cheerily* "Nope!")
• We briefly convene, Fritz and Alvira make a plan to flank them but they're already gone - don't seem to be too interested in us
• Jalan chases them down, being all stealthy-like, but when he gets close enough they turn around and try to attack him - but he's a quick little bugger and outruns them and bolts back to us, reports on what he saw, and we decide to just keep on as we were
• Jalan summons a boar from his bag of tricks, and we briefly joke that it'd be able to sniff out the mushrooms that the guys from yesterday were replenishing
• But to our surprise, it actually smells something and moves forward - it pushes aside a bush and scares some predatory cat thing away and finds A LITTLE BABY ORPHANED KINKAJOU OHMG
• Fritz immediately takes it, she's in love, not very good with animal handling but the poor terrified little thing just clings to her back
• We also discuss that we don't really want to fight this boar if it gets mind-controlled but it'd be a nice juicy brain-meat-shield
• Jalan suggests creating some sort of suicide device, Fritz somewhat accidentally (she rolled a natural 20) invents remote detonation explosives and we put a collar on the boar
• We continue forward, and 2 hours later, come across a cave covered in somewhat familiar hieroglyphics - similar to what Zavala had written on Fritz against Malzrog, but not identical - like Old English is very different from English - and it's got characters borrowed from Elvish and Dwarvish and all sorts of languages but none of it is like a decipherable 1:1 translation
• Fritz takes some pages out of her portfolio and does some charcoal rubbings, the glyphs are big enough that each one takes up an entire page but she collects one of each
• We head inside the cave, Drant has Nymph Alarm the entrance behind us and we all step into the first antechamber and -

