A Tale of Two Steves
Dramatis Personae:
Winry Steamgear, the Rock Gnome Alchemist Artificer
"Critical" Bumbersnoot, Winry's Dachshund Mechanimal Construct
Mara Quinn, the Water Genasi Werewolf Sea Sorceress
Steve, Quinn's Octopus familiar
Oskar Heartforge, the Shield Dwarf Werewolf Priest of Moradin
Jak Foostus, the Minotaur Monk
NOTE: Things will be mostly from Winry's perspective, anything in italics is from a third party view, since the artificer can't be everywhere at once.
***** Tarsahk 20, 1489 DR (The Year of the Warrior Princess), White Plume Mountain
When we woke up from our rest, a voice in my head said "Neural Assist Tactical Arms System neural link established. NATAS systems at 25%, semi-automatic mode enabled." It felt almost like I was thinking that, but I had no idea what the Hells any of that was about. I was hella confused and spazzed out a little bit.
NATAS is the odd energy gun Winry acquired in the ship at the top of the mountain; it has an artificial intelligence that links with its owner. It hadn't been able to connect with Winry earlier because it had to repair her when the chest bursters were in her, thus preventing it from repairing itself.
It seems that this morning was the day for freak outs. Oskar started hitting himself over and over while laughing manically. Apparently the armor he'd taken from Sir Balto gave him regeneration powers, and he was testing them out. On top of all of that, Wave was still fucking singing sea shanties. The stupid trident hadn't stopped singing since we found Blackrazor.
Eventually we headed back out to go find the warhammer- the final item the Coldfire Initiative had hired us to acquire. When we got back to the stupid fucking frictionless hallway and started discussing going back through it, I remembered that Wave has a cube of force, that we could use to get across with ease. Would have been nice if Quinn had remembered it the first time we went through here- you know, when we wouldn't have had to spend five fucking hours trying to cross that stupid thing, with Quinn and Jak taking a nasty beating in the process. So, she set up her cube of force, piled in, and started sliding across. Bumbersnoot tumbled a bit, hurting himself and Jak in the process; and Quinn tripped when we went over the second pit and hurt herself pretty bad.
Next we had to get through the heated hallway again. I got Quinn to empty her bag of holding so we could do this quicker; of course she was pissed, how dare we want her to use her bag for something other than her stupid octopus. I stripped and stuck Bumbersnoot in my bag, then went across with Jak so we could guard us as he made all the trips across. About halfway through the hallway, I felt like I was burning- as if there was metal in my body. I jumped in my bag for the rest of the way, since I didn't want to get hurt.
Winry was heating up because part of her bond with NATAS includes her being injected with nanites- while they hadn't affected Winry before, because NATAS hadn't fully linked with her yet, but now that it had repaired enough to connect, there were enough nanites in the gnome for the heated hallway to cause her pain.
When we got back to the cross path again, where we'd encountered the gynosphinx before, and we realized we couldn't take all of our loot into that submerged path again. We decided to stash it in the gynosphinx's lair- but there was a hella heavy stone slab on it. So we used my lift system, and combined with Jak and Oskar's strength, we were able to move the slab.
Once our stuff was stashed, Quinn gave us all water breathing, and deactivated water walk, so we could actually walk into the submerged hall. After a few feet, Blackrazor announced to us that Jak had been hit with acid. Oskar had us all back up, and once we were out of the water we saw that Jak was covered in green slime. Quinn helped clear the slime off of Jak, and stormed off, bitching that we're all useless in water; as if that should be fucking surprising. She cleared the slime by freezing it, then came back and got us.
After a bit, the hallway branched off into two paths. We chose the path on the right, and eventually came upon a door- just a normal looking wooden door that was bound in iron, and swollen from the water. As we reached it, Jak stepped on a loose floor tile, and he spazzed out and attacked the door. He hacked at it for a little bit before getting it open, and as soon as it opened all of the water in the hall behind us whooshed past us and into the room, where it drained out. As soon as we walked into the room the door reassembled itself, slammed shut, and locked. That was just fanfuckingtastic. In the room were nine silvered glass spheres suspended by chains. As we began deliberating our options for dealing with the spheres, Oskar chucked him hammer at one of them, shattering it. Jewelry and gold rained down upon us, as a mini tornado emerged from the globe, and went right for us- it was a hella pissed air elemental.
