Session 44: Out of the Jaws of Death


 * Kashani ~magically~ heals us and lets us restore our spell slots.
 * She tells us that up until recently, she was 2nd in the GKs (Mathias was the first; he was naïve). She said someone set up a gambling ring nearby, and Mathias went to go deal with it alone and was supposedly killed there (Solomon's Rock)… which we witnessed.
 * We tell her what we saw. She says she's been checking the gates and the Starpeaks one is fucked up but the Sharn one is sealed properly.
 * She says there's something weird about Vikrit and checks him out, says he's been touched by Godara. He mentions the naga, she says has to do with something greater. She gives him some kind of magical seed to keep from Lucien Greatoak's grove and use to nourish something? She says there's more to explain later.
 * She thinks they're dragging Lucien's heart to the singularity. Vikrit asks how to take a Warforged down, she suggests Druid spells transmuting metal to other things but doesn't know otherwise. She mentions she sensed Pollux "missed his family"; Vikrit says we took his brother down and she steps away from Vikrit.
 * Suddenly Vanesse climbs up to where we are!!! (welcome back Georgiy!) She has a splint on her broken foot.
 * We head out to follow the Stargazers.
 * We see Pollux "on watch" looking asleep near a camp. There's some kind of polar bear next to him. Further away are Burhan, Yuriy, and Konstadin, and the heart. Off in the distance is the singularity.
 * The bear looks to be asleep. Cornerio sneaks ahead while most of the rest of the party hides; Vesun casts Longstrider on himself. As Cornerio sneaks up to Pollux, he fucks up his move silently roll and alerts the bear and Pollux to his presence when he whacks him with the gnome hooked hammer.
 * FIGHT!
 * Vanesse moves up. Dread starts charging down the hill. Vikrit casts Bear's Endurance on himself. Sarienne shoots at Pollux but doesn't do much. Burhan goes over to Konstadin. Pollux starts casting something at Cornerio, getting an AoO, but misses; he rolls a 1 and gets creamed by a ball of fire.
 * James: "Wait a minute, I thought we killed the Castor."
 * The polar bear charges Sarienne and she rolls a 1; it starts mauling her. The Stargazer who looks like a blind hobgoblin (Yuriy) now looks like a horrible eyeless creature.
 * Carlos: "So the terrain is really icy?" Chamith: "Yes." "So we're talking about Yuriy on Ice then."
 * Orielle starts attacking the bear; Vesun casts Bull's Strength on her and she hits it hard. Tork says "Cornerio, looks like you need to cool off!" and uses his giant "Wand of Ice Storm"… and shoots out a ball of fire at Pollux and Yuriy. Pollux manages to get mostly out of the way but Yuriy gets blasted. Mogen starts heading toward the heart; with the distraction, she manages to get about halfway to the heart.
 * Konstadin floats over toward Yuri and says, "Enough." and everyone has to roll a will save. (Cornerio is the only one who succeeds because of a +10, from Mavatorop???) Everyone feels their bodies stop, the bear backs away off Sarienne and goes back to Pollux. Pollux picks up Cornerio by the collar and drops him into the snow.
 * Konstadin asks us why we've been following them for a while. We feel like we're all one psychic mind and communicate telepathically. We all refuse to answer, but he compels Sarienne to respond. She says we've seen the destruction they cause. Mogen tries to figure out where his accent is from and he calls her foolish and says "You think I'm of this world?"
 * He says we had better tell him or he'll go digging himself. He replays our mental history and gets to Mavadtorop. Konstadin says, "Ah, that's it!" Most of us pick up on his disgust; Vesun picks up on awe or fear. He says to ask why Mavadtorop can't return to Ukaizo, which Mogen recalls has something to do with an ancient aboleth city. He says he'll show us what real power looks like, and how this ends. Everything fades to black.
 * We come to all together, with very polished versions of our armor, rings/amulets we've never seen before, and a massive ziggurat.
 * Vikrit smells the air and realizes this is Haka'torvak. There are mostly Cold Sun lizardfolk preparing for ritual preparations, there are Braelish armies with siege weaponry, a halfling in a uniform (Tallow) approaches us. We're knocked to our knees by a huge black dragon's wings covering the sun, as it flies toward the temple. Tallow reminds us of the plan to invade the fortress and we fade again.
 * We awaken in the snow, where we were… except that Cornerio has jumped on top of Konstadin and is pummeling him in the tentacles. "Nobody tells me things!" He gets away.
 * Vanesse misses Yuriy. Dread hits Cornerio with his axe. Cornerio fucks up on his tumble. Vikrit moves forward and hides (with a 30); Sarienne moves up too. Burhan yells to leave the half-elf bitch to her and starts running toward her. Yuriy hits Vanesse hard with one of its tentacles. Vesun goes up to Burhan and Orielle starts attacking Dread. Tork casts Force Claw (20ft cube around Konstadin). Mogen keeps heading toward the heart.