CAVE COMBAT - A TEAM, B TEAM

• Evil laughter echoes throughout the whole cave, suddenly zombie-looking orcs pop up in each entrance to the chamber we're in and surround us, charging past Drant - who was leading the group - toward the rest of the party
• Drant casts Slow on us, and the mind-controlled orcs attack us
• (F: "You hive mind controlled ass mother fuck - I don't know about this yet but I'm still angry")
• Fritz is the only one who saves, Jalan casts Dispel Magic on himself on his turn and he's free from the effects; Drant casts Moonbeam (the Hive Mind is holding the concentration on Slow so he can't drop it Osh does Mantle of Inspiration, Alvira sneak-shortbows the moonbeam group
• Alvira takes a bunch of hits and actually so many that she gets controlled by the Hive Mind and takes her dagger to Jalan; Drant moves into the farthest corner away from combat at the command of the Hive Mind
• Gregory, Fritz, and Osh take out the group of orcs blocking the exit, Alvira spots the Illithid controlling the orcs in an adjacent chamber and calls it out, Drant moves back into the room, Jalan attacks, the boar attacks
• The orcs attack more, the Illithid climbs up on a fountain thing and casts Hunger of Hadar right in the smack dab middle of us
• Fritz, Gregory, and Osh run to the entrance but Fritz can't get outside of the tentacles, Jalan casts Disguise Self as one of the robed orcs, comes out of the tentacles, and Hides from the Illithid, Drant is across the universe in another part of the map, Alvira's nearly dead so dashes out of the tentacles, originally in the opposite direction but changes her mind to go towards the group
• Osh: "Alvira! Don't make me charm you back! You're the hottest one of the group!"
• J: *across the cave* "Whoa!"
• The Illithid drops concentration on the tentacles and the horde closes in, two brains attack the boar and mind control it (J: "btw it has 1hp left" DM: "I don't care IT'S MINE NOW") and the orcs bottleneck into where Fritz and Gregory are holding the line, Drant jumps into a portal and finds himself in the land of the Unsosen, it's all like Death Valley dry and arid, red sky red sand, the portal he fell through is above his head, he sees not too friendly figures in the middle distance and hears some strange whispering
• The rest of the team: Nymph Webs up the Illithid who's running away, Fritz and Gregory hold the tunnel out, and obliterate the one horde in the way - Gregory posts up in the mouth of the tunnel, Fritz takes her action surge and shoots up with adrenaline, perches on top of a fountain not able to go any further until Osh casts Dissonant Whispers and the group blocking the way runs away in fear - she and Jalan get opportunity attacks; Jalan pulls a giant goat out of his bag of tricks and rides forth, Drant casts Blink and briefly appears back at the entrance of the portal
• Fritz runs through a maze of enemies with her adrenaline and gets up to the mindflayer, hits him with her hammer and knocks him down, then stabs her syringe into his neck; Jalan charges with his goat (violently trampling one of the brain things in front of him), loads his phantasmium bolt into his crossbow, and shoots it into the prone mindflayer - he misses initially but Drant - who's just on the cusp of the portal - uses one of the inspiration he got from getting us into this mess and Jalan hits - his soul is weirdly torn into multiple ethereal pieces which all start getting sucked into the portal; Drant himself moves forward then Blinks back into the Ethereal Plane
• Alvira tries to Guiding Bolt the brain that managed to squeak its way past Gregory (cause he was cocky and risked it for the biscuit) and crit fails, confusing herself and is unable to act for the rest of the round, Gregory kills the brain thing then uses his action surge to hit the guys in front of him, but crit fails on his second attack and his sword goes flying into the other room
• The mindflayer disappears (Dimension Doors) but his soul shards are arranged in a way that points towards where he went; one brain tries to run for Jalan but runs through the moonbeam and gets incinerated, other orcs move and generally attack, piling up on top of each other to get to Gregory
• Top of the round, the mindflayer takes a shit ton of force damage from Fritz's syringe in the corner and fails his Con save so is stunned; Fritz goes bloodlust-charging in, Drant taps her on the ass as she runs by with Freedom of Movement, she charges through one group of orcs, a bunch of brains holding their actions charge in but she's too smaaht for their intellect attacks, charges around the corner and goes fucking nuts on the stunned mindflayer in front of her, critting twice and taking off its head with an uppercut from her hammer - drunk on blood, she immediately turns and uses the rest of her movement to find something else to kill; all of the orcs go somewhat limp and no longer aggressive; Jalan pokes one of the illusory copies of the mindflayer with a phantasmium arrow and they all flicker and snap then form into a physical body a few feet away from him; back at the B Team, Gregory backs away from the group of orcs in front of him and holds his attack for something coming at the group; Osh and Alvira hold their actions
• The orcs break down crying and are no longer aggressive, one brain goes for Nymph - who is so close to death, so it's super lucky that Alvira held her attack because she sneak attack kills it before it can do damage, another gets up in her melee but can't attack, the boar comes around the corner towards the A Team and stops just far enough away from Jalan that it can charge-attack him next turn
• Fritz comes screeching around the corner at 80 miles an hour and kills the boar who's been mind controlled and at 1hp this entire time, then hits but can't kill the brain that comes out of it; Jalan is surrounded by three brains, experimentally touches the illusory corpse right next to him with his phantasmium arrow and the physical body teleports into this illusion, then starts getting sucked into the portal from sheer proximity
• F: "JALAN NO"
• J: "OH SHIT"
• Jalan casts levitate on the corpse, it stops moving into the portal
• J: "....I'm gonna die for your stupid corpse"
• Drant Thorn Whips two of the three brains assaulting Jalan, away from him, then Blinks out of existence
• F: "Dammit Drant"
• D: "I don't wanna be a target"
• F: "But now Jalan's a triple target"
• D: "Sorry not sorry"
• J: "I'm fucked"
• Alvira jumps on Jalan's bag-of-tricks goat (J: "FLY TO ME, GOAT!"), and it carries her to the A Team by the portal fighting for their lives, sneak attacks but doesn't manage to kill the brain closest to Jalan (J: "I'm gonna die for you")
• All of the brains attack Jalan but miss all their physical attacks and only get one brain attack on him, can't take over his mind though - another goes for Osh but Gregory boops it out of existence - we dispatch of the ones surrounding Jalan fairly quickly and we're OUT OF COMBAT
• (DM: "I imagine you won't have a problem with the remaining brains, Jalan will disengage and run away -"
• (J: "Hey!"
• (F: "What, you offended by that? Truth hurts")

