Session 55 - What An Embarrassing Way To Die
2nd September 2022 - 20:00 - 11:00
In-game timeline: Start of session: 1489DR Nightal 3. End of session: 1489DR Nightal 3
Our "Heroes" awake in a dark room, stripped of any weapons, equipment or useful items, and most of their clothes. Lights are lit, the room is searched, Iwee passes on information about what she heard, and where she thinks they are.
The room appears to be a gruesome laboratory of sorts. There are two bodies on two tables. One seems to have been dissected, the other appears to have been constructed from different donors - one of which was the other body. A set of heavy, wooden doors seems to lead to a long-past cave-in, whilst the other doors are locked. Jaxii finds enough pieces of bandage and herbs amongst the rusty surgical tools to create a single healers kit, and the party decide to spend an hour resting, although the single healers kit only allows one person to recover some health. Karoshi, by the grace of his God, Moradin, manages to recover his pool of health (by spending his inspiration) and distributes them around the group.
Iwee picks up a glass bottle that seems to contain some form of strange mist, and Derrick finds a couple of notes that gave some hints as to what is going on in this place, and only serves to increase the urgency to find Poppy. But first our "Heroes" need to escape.
Iwee had overheard a password which supposedly ordered a "creature" that was guarding them outside, to unlock the door. Getting ready, they use this password and indeed hear the door being unlocked. Iwee pushes open the door.
Standing close by is a creature that seems to be formed from a number of different lizardfolk parts. As soon as it sees Iwee, it attacks and smashes Iwee into the opened door. Twice.
The fighters leap to her aid and join the fight, though without weapons or armour their effectiveness is limited. Just as it is looking very bad for the group - again - Iwee decides to smash the glass bottle with the mist inside. Its contents are revealed, initially only to Iwee - as the soul of a murdered creature. Grateful for its release, it Inspires Iwee and, on its way out of this plane of existence, reminds Iwee that perhaps she knows how to stop the creature from attacking?
Taking a little time to search her recent memory, Iwee remembers that she had heard a second password whilst being dragged down here - something she thought was just the creature's name. Quickly shouting it out, the creature stops attacking and the party, in very poor health once more, but at least all still alive, breathe a sigh of relief. They quickly find and don their armour and weapons that were piled nearby, as the creature walks back to its post and doesn't bother them again. For now.
They decide they need to press on, downward. This level seems to only contain the room they were in, the cave-in, and staircases leading up and down. They creep down, pausing only to admire the bas-relief carvings seeming to depict the ages-past Titan success in routing a Dragon city.
The level below leads to a room that seems set out for a lovely meal. Tempting fruit and sweetmeats are on a table and a cabinet of drinks stands in the corner. Derrick does not wait - he immediately tucks into the food. It tastes good, though he feels a little dizzy after such a long time of eating trail rations. After then guzzling some random clear liquid that Jaxii finds in the drinks cabinet, Derrick, and then the others, realises that the dizziness is not entirely due to poor diet, as he starts to become very relaxed and chilled out, losing all sense of urgency and, worryingly, desire to fight anything.
Derrick wanders over, casual and chilled, and opens one of the doors nearby - it is unlocked, and has a sign on it - "Lights!". As soon as Derrick opens it, the light from the room they are in seems to illuminate a concave mirror on the far wall, which focuses upon a candle, lighting it. This causes pretty lights to form on the floor in the tunnel before them as the candle illuminates some panes of stained glass in front of it. Derrick stares at the dancing lights, entranced. Iwee comes over and is nervous.
But she enters anyway. She doesn't get far before the dancing lights on the floor seem to rise up before her, forming three "knights" made entirely of coloured lights. They are pretty, but also pretty lethal, as one of them swings its light-longsword at Iwee, connecting and managing to cause damage despite being made only of light. Perhaps sensibly, Iwee turns and ran back out of the door, slamming it closed before any of the other knights could react.