 * Konstadin moves--giving Tork an AoO, and he hits with Force Claw--and hits Cornerio with a magic ray doing 6 points of Strength damage. Vanesse cuts Yuriy in half and cleaves, hitting Pollax but glancing off of him. Cornerio takes a potion of Bull's Strength. Vikrit runs up to Mogen. Sarienne sneak attacks Burhan and stabs him in the kidneys; he tries to run away but runs into Vesun's weapon.
 * Pollux yells to Konstadin that they need to get out of there and casts something that slams a meteor into Vanesse and Cornerio, the latter of whom passes out. Vesun tries to hit Dread but drops his cudgel, and Orielle also rolls a 1 on attacking Dread. Tork casts Ray of Enfeeblement on Dread and hits, lowering his strength by 7; with spell resistance, it looks like Konstadin is no longer affected by his claw spell.
 * Mogen picks up the heart of Lucien Greatoak and puts it on her lap. Konstadin says "it's growing too large and this isn't worth fighting. Come to me now." He retreats back a bit and starts casting a spell. Dread hits Orielle. Vanesse uses her special sword reach and swings over Cornerio, destroying Pollux and hitting the polar bear. Vikrit runs up onto a watchtower and gets a spell ready. Sarienne and Burhan fight; she gets hit and Vesun absorbs some of her damage. Burhan runs to Konstadin and Vikrit casts Nature's Wrath, somehow beating Konstadin's spell resistance with a natural 20 & action dice, but they will save so aren't stunned.
 * Vesun casts Silence on Konstadin. Tork fireballs Burhan and Konstadin (only affecting Burhan). Mogen climbs up on a yurt.
 * Suddenly the singularity starts getting larger and a couple party members get knocked down from a blast. Konstadin says, "Come, now! We'll deal with them later!" and he teleports away; Burhan and Dread also disappear when they touch their necklaces.
 * The bear stares at the singularity and Vanesse beheads it. Vikrit shoots an arrow at the singularity to see what happens; it stretches out the arrow until it disappears.
 * Vesun kicks Cornerio and heals him. The singularity continues growing bigger rapidly.
 * Vikrit rolls a 31 to toss the seed into the singularity… and we get pulled into the darkness. The seed pops into existence and hits Vikrit on the head.
 * We're in some kind of small room. It smells weirdly sterile here. There's a table, a couch, and a water cooler.
 * Mogen discovers the function of the water cooler. Vikrit CMWs Cornerio. Cornerio takes some water--it appears to be water.
 * Vesun opens the door; there's a female skeleton at a desk wearing a blue floral dress. Vesun rings the bell and she says, "Next!" He says we have an appointment and she asked what's going on here. She removes what looks like a rolling pin and aims it at Vesun: "Are you sure you're dead? If not I can fix that right now."
 * She smacks Vesun in the head and he takes a small amount of nonlethal damage. She says Sarienne doesn't smell right either and hits her with it, doing slightly more nonlethal damage. She asks if we have a ticket, then gives Sarienne and Vesun one (49995-6). Mogen starts unscrewing the plate on the light switch (and barely avoids getting shocked).
 * Tork and Cornerio go into the room and get tickets. Sarienne insists she's dead despite the evidence, and wants to speak to the boss. She says this has happened a number of times before. We'll need Certificates of Vivancy in triplicate in hall of records, then signed by general counsel and more paperwork before we can speak to the boss.
 * She points out the Hall of Records and General Counsel (and 2 bathrooms) behind her. She calls up Vesun. Sarienne starts sneaking toward the door in the back with a gold nameplate: That-Which-Feasts
 * Sarienne tries to open the door but nothing happens. Cornerio goes into the General Counsel's office. Things disappear around him and he goes into a tunnel. Tork looks at the Dept of Death internal newsletter that the receptionist was reading. In the other room, Mogen fiddles with the light switch more, finding wires covered in rubber. She repairs the circuit using bare copper wire. Vikrit cowers by the water cooler, still fixated on the vision that Konstadin showed us. Sarienne goes back and fucks with things in the bathroom.
 * Tork follows Cornerio (who is still insisting he's a lawyer). Tork asks if this is where he works. They start going down the passage and hear what sounds like construction. They go around the corner and see some stone offices and a bridge. As they pass the offices, they see that they say Mr. Thompson and Mr. Nettles, and then below the bridge, there are two huge monsters yelling at one another, and across some kind of stamp on a desk. As Cornerio steps onto the bridge, he gets hit by a thrown boulder from what is apparently Mr. T & Mr. N having a disagreement (and has 2HP left). Tork uses his mage hand to go pick up the stamp; they can't stop it because it's incorporeal.