Meeting an Unsosen

• Jalan pokes the portal with his phantasmium to see what'd happen, it flickers and closes; Jalan releases Levitate on the body and Fritz collects it
• Fritz fails her save against adrenaline withdrawal and suddenly feels really sick, has to sit down and breathe, Alvira offers her medicinal herbs
• D: "I think she's had enough 'medicinal herbs' for today"
• Jalan tells his goat to start licking her
• F: "agh, fuck, gross, what"
• A bald, suave but plain man walks into the central chamber from one of the side rooms, looks around, looks at the portal that's closed, says "oh. Good job!" and turns around to leave
• A beat - everyone: "whaaat"
• D: "uuuuhhh"
• F: "Jalan, Osh, someone with a tongue, stop him"
• Jalan sends the goat to lick the stranger, he looks pretty amused and stops for a minute
• Jalan introduces himself, the stranger says something along the lines of "oh well, you can't be the real Jalan Kendith", Jalan gets all flustered "wh-...well, of course I am! Fritz, Drant, back me up here!"
• F: "hmmm...well, you only introduced yourself to me as a prince when we first met, maybe you were lying..."
• J: "what?! No!"
• Osh runs in from the front entrance to the cave (behind the man) and very exaggeratedly states "oh you wouldn't believe what I've been through, I almost died!"
• (he has almost full health)
• (literally the entire rest of the party: "....bruh")
• Stranger: "my my, you seem to be one for hyperbole"
• Jalan asks him who he is, if he knows what this whole shebang was, why he said 'good job'
• The stranger says that the portal was into the manipulation section of the unsosen realm, though it was a strangely barren place to put it (remember Drant saw barren red desert)
• Casts some weird minor illusion of a map, move it around, navigates around it, closes it "that actually makes sense. Anyway! Great job closing it, you've practically done my job for me"
• (F: "hmmm...could he actually be??"
• The stranger asks why were we here in the first place, Jalan mentions we wanted to collect blood, the stranger freezes up and looks fight-or-flight: "whyyyy?"
• F: ".........ever heard of phantasmium?"
• the stranger absolutely bolts: Drant tries to restrain him, Nymph webs him in place; as he tries to get himself out we try to convince him to stay
• F: "No no no, this guy was a bad guy! You look like a normal person, we don't usually kill the normal ones!"
• O: "There may have been a better way to put that"
• He eventually burns the webs off him by pulling something out of his pouch and making a few tiny hand movements but stays put once he's free and seems a lot calmer with Osh and Jalan and Drant talking him down
• Fritz asks him his name, and why he said we practically did his job for him
• Stranger: "Oh, you people are the kind for names, aren't you? What language am I even speaking right now? Hmmmmm....let's go with Frederick"
• O: *like he's been personally slighted* "NO! I want it to be something fun, like Strudel"
• S: "Ah, alright! Strudel it is"
• Osh looks this guy up and down, he seems way less spooked than when he tried to bolt, and also looks very old and immortal
• F: "correct me if I'm wrong - I don't want to make any assumptions - but are you....from the Fellowship of Equilibrium?"
• S: "Ah! You are a bright little thing, clearly the brains of the group. Good to know your people study sometimes-" *pats Fritz on the head* (if literally anybody else had done that she'd probably try to bite them but she's starstruck and a little flattered)
• Strudel goes on an unsolicited mini-rant about our plane using magic, and "only creates never destroys!" and "the weave provides!" and "where do you think all of this energy comes from in the first place grumble mumble"
• He congratulates us on a job well done and offers to reward us somehow
• S: "I could make your (Jalan's) intellect the same as hers (Fritz)!"
• J: "By making me smarter or her dumber?"
• S: "Both!"
• F: "That's a shitty trade, I do not consent to that"
• S: "There is no giving, only splitting between that which exists"
• Instead gives Jalan an ember, when Jalan asks what he can do with it the guy realizes that we can't really use it like his people apparently can and takes it back - then suddenly remembers that our people are the kind that love gold (Jalan perks up at that)
• F: "oooh, ask the question Jalan, you know you want to"
