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Pathfinder 1e campaign - recap story - Session 17 (half T...
3 years ago
Session 17 - Hope Melts Away (AKA, killing 3 out of 6 PCs)
Mez’s vicious dagger left gouge marks across the tunnel carvings as the party crept forward. Logically to mark where they had been, but mostly to deface the fine carvings of an alien religion of holy consumption. Behind him followed the elven historian Glumrin, noting with ancient experience that many of these stone walls bore signs of having born different shapes; belonging to a different cult. This complex was carved from a previous lair built here long ago and only recently claimed by the aberrant eldritch mind’s minions. Perhaps this would not match much to our heroes on the hunt at the moment but these signs of death would be a portent for what they would find here this day.
The tunnel corridors twisted and often doubled back upon themselves. Our heroes trudged for several minutes before a strangely alluring scent alerted them they were nearing a chamber. The scent of rich food expertly prepared was not expected, and as they crept closer, they could see the glow of cookfires, feel the heat of ovens, and hear the sound of knives on cutting boards, ladles in stewpots, and the sizzle of oils. Wary of what they were getting into, the party paused to send a scout - with Masa unaccounted for, only Esme’s familiar Sparkle could be sneaky enough to take a peek and report back. With a gentle flap of fiery wings the phoenix-like bird took off down the tunnel to spy on the kitchen and scout its layout.
Unfortunately, Sparkle’s attempts to fly undetected were not successful. A hurled kitchen knife thudded into the ceiling near where she flew, signaling to the rest of the party to rush forward. They barreled down the tunnels and into an immense kitchen of exquisite design built to feed a thousand hungry bellies. A dozen chefs turned to face them in unison, each with a green tendril of slime emerging from their foreheads, a tiny chef’s hat perched atop each tendril. Two Intellect Devourers, dog-sized brains on four legs, lept onto counters to assail our heroes with psionic power. Scooping up knives and bottles of cooking oil, the Voidmind chefs attacked!
As knives and flame met steel and spell in the kitchen and tunnel entryway, a sudden explosion rocked the far side of the kitchen. Between two large brick ovens, a glassteel pipe burst open in a detonation of metal, flame, fuel and electrum. It was a dwarf-made rocket! The wall and ovens were destroyed as was the rocket, but from the wreckage lept, unharmed, Masa and Lugner Von Vorrath! The ninja and former lord-captain of the city watch leapt into the fray and fry in a pincer movement with our heroes. It seems the dwarves had made good on their promise and secured one of the entrances to the lair, sending their rocket with reinforcements to bust through any barriers. Masa began to carve into the chefs while Lugner demonstrated a new weapon he wielded - rather than two wakizashis, he gripped a fiendish double-weapon, a Dire Flail of cold iron. Infernal runes emblazoned on the haft glowed red, naming the weapon “Iron Loyalty.”
As the chefs fought, the limited impact of their knives quickly became apparent and so the overmind controlling them changed tactics. They began to toss cooking oils all over each party member or the floor, and a surge of psionic power wrapped the voidminds in a protective cloak against flame. Searing heat filled the room as the entire kitchen was filled with psionic power that maximized all flame effects - and while Esme’s fire spells benefited from this atmosphere change, the rest of our heroes felt their flesh cooking once the chefs set them alight. Damage to the kitchen seemed of secondary concern to the Voidminds and Intellect Devourers, particularly when even more psionic power flooded into the room to similarly maximize all acid effects - just in time for the voidminds to unleash the acidic slime from their empty skulls and try to reduce our heroes to their base ingredients. Such efforts, while harmful, were ultimately for naught, as spell and steel proved superior to chef and psionics. Half the kitchen was aflame, melted, or a general smashed wreck by the time the Mind Flayer’s minions were all slaughtered.
In one corner of the kitchen, apart from the preparation and cooking implements, sat a silver platter on a pedestal in a place of seeming religious reverence. Within was another Blessed Book, thin and small but containing thousands of pages. Inside, written in tiny alien script, were ten thousand recipes gleaned from nearly every race and culture across the continent and some beyond. Though the pages could be used by a wizard such as Sophie Claire to freely write spells, the nonmagical script of recipes would need to be copied elsewhere first and would likely fill a dozen tomes or more. Securing their prize and gladly reuniting with Masa, the party looked to the kitchen doors leading to another room. The chamber beyond was a great cafeteria, though it sat empty; the Voidminds had all been mobilized and sent topside to join the march under Niles Highreach’s command. This chamber was clear, and our heroes could advance to the next.