The elemental took a vaguely humanoid form and swung at Oskar. Oskar responded by activating his spirit weapon and spirit guardians. Quinn blinked, of course, and Bumbersnoot bit it- though he couldn't really trip it. I missed with my energy gun, and right after Jak pounded on it- which was a little weird, since he was basically beating the crap out of air- it created a whirlwind that hit Bumbersnoot, Jak, and I, and in its swirling rage it hit the release valve on Bumbersnoot's saddle, sending me flying. Oskar hit it with his spirit weapon and his regular weapon, and Jak finished it off. I hoped there weren't eight more of those in those globes. Bumbersnoot fished a key that had fallen from the globe out of the muck that covered the floor of the room- but it wasn't the right key.
Oskar hurled his hammer at another globe, and a ring and a key fell out, but thankfully, there was no angry elemental this time. However, a voice rang out in all of our heads ""Stop before you put me on. I confer the following powers upon my wearer: invisibility, haste, immunity to charms, fly once per day, detect magic, and one wish. I also provide the benefits of protection and spell turning. The only drawback is that once a year I permanently eat a small part of your life. I must be worn before I can leave this room; merely carrying me away is not possible. If ever I am removed from my wearer's finger, however, all my powers are lost. So you must decide right now who will wear me forever."*
I was curious about this ring, but the others just shrugged and went back to breaking globes. The ring said it could make Bumbersnoot fly too, and it seemed pretty cool, so I put it on. It said its name was Steve, which annoyed Quinn- apparently the bubble head thinks that Steve is a ridiculous name for anything except her octopus. As another random thing dropped in the muck, Quinn flipped out and decided to destroy the water in the floor- turning the muddy ground into hard packed dirt, that we were all now stuck in. Bumbersnoot hurt his leg when he tried to get out, so I had to help him get out. Quinn flipped out even more because her feet were stuck in the dirt and set off a thunderwave... hitting Bumbersnoot and I, and it didn't even break her free. Fucking hell, she's losing her gods damned mind. Once we'd gotten her free, having broken all of the globes, we found the proper key. I grabbed Steve the ring, who was hella cool, and we continued on our path.
We eventually reached another bloated wooden door, and as usual we had Jak bust it open. In this room were five flesh golems that were clustered together against a wall. They each had a number on their chest: 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13. Number five announced "One of us does not belong with the others. If you can pick it out, it will serve you, and the others will allow you passage. If you pick the wrong one, we will kill you. You have sixty seconds." Jak spouted out the answer before I could- number 9 was the odd one, because unlike the others, it wasn't a prime number. We now had golem number 9 following us to aid us in this area.
We continued on our way with our new golem following us, and after going down a short flight of stairs we came upon a turnstile, which was kinda annoying, because it wasn't easy to fit Bumbersnoot or the golem in it, but we all made it through. After another short hallway, we came to another door, which opened onto a stone platform in a large cave. On the opposite side in the distance was another stone platform, and standing between us and it was a series of wooden disks that were suspended from the ceiling by massive steel chains. Under the disks was a pool of boiling mud. Fuck. I tried to activate fly on Steve the ring, but nothing happened. He didn't even respond to me. Maybe this room has another issue like the frictionless hallway that suppresses magical means of crossing.
The best option we had for getting across these stupid disks was using my zipline to support us as we crossed. Jak decided he'd take it across, since he would have the easiest time with it. We had the golem hold the end on this side to keep it secure, and Jak began bouncing across the way. The disks and chains were slippery, because this place was designed by a giant douche nozzle. When Jak was about halfway across, a geyser of boiling mud exploded near him; another one followed before he reached the other side.
Quinn went next, and like most things, this didn't go well for her. She fell when she was almost there, and Jak- deciding to be helpful- tossed a ball of Sir Balto goo into the mud to try to cushion Quinn's fall. She misty stepped back onto the disk, and then fell again, this time activating a cube of force before plummeting into the scalding mud.
