Session 58: Dreadful Ends and Wily Wizards


 * Cornerio is a Monk Going His Own Way
 * Vikrit asks the valets if they saw Yanger leave, and they say no. We discuss whether to go to the quay or the toy store where we think the Stargazers are staying.
 * We know they can teleport with their necklaces, so we decide to go to the toy store to catch them before they possibly teleport to the quay.
 * It takes us a while to get to the abandoned toy store through the evening traffic, but we arrive. The windows are boarded from the inside.
 * Sarienne and Vikrit start looking around. Vanesse (Dan) slams on the door but it doesn't break. Sarienne tries it and realizes it's open.
 * Vikrit finds human footprints, something smaller like a halfling or gnome, and probably what are Dread's footprints. Sarienne puts him on the roof and he feels that the chimney is warm, still smoking. He stays on the roof.
 * Tork sends Venga in through a hole in the thatched roof; Mogen does the same with Shimmer. Sarienne cracks open the door to peek in; she sees that it is indeed an abandoned toy store: a cracked table, display tables covered in junk, etc. She can hear a clacking sound (Shimmer, exploring). She and Vanesse go inside; she can hear a faint sound like lapping water.
 * Everyone else goes inside. Vanesse opens the door to the next room and hears a clicking noise and a huge burst of color shoots out, hitting Vanesse, Sarienne, Venga, and Mogen. Vanesse takes 40 points of acid damage and sees a blaze of orange. Venga and Mogen get blasted with yellow lightning and do a ton of damage, Venga is destroyed and Mogen is at -10; Sarienne gets hit by bright blue and disappears. Vesun walks over to Mogen and heals her. Tork loses 1 spell per day.
 * Up on the ceiling, Vikrit can hear regular breathing. He reports this to the dazed Mogen, who stutters about the trap. Sarienne tries to touch Vanesse, and she shudders but can't seem to interact. Mogen goes into Shimmer's eyes; she can see a hallway, a moose's head, a chest, and a bunch of doors. Sarienne tries to open the door and rematerializes, pushing Vanesse back.
 * Messenger Apps: Vesun - Sarienne - Mogen - Vikrit
 * Sarienne and Vanesse go into the hallway; Sarienne notices the chest twitch. She backs up, and then Vanesse draws her sword dramatically… knocking the moose head onto the floor with a super loud crash. We hear movement coming from the rooms to the right and left.
 * ROLL INITIATIVE!
 * Vikrit attacks ineffectually. Sarienne attacks the mimic with her sickles and doesn't do a lot of damage. The mimic covers Sarienne in sticky goo. Vanesse slashes the mimic; Tork fries it with a lightning bolt (and also hits Vanesse).
 * Vesun whacks the mimic with the Cudgel of Clarity. We hear some more wooden thumps, and Dread busts through the left door. Vikrit runs up to Vanesse and heals her. Sarienne slices the mimic's tongue off and it dies. Tork gives Dread a Venga-grief-fueled thumbs down and hits him with a maximized Ray of Enfeeblement.
 * Mogen shoots her hand-canon… and rolls a 1, shooting Vesun in the ass with a sticky bun. He can't move, and Dread charges him and whacks him with the battleaxe, but Tork's debuff keeps it from doing any damage; he still takes damage from Dread's adamantine spikes. Burhan steps into the hallway with his dagger drawn, extremely confused, and he goes for his teleportation necklace. Vikrit nails him with 2 arrows. Sarienne dashes past Dread, getting nicked, and slashes Burhan.
 * Tork asks Vikrit if we want Burhan alive, and when he says "ideally but not necessary", blasts him with maximized magic missiles and he falls down. Mogen frees Vesun and apologizes profusely. Vesun Cure Criticals Vanesse.
 * Burhan scrambles back and asks, "Why are you doing this? How did you find us?!" Sarienne wags her finger at him and he teleports away. Dread rolls a 20 to slash and then a 1 to confirm, and only hits Vesun for 5 damage. Vesun suggests maybe he should change his name.
 * Then another mindflayer than Konstadin (Alexios) steps out of the room to our south, and everyone has to make a Will save… everyone saves but Vanesse.
 * "Vanesse, your mind goes blank." "WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?" She's stunned for 4 rounds.
 * Vikrit whirls around and hits Alexios with a couple of nasty arrows to the chest, pinning one of his tentacles, then scampers back. Tork blasts him to oblivion with the same maximized magic missiles and he falls, knocked out. Mogen shoots at Alexios, but doesn't hit. Vesun whacks Vanesse with the Cudgel of Clarity, then Dread on the backswing, but doesn't damage him. Vanesse comes to and gouges Dread in the torso. Dread roar-screams and swings at Vesun, slicing him slightly.
 * Vikrit dashes over to Alexios and coup-de-graces him, severing his head; he can see Yanger tied up in the room behind him. Sarienne uses her special gauntlets and sneak attacks Dread. Tork misses his Ray of Enfeeblement on Dread in the brawl. Mogen sends Shimmer into the room where Yanger is, and sees a pool of water. Yanger is chained up against the wall, heavily wounded; Shimmer starts on the chains. Vesun misses Dread, but Vanesse hits hard, then buries the sword into the wall with her second attack by accident. Dread fails to confirm on a crit again and does a glancing blow on Vesun.
 * Vikrit runs over to Yanger, bloody sword in hand, and heals him (poorly, but enough to awaken him). He is disoriented and asks here the creature is; Vikrit works on the chains. Sarienne finds a gap in Dread's armor and severs his head.
 * We work on freeing Yanger and Kalti.