Thinking that perhaps another route would be preferable, they try the other door in the room, but find it locked. A metal grate in the corner of the room looks liftable, and Iwee thinks she can hear some laughing and screaming coming from somewhere beyond the grate. As Derrick continues to be very chilled, Jaxii tries to lift the grate, though only manages it on the second attempt, after making quite a crash on her first attempt. Iwee calls down, trying to tempt whatever is down there to come up and meet them rather than head down into darkness.
The plan works, and a creature soon emerges. A humanoid of sorts, but one that is pierced by numerous hooks and chains about its body, and seemingly with large nails inserted up its back. It also wields two large chains, which end in rusty blades. He seems to swing these with great accuracy and obvious familiarity and skill.
The party try to make best use of their position above the grate, and do manage to get some crossbow shots into the creature's body - though from the look of him, he may actually enjoy the piercings! The creature lashes out with its long, bladed chains and manages to fell Jaxii with a well-aimed shot. Derrick laughs but does get involved in the fight. Despite being a little distracted by something he finds humorous, he manages, with the help of his inspiration, to shove the creature back down the grate as it emerges, which gives the party some well-needed advantage in the battle, though Derrick then seems frightened by something and runs off after making the shove. Jaxii is revived by Iwee but is once again very exhausted, and seems a little fed up at being so. After Karoshi and Derrick miss the creature, Iwee mocks him, saddening the creature. Karoshi and Derrick manage to gets some hits on him, with the help of action surge and Jaxii then gets her revenge by raging and landing the killing blow on the creature.
Iwee rushes down towards the sounds of screaming, fearful for her new-found sister, Poppy. The others follow - Derrick sauntering as he is in no real rush to go anywhere.
Iwee is met by a gruesome sight. A man's body is on a table - he is kneeling and is unbound, but is laughing, in spite of the cuts all over his body. An elven woman is screaming in a corner on the floor - she is bound to the wall by chains and manacles. A glowing device is on a table and seems to be attached to the man by a silver rope, as well as being attached to a strange metal cage via various pipes and cables. Iwee, without a thought, shoves the device off the table onto the floor, unfortunately taking some necrotic damage as soon as she touches the device. In addition, the device falling to the floor pulls the silver cable and the soul of the man on the table seems to be somehow physically pulled from his body at the end of the rope. As his physical body slumps to the table, his soul seems to drift over to the elf on the floor, and then fade into nothing.
As the others arrive into the room, they hunt around for things to help. They manage to find a key to free the elven woman, and Iwee looks into the metal cage, which seems to be shaped like a chair. Worryingly, the cage seems to contain a small humanoid. Derrick, keen to help but still a bit distracted, finds a key to unlock the cage, but is a bit too complacent when reaching in to unlock the cage and rips his arm quite badly. Badly enough to cause him to fall unconscious. Still, he did manage to unlock the cage, and Karoshi pulls Iwee's cut and heavily bruised sister, Poppy, from the hideous metal contraption. Jaxii, sympathetic as always, comments to a dying Derrick that it is such an embarrassing way to die.
Karoshi finds a couple of welcome healing potions - he gives one to Poppy who seems in dire need of some healing, and Derrick, who awakes from unconsciousness somewhat exhausted, but at least no longer affected by the debilitating drink he necked in the previous room. The group think about what to do next.
Derrick doesn't spend much time thinking, however, and decides to try to pry open the glowing device that had previously caused damage to Iwee when she knocked it over. It caused a similar amount of damage to Derrick. What a surprise.
And so we leave our "Heroes" in a dark, doorless room where hideous experiments seem to have been taking place. Poppy is alive, but in a bad shape. The same goes for Derrick. Jaxii seems to have lost her mojo and is fed up with being exhausted. The Elven woman, who turns out to be Suriel's mother, Starwyn, is distraught, though is trying to hold herself together and the thought that her daughter is alive is just about keeping her sane, despite seeing her husband's soul literally torn from his body before her eyes. The glowing device hums ominously on the floor where Iwee knocked it.
Things still do not look good for the party…