Oskar went after Quinn, and slipped when he was almost there, so he banished himself. Jak got a rope to Quinn and pulled her out of the muck. I shrunk Bumbersnoot and stuck him in my satchel of holding and jumped across the platforms- thankfully, my new boots helped me get over there without much trouble- I slipped a couple of times, but I caught myself, except for the very last platform, but Jak caught me that time. After I got situated, Oskar reappeared and got himself the rest of the way across those stupid disks. I tied the rope off with pitons on this side, and we left the golem on the other side holding the rope.
We busted through the bloated door on this side, and found a long hallway on the other side. At the end of the hallway was yet another door, and it opened into complete darkness. Oskar cast a daylight spell to cancel the darkness, and we saw a stone coffin in the room. Bumbersnoot drug the lid off the coffin, and found it empty, except for a single stone pillow. Then the darkness returned.
Bats began fluttering around us, attacking us viciously. I was hurt badly almost right away, and I couldn't see anything. I heard the distinct crack of thunder that signified Quinn's thunderwave spell- Jak called out that she missed. When Quinn cast thunderwave her wild magic went off, casting darkness again- the room now had two darkness spells overlapping it, which would prove difficult for the party to regain their sight in the room. Oskar called out that he was dispelling the darkness, but nothing happened; the vampire must have made it a stronger spell than Oskar could handle.
Oskar smashed the coffin and found the treasure underneath it, grabbed Whelm- the warhammer they'd been hired to find, a dwarven artifact. Bumbersnoot snapped blindly at the air, getting some of the bats, but it was hard for him to be terribly effective when we couldn't see. We backed up to the door, trying to get out of the darkness, but the fucking door was shut and the door was locked. I was able to get it picked blindly, and we all piled out of the room. Apparently Quinn had gone down at some point in the chaos, but Oskar managed to find her and revive her. Oskar said he'd scared the vampire away, which would give us a moment to regroup.
I chucked a couple of my exploding mice into the room, but Oskar and Jak had come to the conclusion that the vampire was gone. Oskar sent him a taunting sending, but he didn't come back. Badly injured, we shut ourselves into the hallway to rest. First Oskar got rid of the darkness in the room so we could claim the treasure in it, and I relocked the door.
When we were rested, we headed back across the disks dangling over the boiling mud. I didn't want to leave behind my rope, it was the weird rope I'd gotten from the ship in the mountain. We all made it back across with ease this time, and since Oskar couple apparently now fly, he was able to collect my rope once we'd all crossed.
We made it back to the cross path unmolested, but once we got there we were locked into the intersection by a wall of force, and a voice rang out: "Not thinking of leaving, are you? You've been so very entertaining. I just couldn't think of letting you go, especially with those little items of mine. And since you've eliminated all of their guardians, why, you'll simply have to stay... to take their places. I'll have to ask you to leave all of your ridiculous weapons behind and let Nix and Nox escort you to the Indoctrination Center. I'll be most disappointed if you cause me any trouble and Nix and Nox have to eliminate you. Don't worry- you'll like it here."* Two efreet approached us, one slightly bigger than the other.
The smaller one took a swipe at Bumbersnoot, but it thankfully missed. The bigger one hit Jak, and then when it swiped at him again, it stumbled, allowing Bumbersnoot and I to hit it. Bumbersnoot scored another bite on it, and I missed with my gun; Quinn blinked away, and Jak grappled the big efreet. Oskar's spirit guardians activated just before two walls of fire sprang up- one of which hurt me hella bad. Bumbersnoot bit the big efreet again, and I hit once with my gun, and missed a couple more times; then the wall of fire hit me again.
Quinn reappeared and shot ice bolts at them, and then was suddenly covered in thorns... That was fucking weird. Then, because Quinn covered in thorns wasn't weird enough, Jak suddenly impaled himself with Blackrazor, stabbing the big efreet in the process, and Jak went down. Oskar healed my wounds and revived Jak, and then he got rid of the walls of force and fire, so we weren't as pinned down. Bumbersnoot was in bad shape too, so I had him back out of attack range of the efreets so I could give him a butterfly to heal him a little bit.