 * Meanwhile, Vesun has gone into the Department of Vivancy and goes down a stone hallway. There are pillars, stairs going down, and a swinging blade covered in rusted blood--an activated trap. He decides to go back and get Sarienne.
 * Tork, Cornerio, and Vesun meet up in the lobby.
 * Mogen has managed to harvest the plastic switch; the lights are now permanently on.
 * Vikrit asks Cornerio what happened, he says he had a legal disagreement with a boulder. Vesun says we're in purgatory and need to go into the Department of Vivancy.
 * Vikrit follows and stops at the desk, taking a number and asking what to do since he's not dead. She is frustrated and says to get the certificate from the Department of Vivancy, file in triplicate at the Hall of Records, and get it stamped by the legal department.
 * Meanwhile, Vesun and Sarienne go into the Department of Vivancy, and Sarienne disables the blade. Sarienne notice the walls look sooty, like there's some kind of fire trap in here; she finds a trigger nearby and tells us not to walk on it. Then she finds spikes that have shot out near the stairs. Vikrit and Vesun follow carefully.
 * In the next room, there's a wall with a giant spike pit. Across, there's a similar hallway; Sarienne tries to jump across with but fails, and Vesun and Vikrit aren't able to pull her up by the rope she has around her waist. She manages to catch herself and clambers back up. Vikrit lends her his Ring of Jumping and she makes it across. She throws the ring back, Vikrit jumps across, and Vesun casts Fly on himself to cross.
 * To the south, there appears to be a swinging blade and some further passageway. She (thinks that she) disables it, and checks to the north; there appear to be more blades there. We go south; there's an already-triggered log trap that we go around.
 * There are 2 desks and a chest on the side of the wall that says "Certificates of Vivancy" above it. Sarienne takes some of the papers, but hears a click and realizes there's a pressure plate below the chest. The log trap starts ratcheting back up toward the ceiling. Vesun goes through the desks and it's just office stuff; he grabs a stapler.
 * Rather than going back into the room, Vesun casts Dimension Door and we end up back in the office. Orielle and Tork are having a staring contest, Mogen has gotten water everywhere and has removed the plastic spout from the water cooler. Vesun gives the stapler to Mogen.
 * We start filling out our certificates. We stamp them using the stamp Cornerio and Tork got back. Vesun wonders aloud what would happen if we spelled our names wrong. Mogen takes a ballpoint pen -- it writes at any angle!
 * We all head to the Hall of Records (except for Mogen, who is disappointed in the lack of new tech in here and goes back to check out the bathrooms).
 * There's another stone hallway. We go down the hall and find a kitchen, as well as cubicles. Cornerio drinks some burnt coffee dregs. Sarienne finds a door with tiles spelling out, "A GREAT TREASURE LIES HERE UNDER A CURSE AND ONLY THOSE MAY ENTER WHO PROVIDE THE CURE".
 * Vesun finds a day calendar with only "1" on it. He writes "Friday" and "5:00" on it and presents it to the door, and nothing happens. Sarienne presses the C in curse, so it's like it was removed, and then she gets zapped. There's a clunk and Vikrit hears the sound of rushing water swirling above us. There are sluices in the bottom of the floor. Water is filling the depression in the floor. Then the "C" pops back out.
 * Sarienne presses the "S" in CURSE, this time she doesn't get shocked. The word turns into cure, and then the rest of the letters pop out revealing a locking mechanism. Sarienne opens it.
 * There are 2 cubicles and a filing cabinet behind the door. The cabinet is labeled "certificates" and we file our paperwork. The water has continued to rise so we dash out before it fills the room.
 * In the meantime, Mogen has been checking out the bathrooms. She has figured out the toilet and takes the rubber toilet float.
 * We show Eva the paperwork and she says we can see the boss. "Don't say I didn't warn you!" "You didn't warn us." "Right, don't tell him that I did."
 * Vesun says the water cooler is broken and Eva goes "oh no!" and goes into the other room; the only person still in there is Vanesse.
 * We go down the hall to the boss's door. There's a massive blue ox face covered in ice. As the door closes behind it and the ox stares at us. It opens its mouth and we start getting sucked into it. Vikrit tosses the seed in its mouth and it closes.
 * There's a long pause and it opens its mouth and belches, pushing us back. We fade to black and find all of ourselves back in the Stargazers' camp…but it's a grassy field now.
 * The heart is still there. Vikrit also realizes based on the environment that it's been a couple of weeks. Off in the distance (a few hours away) we can see a large village.