Striding down the next carved tunnel passage glassteel pipes along the tunnel walls pumped with green liquid. Mez continued to mark the party’s passage by gouging marks along the iconography of worlds, maws and tentacles. Sound was the next warning of the second chamber of the Brain Lair. A horrid, gurgling belch followed by the sound of pouring acid echoed down the tunnel. Our heroes reached a turn and a sudden cliff, looking down to see a great caldera filled with bubbling acid. The pool of acid stirred itself, as fat tendrils of translucent slime reached up from the pool below them to the stone ceiling above them; several twisted about a slender gray tentacle. Psionic energy pulsed from the tentacle into the slime periodically; but sound drew their attention down again. From the far side of the caldera on an alcove, a great Black Dragon lay supine, its long neck and head bent over the edge of the alcove. Its throat bulged and a great gout of acid poured into the acidic pool. Beneath its upturned skull, a tendril of acidic slime connected the dragon and the slime pool. It too was a Voidmind, and the source of such vast quantities of acidic goo! There was enough slime here to make thralls out of thousands, if not tens of thousands of sentient creatures.
The clank of our heroes’ weapons and armor roused the dragon and the acid ooze pool alike. The dragon stirred and flipped itself over, spreading its wings, though the tendril of slime in its skull looped around its neck several times. As the great black-scaled beast launched itself into the air, so too was it lifted by the slime tentacle, almost like a child raising a toy in violence. The dragon half flew, and was half thrown, towards our heroes in our tunnel, attempting to bull rush its way past the party’s front line. Yet the clumsiness of the attempt instead smashed it against the edge of the cliff, where it clung to the edge and snapped its acid-dripping jaws fiercely at Glumrin and Mez. Tir’istiana and Esme flew out past the dragon into the chamber above, attempting to hug the ceiling and gain vantage over the dragon and the colossal slime creature that comprised the entire acid pool. Though they avoided the dragon’s attacks, the huge tendrils of slime could still reach them, and repeatedly battered their flying bodies. Glumrin and Mez stood toe to claw with the dragon, the former defending the latter as he took mighty swings into the dragon’s form. Masa and Lugner Von Vorrath stood back, unable to get into the fray just yet; Sophie Claire realized the cramped space was a liability and so used powerful magic to create a magical passageway in the stone tunnel leading next to the dragon.
Mez, who had been taking the brunt of the dragon’s attacks and enduring them indominably, proclaimed he would move to the passageway Sophie Claire had opened and allow Masa to step forth. But the moment he turned to step away, the Voidmind dragon seized upon the opportunity to strike. Rearing its mighty head up and over Glumrin’s defending shield, the black dragon lunged forward and closed its great jaws over the barbarian’s head and torso all the way to his waist. With a sickening crunch, and a hiss of powerful acid, the black dragon bit Mez in half and ripped his torso clean off. Our heroes all paused in horror as the seemingly invulnerable rager had been devoured in an instant, his legs toppling to the stone floor. Witnessing such devastation delivered by a dragon activated a primal fear in all our heroes, its frightful presence so terrifying that it overrode Tir’isitiana’s better judgment. Her defenses compromised, she attempted to flee; only to be caught by the acidic ooze’s massive tendrils and crushed against the ceiling. Mere seconds after Mez fell, so too did she, her lifeless body dropping into the bubbling acid to be eaten away to nothing. Esme, though she had fought off the worst of the fear, could not withstand the series tendril attacks bludgeoning her body over the course of the fight and fell as well, dropping into the acid pool and dissolving away as her elven companion had.
Those remaining were appalled by the sudden turn of events and rapid loss of their companions. Even though Lugner stepped forth to combat the dragon in Mez’s place, our remaining protagonists quickly agreed it was time to leave. Sophie Claire conjured dimensional magic and reached out her hands to Masa and Glumrin. For a moment, it seemed that they would leave Lugner behind, but in the last instant, Masa extended their hand to their hated enemy and pulled the elder Von Vorrath along as they teleported a short distance away. Following the markings Mez had left behind, they quickly returned to the glassteel pipe they had crawled through to enter the lair, and squeezed their way back up it once more. They were done here; they needed to regain their strength and collect new allies before returning to finish the job. But the trauma of the harsh deaths of their three companions would stay with them for all time.
Returning to the third floor of the Courier’s Guild, Glumrin, Masa and Sophie Claire discussed where they should retreat to for rest and where they might find the strength of arms to follow them down into the Mind Flayer’s lair once more. Lugner Von Vorrath did not stick around; no sooner had they arrived up top did he toss a grappling hook through the hole in the Magister’s roof and climb up into the still ongoing blizzard. Masa sneered as he left but made no attempt to convince him to stay, and the others focused their attention on what their next steps might be.