Oskar gently got Blackrazor off of Jak so he could heal him, while Quinn shot more ice bolts. Then the asshole efreets summoned fire elementals. Jak dropped again, so I had Bumbersnoot run us up to him, I revived him, and had Bumbersnoot retreat to safety. My puppy was way too hurt for me to have him right in melee range, especially with these fuckers. I really need to come up with a way to heal him. Quinn dumped a bunch of water on the elementals, which did absolutely nothing. Jak took out one of the elementals and the smaller efreet.
The remaining elemental walked through Jak, Oskar, Bumbersnoot, and I- it hurt hella bad. The big efreet turned into smoke and attempted to flow into Jak, I'm not entirely sure it it worked. Bumbersnoot bit the elemental, and I shot it a couple times with my gun, then scored an awesome hit with my daring sir. Oskar banished Jak and the efreet, while I shot the Hells out of the elemental, finishing it off. When Oskar canceled the banishment spell, Jak returned without the efreet.
Mad cackling echoed throughout the entire dungeon, then war cries rang out, coming from all directions. We hurried up to the gynosphinx's lair to get our stuff, and found two gargoyles waiting for us. A metal clanking sound came from somewhere in the dungeon, and we heard water flowing. That didn't sound good, but we weren't leaving that stuff behind, we just had to kill those two gargoyles. We killed them with ease.
The water in the tunnels below us was rising rapidly, so we decided to get out while we still could. We made it out before the water completely filled the area. We were all in bad shape, and I really needed to repair Bumbersnoot. We decided to return to the captain's quarters, but when we got close we discovered a campfire inside it. Oskar flew into it and scared the crap out of them. There was a human woman, and two younger girls- teens- with her, along with an older man who was sick and dying. Of course Oskar wanted to help them man, and the girls accepted, though they were definitely uncomfortable with it.
We heard hunting horns ring out from outside, and the girls became terrified. They said they were being hunted, but they didn't know why. Jak and I went out to scout the hunters while Oskar and Quinn figured out what the Hells to do. There were about three score out there, and we were in no shape to deal with them. The girls told Oskar that they needed to get to Luskan, and their father told them the needed to run. We prepped the bundle of loot Jak had been dragging, and set up a way to attached the father to it, but before we finished we heard a wail of anguish from inside the room- the man had died. Oskar revivified the father, and he instantly cried out in pain, then passed out. I healed him to ease his pain and we got him set up. Oskar said he'd distract the hunters while we got the girls out of there- and he didn't really give us a choice in the matter. I gave him a humming bird to boost his speed when he was ready to catch up with us.
The hunters demanded the girls from Oskar, but before he could really respond, a black dragon flew over the crowd, and breathed a yellowish cloud at the hunters. It was a xenomorph dragon, it turns out some of them had escaped when the group blew up the ship. With the hunters distracted by the xenomorph, Oskar was able to flee and catch up to the party.
After a couple hours of travel we came across the remains of the red dragon, with a hole in its chest... just like the hole in Quinn's chest from the snake thingy back in the ship. Well, at least we didn't have to worry about it taking our loot. I caught it in a bottle, thinking Professor Jackass would like to study the affects up close.
When we stopped to make camp, the girl's father was dead again. Oskar said he'd died from exhaustion. Oskar and I slipped away to talk about this weird ass situation we'd found ourselves in, and we spoke in dwarvish so the girls couldn't understand us. I had found a Harper pin on the father, which could be important. Oskar said he thought the girls were nobles of some sort, based on the dress of the hunters and their horses. We decided to keep everyone away from the body for the night and Oskar would take a better look at it in the morning before everyone got up.
We learned the girl's names were Carmina, Amara, and Sylvia. They asked for our aid to get them to Luskan.