• J: ".......can you give me 5 million gold coins?"
• Strudel actually thinks for a moment...then offers to turn any metal we can offer him into gold
• Jalan absolutely empties his pockets of anything remotely metal, we get Gregory to donate his armor, Fritz donates a massive black knight sword and a cyborg leg
• He plucks a piece of each of our hair (and a piece of Drant's carapace)
• F: "Hey, whoa, what's happening? I don't want you to just have a piece of my DNA"
• O: "I'll have you know my DNA is very high price, people all over the world have begged for my DNA"
• Strudel casts a spell that makes all of our bodies go completely cold - but then everything metal in the pile in front of us is pure gold
• DM: "except, interestingly, for the circuitry inside that cyborg leg - it's totally functional"
• F: "Oh shiiiit, if any of you ever lose a leg have I got a present for you, I bet Alvira and I could make this work"
• J: "That's....really cool actually"
• F: "We could amputate your leg right now!!"
• J: ".....is it bad that I'm tempted"
• We toss around the joke of giving Gregory a cyborg leg, eventually turning him into a full-on cyborg
• (G: "I keep losing time and waking up in an unfamiliar place with pieces of my body missing....what's happening to me"
• (J: "Shh, shh, it's okay.....does this smell like chloroform?")
• Strudel also makes the offer that if we give a piece of ourselves, he can give us power in return: "these pools are used to generate life....will one of you give me your pinky?"
• F: "Uh....like permanently?"
• S: "Yes, otherwise how would it work? Hair is not permanent enough"
• D: "Hey Fritz! Give him your eye! It doesn't work anyway."
• F: *horrified* "........Drant"
• D: "It's not like you'd miss it"
• F: "Maybe, like....a tooth instead?"
• Alvira gives a tooth, anesthetizes herself (somewhat poorly), Fritz pulls it (somewhat poorly, she's in withdrawal bloody and a lot of pain but it's fine
• Gregory is creeped out by all the cult-ish stuff and nopes the fuck out, Jalan actually joins him
• Drant starts calculating how many limbs he can afford to donate for Ultimate PowerTM
• There's some back and forth with the DM over if and how he can remove his own arm; Fritz flat out refuses to help him pull it off
• D: "But you're so stronk"
• F: "I am not helping you, that's like enabling you. This is the fourth cult in three days you've tried to join"
• S: "Excuse me? A cult? I am not a cult, but I am fairly interested in what else you've encountered"
• F: "You bathed in blood acid for Morpheus. You nearly got killed by Morpheus for joining Heimdall. You apparently joined this tentacle-face's hive mind club too? Like what? Now you're tearing off your literal limbs for the promise of some power. Drant, buddy, I gotta stage an intervention"
• D: "first of all, Heimdall is the reason we won this fight. Second, Morpheus's people were so convincing"
• F: "and that's exactly what you're gonna say about this dude two months down the road when this bites you in the ass. No, I am not helping you. I won't stop you, I promised I'd never do that, but I won't help you"
• O: "Oh it's buddy, let me help you -"
• Pats Drant on the back, tries to rip his arm off - rolls a 4.
• O: "But my deception's really high!" (F: "That's not how that works")
• O: "Can I sleight of hand steal it off him?" (DM: "No." O: *rolls anyway*)
• Alvira eventually surgeries his arm off fairly well, Strudel asks for any last takers - takes Alvira's tooth and Drant's arm over to one of the pools and does some magicky stuff, then brings them both back
• S: "These are infused with the vitality in these pools. As long as you keep these safe and a short distance away from your person, if you ever drop below a certain health threshold these will imbue you with life to even the balance"
• (mechanically, if you're below 25% health, you will heal 5hp per round until full)
• Drant's a little disappointed, most of the hp he loses is his max hp so this doesn't really help - Strudel doesn't seem too apologetic
• Strudel asks if there's anything else we would ask of him, Fritz hands him an empty energy crystal (also from the cyborg) and asks him if he can do anything cool with it, he looks at it a little weird then touches it and says - "it's full now"
• F: "oh-....oh. Okay. thanks"

Plot type

Session

Parent Plot

Act 3: Cults and Companions