Mez’s vicious dagger left gouge marks across the tunnel carvings as the party crept forward. Logically to mark where they had been, but mostly to deface the fine carvings of an alien religion of holy consumption. Behind him followed the elven historian Glumrin, noting with ancient experience that many of these stone walls bore signs of having born different shapes; belonging to a different cult. This complex was carved from a previous lair built here long ago and only recently claimed by the aberrant eldritch mind’s minions. Perhaps this would not match much to our heroes on the hunt at the moment but these signs of death would be a portent for what they would find here this day.
The tunnel corridors twisted and often doubled back upon themselves. Our heroes trudged for several minutes before a strangely alluring scent alerted them they were nearing a chamber. The scent of rich food expertly prepared was not expected, and as they crept closer, they could see the glow of cookfires, feel the heat of ovens, and hear the sound of knives on cutting boards, ladles in stewpots, and the sizzle of oils. Wary of what they were getting into, the party paused to send a scout - with Masa unaccounted for, only Esme’s familiar Sparkle could be sneaky enough to take a peek and report back. With a gentle flap of fiery wings the phoenix-like bird took off down the tunnel to spy on the kitchen and scout its layout.
Unfortunately, Sparkle’s attempts to fly undetected were not successful. A hurled kitchen knife thudded into the ceiling near where she flew, signaling to the rest of the party to rush forward. They barreled down the tunnels and into an immense kitchen of exquisite design built to feed a thousand hungry bellies. A dozen chefs turned to face them in unison, each with a green tendril of slime emerging from their foreheads, a tiny chef’s hat perched atop each tendril. Two Intellect Devourers, dog-sized brains on four legs, lept onto counters to assail our heroes with psionic power. Scooping up knives and bottles of cooking oil, the Voidmind chefs attacked!
As knives and flame met steel and spell in the kitchen and tunnel entryway, a sudden explosion rocked the far side of the kitchen. Between two large brick ovens, a glassteel pipe burst open in a detonation of metal, flame, fuel and electrum. It was a dwarf-made rocket! The wall and ovens were destroyed as was the rocket, but from the wreckage lept, unharmed, Masa and Lugner Von Vorrath! The ninja and former lord-captain of the city watch leapt into the fray and fry in a pincer movement with our heroes. It seems the dwarves had made good on their promise and secured one of the entrances to the lair, sending their rocket with reinforcements to bust through any barriers. Masa began to carve into the chefs while Lugner demonstrated a new weapon he wielded - rather than two wakizashis, he gripped a fiendish double-weapon, a Dire Flail of cold iron. Infernal runes emblazoned on the haft glowed red, naming the weapon “Iron Loyalty.”
As the chefs fought, the limited impact of their knives quickly became apparent and so the overmind controlling them changed tactics. They began to toss cooking oils all over each party member or the floor, and a surge of psionic power wrapped the voidminds in a protective cloak against flame. Searing heat filled the room as the entire kitchen was filled with psionic power that maximized all flame effects - and while Esme’s fire spells benefited from this atmosphere change, the rest of our heroes felt their flesh cooking once the chefs set them alight. Damage to the kitchen seemed of secondary concern to the Voidminds and Intellect Devourers, particularly when even more psionic power flooded into the room to similarly maximize all acid effects - just in time for the voidminds to unleash the acidic slime from their empty skulls and try to reduce our heroes to their base ingredients. Such efforts, while harmful, were ultimately for naught, as spell and steel proved superior to chef and psionics. Half the kitchen was aflame, melted, or a general smashed wreck by the time the Mind Flayer’s minions were all slaughtered.
In one corner of the kitchen, apart from the preparation and cooking implements, sat a silver platter on a pedestal in a place of seeming religious reverence. Within was another Blessed Book, thin and small but containing thousands of pages. Inside, written in tiny alien script, were ten thousand recipes gleaned from nearly every race and culture across the continent and some beyond. Though the pages could be used by a wizard such as Sophie Claire to freely write spells, the nonmagical script of recipes would need to be copied elsewhere first and would likely fill a dozen tomes or more. Securing their prize and gladly reuniting with Masa, the party looked to the kitchen doors leading to another room. The chamber beyond was a great cafeteria, though it sat empty; the Voidminds had all been mobilized and sent topside to join the march under Niles Highreach’s command. This chamber was clear, and our heroes could advance to the next.