I took third watch and Oskar took fourth so we could proceed with Oskar's plan. About an hour and a half into my watch- shortly before sunrise- the girls got up and said they had to bury their father with the dawn. I told Bumbersnoot in gnomish to get Oskar, but Amara insisted we should just go do it, and I couldn't say no to her. We got him buried as the sun rose.
*This content is a quote from the White Plume Mountain adventure in "Tales from the Yawning Portal" by Wizards of the Coast.
When we woke up from our rest, a voice in my head said "Neural Assist Tactical Arms System neural link established. NATAS systems at 25%, semi-automatic mode enabled." It felt almost like I was thinking that, but I had no idea what the Hells any of that was about. I was hella confused and spazzed out a little bit.
NATAS is the odd energy gun Winry acquired in the ship at the top of the mountain; it has an artificial intelligence that links with its owner. It hadn't been able to connect with Winry earlier because it had to repair her when the chest bursters were in her, thus preventing it from repairing itself.
It seems that this morning was the day for freak outs. Oskar started hitting himself over and over while laughing manically. Apparently the armor he'd taken from Sir Balto gave him regeneration powers, and he was testing them out. On top of all of that, Wave was still fucking singing sea shanties. The stupid trident hadn't stopped singing since we found Blackrazor.
Eventually we headed back out to go find the warhammer- the final item the Coldfire Initiative had hired us to acquire. When we got back to the stupid fucking frictionless hallway and started discussing going back through it, I remembered that Wave has a cube of force, that we could use to get across with ease. Would have been nice if Quinn had remembered it the first time we went through here- you know, when we wouldn't have had to spend five fucking hours trying to cross that stupid thing, with Quinn and Jak taking a nasty beating in the process. So, she set up her cube of force, piled in, and started sliding across. Bumbersnoot tumbled a bit, hurting himself and Jak in the process; and Quinn tripped when we went over the second pit and hurt herself pretty bad.
Next we had to get through the heated hallway again. I got Quinn to empty her bag of holding so we could do this quicker; of course she was pissed, how dare we want her to use her bag for something other than her stupid octopus. I stripped and stuck Bumbersnoot in my bag, then went across with Jak so we could guard us as he made all the trips across. About halfway through the hallway, I felt like I was burning- as if there was metal in my body. I jumped in my bag for the rest of the way, since I didn't want to get hurt.
Winry was heating up because part of her bond with NATAS includes her being injected with nanites- while they hadn't affected Winry before, because NATAS hadn't fully linked with her yet, but now that it had repaired enough to connect, there were enough nanites in the gnome for the heated hallway to cause her pain.
When we got back to the cross path again, where we'd encountered the gynosphinx before, and we realized we couldn't take all of our loot into that submerged path again. We decided to stash it in the gynosphinx's lair- but there was a hella heavy stone slab on it. So we used my lift system, and combined with Jak and Oskar's strength, we were able to move the slab.
Once our stuff was stashed, Quinn gave us all water breathing, and deactivated water walk, so we could actually walk into the submerged hall. After a few feet, Blackrazor announced to us that Jak had been hit with acid. Oskar had us all back up, and once we were out of the water we saw that Jak was covered in green slime. Quinn helped clear the slime off of Jak, and stormed off, bitching that we're all useless in water; as if that should be fucking surprising. She cleared the slime by freezing it, then came back and got us.
After a bit, the hallway branched off into two paths. We chose the path on the right, and eventually came upon a door- just a normal looking wooden door that was bound in iron, and swollen from the water. As we reached it, Jak stepped on a loose floor tile, and he spazzed out and attacked the door. He hacked at it for a little bit before getting it open, and as soon as it opened all of the water in the hall behind us whooshed past us and into the room, where it drained out. As soon as we walked into the room the door reassembled itself, slammed shut, and locked. That was just fanfuckingtastic. In the room were nine silvered glass spheres suspended by chains. As we began deliberating our options for dealing with the spheres, Oskar chucked him hammer at one of them, shattering it. Jewelry and gold rained down upon us, as a mini tornado emerged from the globe, and went right for us- it was a hella pissed air elemental.