 * Kalti is delighted to see Mogen. Yanger thanks us for saving them. Kalti reports that Jana and a half-elf left soon after they made Yanger send the message; he whispers that they did something to Yanger. Mogen checks Yanger over with the Magic Geiger Counter and doesn't detect anything psionic but doesn't know if that's just not detectable. Vesun gently taps Yanger on the horn with the cudgel and doesn't see any effect. Yanger says, "There's more than one of them…"
 * Mogen goes to look at the pool and sees something pinkish at the bottom… Sarienne sees that it's bits of a brain. Mogen reaches in to the water--it's warm--and fills a vial with it, then has Shimmer get some brain and puts it in another vial. There are also some dead bodies with open heads in the room, and some books--they're fake.
 * The rest of us poke around the building. Vanesse checks Burhan's room and doesn't find much (but apparently 2 people were in here). Vikrit takes Alexios's teleportation necklace. Mogen and Sarienne argue about cutting up Dread's corpse to take it with us.
 * We hear the sound of the front door opening. We get ready for combat (Vikrit summons a crocodile). Jana says, "Dare I venture into the Dreaming Dark?" and opens the door; it's her and Anna (disguised as a child).
 * Vikrit yells, "You're surrounded, stand down!" and sends the crocodile to the front. Jana backs up and raises her hands (one has a wand). Sarienne whips around the door and slashes Anna with her sickles, cutting her arm deeply. Jana puts her hand on her necklace and continues backing up, saying she wants to talk. The croc blocks Vanesse from going in, and Vesun tells her to go guard the back door. He stabilizes Anna as a show of good faith.
 * Jana asks where Burhan and Alexios are; we tell her and she seems relieved that Alexios is dead. She says it's not safe and tells us she will make a "safe space" for us outside. We cautiously follow. Vanesse breaks through her wall and gets outside. Yanger and Kalti agree to stay inside. A shimmering portal appears where Jana casts something.
 * We go through and see a stuffy old manor that looks kind of like the ir'Tain manor.
 * We all take a seat at the dining table. Vesun refuses the food served to him by magical servants.
 * She asks why we're trying to ruin her life. Vikrit blurts to ask why she's trying to destroy the world. Sarienne asks what she's doing with the gates. Jana says they weren't the first Stargazers, they've tried and failed many times before; we don't understand the power of Brazen but they should have been able to succeed… something else is going on. She says we haven't studied enough (including trigonometry), and that the word 'gate' is a misnomer; she says, "What if they aren't gates, but valves?" She says, "How do you move a plane of reality away? That would take immense power." She says that Brazen believes we can go back in time but it's impossible.
 * Mogen mentions Mavadtorop and that mindflayers have never shown up. She says not to trust him and that there's got to be a reason he's stuck in that cave lake. She then asks about 'the one who has Naveen's hammer' and we say we hope he's in hell. Jana suggests that we shouldn't kill Burhan, as he's the only other one she knows to be free of Konstadin's control. She says she was going to give up the others if we came to the docks. She reveals that this was only half of Konstadin's trap; he has sent Lenore to meet the queen, who has arrived early, tonight. Anna gave Lenore a very powerful Cloudkill poison for this; Jana says that she thinks Konstadin had a deal with someone (likely Darro) to do this.
 * Vesun asks Jana why she's betraying the Stargazers; she says she did make a deal with Brazen, but she ultimately wants to find the truth. She also points out that we've killed half of her team already and things aren't looking up for them. Vikrit asks her how she did 'thing with the book' (what Sarienne and Anna discussed re: hiding a part of yourself from the mindflayers) and she says it required expensive ingredients and powerful magic, and maybe our more intelligent members can understand.
 * Jana makes an offer: let her go unharmed, and when we inevitably meet in the Mror Holds, she will join the party in killing Konstadin. Then, we can discuss what to do with the gate, since she's not sure closing them (i.e. listening to the backwoods hicks/Gatekeepers) is the right solution.
 * She says that's her pitch, we can try to get a couple arrows in her but she'll get away with the necklace. Vesun agrees and she says "we'll talk again", then teleports away.
 * Vesun: "Is there anything else--oh shit, we gotta save the Queen!"
 * The spell ends as Jana leaves, and we are brought back to where we were before (outside the toy store).
 * Anna starts coming to. We tell her Jana abandoned her. She asks who we work for, and we give her the Ghost Shark rundown.
 * "You don't lie too good." "You don't look too good." "Thank you!"
 * Vanesse suggests maybe she was a different part of the plan than she thought, and she seems crestfallen. She asks what we want, Vikrit says to save the queen, whether there's a way to neutralize the poison. She says that other than magic, she doesn't know how to neutralize poisons, but she knows that Cloudkill is heavier than air. We ask what the mechanism of the poison is, and she says it's in a lead ampule that was given to Lenore.
 * She says Konstadin took Lenore somewhere upon learning they were compromised, and that he said he "didn't want to do it this way". He was very secretive and didn't discuss the assassination plan in any more detail.
 * Mogen asks what Anna wants, she says, to get off the island. Mogen asks what Anna really wants, she says she has served Brazen for a few years; she doesn't remember how it happened but she was in a lot of pain. We imply we also work for Brazen. She says she wants to go to him and apologize; Mogen says Brazen's forgiveness is a lie and she seems shocked.
 * Vikrit says "if she's going to go to Brazen, we can TRACK her" over the messenger apps, and we agree to let her go after Vikrit takes a piece of her hair. She asks for her necklace and we say we can't give it back; then she takes off.
 * We explain what we know thus far to Kalti and Yanger and that we've been withholding information to protect them. Mogen accidentally mentions Central Control and Kalti asks about it, writing it down, and we tell him we cannot give him more information. Yanger says he can probably get us in through the front door of the Royal Quarters by dropping his name and that we should head there right away.