Striding down the next carved tunnel passage glassteel pipes along the tunnel walls pumped with green liquid. Mez continued to mark the party’s passage by gouging marks along the iconography of worlds, maws and tentacles. Sound was the next warning of the second chamber of the Brain Lair. A horrid, gurgling belch followed by the sound of pouring acid echoed down the tunnel. Our heroes reached a turn and a sudden cliff, looking down to see a great caldera filled with bubbling acid. The pool of acid stirred itself, as fat tendrils of translucent slime reached up from the pool below them to the stone ceiling above them; several twisted about a slender gray tentacle. Psionic energy pulsed from the tentacle into the slime periodically; but sound drew their attention down again. From the far side of the caldera on an alcove, a great Black Dragon lay supine, its long neck and head bent over the edge of the alcove. Its throat bulged and a great gout of acid poured into the acidic pool. Beneath its upturned skull, a tendril of acidic slime connected the dragon and the slime pool. It too was a Voidmind, and the source of such vast quantities of acidic goo! There was enough slime here to make thralls out of thousands, if not tens of thousands of sentient creatures.
The clank of our heroes’ weapons and armor roused the dragon and the acid ooze pool alike. The dragon stirred and flipped itself over, spreading its wings, though the tendril of slime in its skull looped around its neck several times. As the great black-scaled beast launched itself into the air, so too was it lifted by the slime tentacle, almost like a child raising a toy in violence. The dragon half flew, and was half thrown, towards our heroes in our tunnel, attempting to bull rush its way past the party’s front line. Yet the clumsiness of the attempt instead smashed it against the edge of the cliff, where it clung to the edge and snapped its acid-dripping jaws fiercely at Glumrin and Mez. Tir’istiana and Esme flew out past the dragon into the chamber above, attempting to hug the ceiling and gain vantage over the dragon and the colossal slime creature that comprised the entire acid pool. Though they avoided the dragon’s attacks, the huge tendrils of slime could still reach them, and repeatedly battered their flying bodies. Glumrin and Mez stood toe to claw with the dragon, the former defending the latter as he took mighty swings into the dragon’s form. Masa and Lugner Von Vorrath stood back, unable to get into the fray just yet; Sophie Claire realized the cramped space was a liability and so used powerful magic to create a magical passageway in the stone tunnel leading next to the dragon.
Mez, who had been taking the brunt of the dragon’s attacks and enduring them indominably, proclaimed he would move to the passageway Sophie Claire had opened and allow Masa to step forth. But the moment he turned to step away, the Voidmind dragon seized upon the opportunity to strike. Rearing its mighty head up and over Glumrin’s defending shield, the black dragon lunged forward and closed its great jaws over the barbarian’s head and torso all the way to his waist. With a sickening crunch, and a hiss of powerful acid, the black dragon bit Mez in half and ripped his torso clean off. Our heroes all paused in horror as the seemingly invulnerable rager had been devoured in an instant, his legs toppling to the stone floor. Witnessing such devastation delivered by a dragon activated a primal fear in all our heroes, its frightful presence so terrifying that it overrode Tir’isitiana’s better judgment. Her defenses compromised, she attempted to flee; only to be caught by the acidic ooze’s massive tendrils and crushed against the ceiling. Mere seconds after Mez fell, so too did she, her lifeless body dropping into the bubbling acid to be eaten away to nothing. Esme, though she had fought off the worst of the fear, could not withstand the series tendril attacks bludgeoning her body over the course of the fight and fell as well, dropping into the acid pool and dissolving away as her elven companion had.
Those remaining were appalled by the sudden turn of events and rapid loss of their companions. Even though Lugner stepped forth to combat the dragon in Mez’s place, our remaining protagonists quickly agreed it was time to leave. Sophie Claire conjured dimensional magic and reached out her hands to Masa and Glumrin. For a moment, it seemed that they would leave Lugner behind, but in the last instant, Masa extended their hand to their hated enemy and pulled the elder Von Vorrath along as they teleported a short distance away. Following the markings Mez had left behind, they quickly returned to the glassteel pipe they had crawled through to enter the lair, and squeezed their way back up it once more. They were done here; they needed to regain their strength and collect new allies before returning to finish the job. But the trauma of the harsh deaths of their three companions would stay with them for all time.
Returning to the third floor of the Courier’s Guild, Glumrin, Masa and Sophie Claire discussed where they should retreat to for rest and where they might find the strength of arms to follow them down into the Mind Flayer’s lair once more. Lugner Von Vorrath did not stick around; no sooner had they arrived up top did he toss a grappling hook through the hole in the Magister’s roof and climb up into the still ongoing blizzard. Masa sneered as he left but made no attempt to convince him to stay, and the others focused their attention on what their next steps might be.