The elemental took a vaguely humanoid form and swung at Oskar. Oskar responded by activating his spirit weapon and spirit guardians. Quinn blinked, of course, and Bumbersnoot bit it- though he couldn't really trip it. I missed with my energy gun, and right after Jak pounded on it- which was a little weird, since he was basically beating the crap out of air- it created a whirlwind that hit Bumbersnoot, Jak, and I, and in its swirling rage it hit the release valve on Bumbersnoot's saddle, sending me flying. Oskar hit it with his spirit weapon and his regular weapon, and Jak finished it off. I hoped there weren't eight more of those in those globes. Bumbersnoot fished a key that had fallen from the globe out of the muck that covered the floor of the room- but it wasn't the right key.
Oskar hurled his hammer at another globe, and a ring and a key fell out, but thankfully, there was no angry elemental this time. However, a voice rang out in all of our heads ""Stop before you put me on. I confer the following powers upon my wearer: invisibility, haste, immunity to charms, fly once per day, detect magic, and one wish. I also provide the benefits of protection and spell turning. The only drawback is that once a year I permanently eat a small part of your life. I must be worn before I can leave this room; merely carrying me away is not possible. If ever I am removed from my wearer's finger, however, all my powers are lost. So you must decide right now who will wear me forever."*
I was curious about this ring, but the others just shrugged and went back to breaking globes. The ring said it could make Bumbersnoot fly too, and it seemed pretty cool, so I put it on. It said its name was Steve, which annoyed Quinn- apparently the bubble head thinks that Steve is a ridiculous name for anything except her octopus. As another random thing dropped in the muck, Quinn flipped out and decided to destroy the water in the floor- turning the muddy ground into hard packed dirt, that we were all now stuck in. Bumbersnoot hurt his leg when he tried to get out, so I had to help him get out. Quinn flipped out even more because her feet were stuck in the dirt and set off a thunderwave... hitting Bumbersnoot and I, and it didn't even break her free. Fucking hell, she's losing her gods damned mind. Once we'd gotten her free, having broken all of the globes, we found the proper key. I grabbed Steve the ring, who was hella cool, and we continued on our path.
We eventually reached another bloated wooden door, and as usual we had Jak bust it open. In this room were five flesh golems that were clustered together against a wall. They each had a number on their chest: 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13. Number five announced "One of us does not belong with the others. If you can pick it out, it will serve you, and the others will allow you passage. If you pick the wrong one, we will kill you. You have sixty seconds." Jak spouted out the answer before I could- number 9 was the odd one, because unlike the others, it wasn't a prime number. We now had golem number 9 following us to aid us in this area.
We continued on our way with our new golem following us, and after going down a short flight of stairs we came upon a turnstile, which was kinda annoying, because it wasn't easy to fit Bumbersnoot or the golem in it, but we all made it through. After another short hallway, we came to another door, which opened onto a stone platform in a large cave. On the opposite side in the distance was another stone platform, and standing between us and it was a series of wooden disks that were suspended from the ceiling by massive steel chains. Under the disks was a pool of boiling mud. Fuck. I tried to activate fly on Steve the ring, but nothing happened. He didn't even respond to me. Maybe this room has another issue like the frictionless hallway that suppresses magical means of crossing.
The best option we had for getting across these stupid disks was using my zipline to support us as we crossed. Jak decided he'd take it across, since he would have the easiest time with it. We had the golem hold the end on this side to keep it secure, and Jak began bouncing across the way. The disks and chains were slippery, because this place was designed by a giant douche nozzle. When Jak was about halfway across, a geyser of boiling mud exploded near him; another one followed before he reached the other side.
Quinn went next, and like most things, this didn't go well for her. She fell when she was almost there, and Jak- deciding to be helpful- tossed a ball of Sir Balto goo into the mud to try to cushion Quinn's fall. She misty stepped back onto the disk, and then fell again, this time activating a cube of force before plummeting into the scalding mud.
Oskar went after Quinn, and slipped when he was almost there, so he banished himself. Jak got a rope to Quinn and pulled her out of the muck. I shrunk Bumbersnoot and stuck him in my satchel of holding and jumped across the platforms- thankfully, my new boots helped me get over there without much trouble- I slipped a couple of times, but I caught myself, except for the very last platform, but Jak caught me that time. After I got situated, Oskar reappeared and got himself the rest of the way across those stupid disks. I tied the rope off with pitons on this side, and we left the golem on the other side holding the rope.
We busted through the bloated door on this side, and found a long hallway on the other side. At the end of the hallway was yet another door, and it opened into complete darkness. Oskar cast a daylight spell to cancel the darkness, and we saw a stone coffin in the room. Bumbersnoot drug the lid off the coffin, and found it empty, except for a single stone pillow. Then the darkness returned.
Bats began fluttering around us, attacking us viciously. I was hurt badly almost right away, and I couldn't see anything. I heard the distinct crack of thunder that signified Quinn's thunderwave spell- Jak called out that she missed. When Quinn cast thunderwave her wild magic went off, casting darkness again- the room now had two darkness spells overlapping it, which would prove difficult for the party to regain their sight in the room. Oskar called out that he was dispelling the darkness, but nothing happened; the vampire must have made it a stronger spell than Oskar could handle.
Oskar smashed the coffin and found the treasure underneath it, grabbed Whelm- the warhammer they'd been hired to find, a dwarven artifact. Bumbersnoot snapped blindly at the air, getting some of the bats, but it was hard for him to be terribly effective when we couldn't see. We backed up to the door, trying to get out of the darkness, but the fucking door was shut and the door was locked. I was able to get it picked blindly, and we all piled out of the room. Apparently Quinn had gone down at some point in the chaos, but Oskar managed to find her and revive her. Oskar said he'd scared the vampire away, which would give us a moment to regroup.
I chucked a couple of my exploding mice into the room, but Oskar and Jak had come to the conclusion that the vampire was gone. Oskar sent him a taunting sending, but he didn't come back. Badly injured, we shut ourselves into the hallway to rest. First Oskar got rid of the darkness in the room so we could claim the treasure in it, and I relocked the door.
When we were rested, we headed back across the disks dangling over the boiling mud. I didn't want to leave behind my rope, it was the weird rope I'd gotten from the ship in the mountain. We all made it back across with ease this time, and since Oskar couple apparently now fly, he was able to collect my rope once we'd all crossed.
We made it back to the cross path unmolested, but once we got there we were locked into the intersection by a wall of force, and a voice rang out: "Not thinking of leaving, are you? You've been so very entertaining. I just couldn't think of letting you go, especially with those little items of mine. And since you've eliminated all of their guardians, why, you'll simply have to stay... to take their places. I'll have to ask you to leave all of your ridiculous weapons behind and let Nix and Nox escort you to the Indoctrination Center. I'll be most disappointed if you cause me any trouble and Nix and Nox have to eliminate you. Don't worry- you'll like it here."* Two efreet approached us, one slightly bigger than the other.
The smaller one took a swipe at Bumbersnoot, but it thankfully missed. The bigger one hit Jak, and then when it swiped at him again, it stumbled, allowing Bumbersnoot and I to hit it. Bumbersnoot scored another bite on it, and I missed with my gun; Quinn blinked away, and Jak grappled the big efreet. Oskar's spirit guardians activated just before two walls of fire sprang up- one of which hurt me hella bad. Bumbersnoot bit the big efreet again, and I hit once with my gun, and missed a couple more times; then the wall of fire hit me again.
Quinn reappeared and shot ice bolts at them, and then was suddenly covered in thorns... That was fucking weird. Then, because Quinn covered in thorns wasn't weird enough, Jak suddenly impaled himself with Blackrazor, stabbing the big efreet in the process, and Jak went down. Oskar healed my wounds and revived Jak, and then he got rid of the walls of force and fire, so we weren't as pinned down. Bumbersnoot was in bad shape too, so I had him back out of attack range of the efreets so I could give him a butterfly to heal him a little bit.
Oskar gently got Blackrazor off of Jak so he could heal him, while Quinn shot more ice bolts. Then the asshole efreets summoned fire elementals. Jak dropped again, so I had Bumbersnoot run us up to him, I revived him, and had Bumbersnoot retreat to safety. My puppy was way too hurt for me to have him right in melee range, especially with these fuckers. I really need to come up with a way to heal him. Quinn dumped a bunch of water on the elementals, which did absolutely nothing. Jak took out one of the elementals and the smaller efreet.
The remaining elemental walked through Jak, Oskar, Bumbersnoot, and I- it hurt hella bad. The big efreet turned into smoke and attempted to flow into Jak, I'm not entirely sure it it worked. Bumbersnoot bit the elemental, and I shot it a couple times with my gun, then scored an awesome hit with my daring sir. Oskar banished Jak and the efreet, while I shot the Hells out of the elemental, finishing it off. When Oskar canceled the banishment spell, Jak returned without the efreet.
Mad cackling echoed throughout the entire dungeon, then war cries rang out, coming from all directions. We hurried up to the gynosphinx's lair to get our stuff, and found two gargoyles waiting for us. A metal clanking sound came from somewhere in the dungeon, and we heard water flowing. That didn't sound good, but we weren't leaving that stuff behind, we just had to kill those two gargoyles. We killed them with ease.
The water in the tunnels below us was rising rapidly, so we decided to get out while we still could. We made it out before the water completely filled the area. We were all in bad shape, and I really needed to repair Bumbersnoot. We decided to return to the captain's quarters, but when we got close we discovered a campfire inside it. Oskar flew into it and scared the crap out of them. There was a human woman, and two younger girls- teens- with her, along with an older man who was sick and dying. Of course Oskar wanted to help them man, and the girls accepted, though they were definitely uncomfortable with it.
We heard hunting horns ring out from outside, and the girls became terrified. They said they were being hunted, but they didn't know why. Jak and I went out to scout the hunters while Oskar and Quinn figured out what the Hells to do. There were about three score out there, and we were in no shape to deal with them. The girls told Oskar that they needed to get to Luskan, and their father told them the needed to run. We prepped the bundle of loot Jak had been dragging, and set up a way to attached the father to it, but before we finished we heard a wail of anguish from inside the room- the man had died. Oskar revivified the father, and he instantly cried out in pain, then passed out. I healed him to ease his pain and we got him set up. Oskar said he'd distract the hunters while we got the girls out of there- and he didn't really give us a choice in the matter. I gave him a humming bird to boost his speed when he was ready to catch up with us.
The hunters demanded the girls from Oskar, but before he could really respond, a black dragon flew over the crowd, and breathed a yellowish cloud at the hunters. It was a xenomorph dragon, it turns out some of them had escaped when the group blew up the ship. With the hunters distracted by the xenomorph, Oskar was able to flee and catch up to the party.
After a couple hours of travel we came across the remains of the red dragon, with a hole in its chest... just like the hole in Quinn's chest from the snake thingy back in the ship. Well, at least we didn't have to worry about it taking our loot. I caught it in a bottle, thinking Professor Jackass would like to study the affects up close.
When we stopped to make camp, the girl's father was dead again. Oskar said he'd died from exhaustion. Oskar and I slipped away to talk about this weird ass situation we'd found ourselves in, and we spoke in dwarvish so the girls couldn't understand us. I had found a Harper pin on the father, which could be important. Oskar said he thought the girls were nobles of some sort, based on the dress of the hunters and their horses. We decided to keep everyone away from the body for the night and Oskar would take a better look at it in the morning before everyone got up.
We learned the girl's names were Carmina, Amara, and Sylvia. They asked for our aid to get them to Luskan.
I took third watch and Oskar took fourth so we could proceed with Oskar's plan. About an hour and a half into my watch- shortly before sunrise- the girls got up and said they had to bury their father with the dawn. I told Bumbersnoot in gnomish to get Oskar, but Amara insisted we should just go do it, and I couldn't say no to her. We got him buried as the sun rose.
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| Map from "Tales from the Yawning Portal" by Wizards of the Coast |
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| Map from "Tales from the Yawning Portal" by Wizards of the Coast |
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