Session 9 Part 2: Apr 25 2020
Players: Bomo Frugglemop (
Nudeviking ), Cosgrove Ashmore (
Baron von Costume ), Goha (
patbat ), Peak Dartbox (
Celebith )
Location: Under the Senate of Taldor
Having enslaved a disgusting man-toad successfully, our brave heroes move on to the door they had neglected previously (see Room 24 above). Bomo listens at the door once more and hears nothing. She opens the door and finds a hallway ending in a cave-in with a door off to one side.
Bomo carefully looks around and notices that the hallway is kind of dangerous to be in since the cave-in still hasn’t completely settled and opening the door to the exit will trigger more rocks to fall down.
The group discusses their options for clearing the rocks, specifically options for blowing things up with Cosgrove’s explosives. They worry that they’ll permanently block the hallway if they blow everything up. Our heroes then decide to send Goha to examine the cave-in since she technically passed her Intro to Engineering course. She tells everyone that based on her opinion as an unlicensed structural engineer, disturbing the rock pile will cause the ceiling to fall down on them, and even bypassing the cave-in and just opening the door on the left will also cause the ceiling to crash down. However, she confirms that the rocks will only fall for a few moments and the hallway will not be unpassable afterward.
Since it’s okay to blow up the hallway, Cosgrove immediately grabs a bomb, throws it into the hall, then shuts the door and listens to the big kaboom. He opens the door and confirms that yes, rocks have fallen down, but the hallway is still passable.
Next, our heroes crowd around the formerly-trapped door. Once again, Bomo listens at the door before flinging it open and finding a shrieking lizard-man.
Luckily, Peak and Goha both speak Draconic. They know that the kobold is merely shouting that it’s not hostile and it’s only scavenging the tunnels. However, Bomo is already demanding that they kill it because it’s shouting threats, so they have to explain to her that the disgusting lizard is not out to get them.
Also, guys I forgot to read to you the room description so here it is:
A graying wooden reception counter extends from the eastern wall, overshadowed by a faded, curling portrait of a group of several Taldan nobles. Comical alterations adorn the portrait, with red and green markings adding in stink lines, ridiculous mustaches, and other odd embellishments. A door exits to the west, while other doors exit to the northeast and southeast.
Having established that they’re not about to get into a fight, the party elects Goha to translate on their behalf. She hisses and squawks greetings at the kobold, who introduces itself as Mimips, a humble merchant and alchemist from the Darklands. Peak asks him what he’s doing in this location, and he replies that he’s exploring the halls and claiming items found under the ancient law of finders-keepers.
Goha ask what Mimips has to trade, and he lists a surprising variety of some primo expensive stuff which he would be glad to exchange for interesting items from the surface. Mimips tells them that if the pickings have been slim in the dungeon, it’s because he’s been through a lot of it already.
Mimips has various potions and magic items, including a Wand of Aqueous Orb. Goha and Peak discuss trading the gremlin they’ve captured, but they establish that Viecar isn’t a Pokemon and maybe they shouldn’t sell him. Goha also clarifies on Bomo’s behalf that the Potion of Jump is not at all Van Halen’s hit single, nor is it Jump Around by House of Pain or that one song by Kriss Kross.
Bomo further asks what the Darklands are like. Mimips tells her that it’s full of various monsters, orcs, and dark elves, who are very much giant pains. Bomo commiserates with Mimips about being forced into associating with people you find giant pains and offers a few items in trade. Mimips accepts the +1 breastplate and Viecar’s cake knife from Bomo in exchange for Bracers of Armor, which Mimips assures Bomo work like Wonder Woman’s bracelets.
Cosgrove wants to trade alchemical formulas with Mimips, but first the party has to stop Peak from casting Sleep on Mimips and robbing him. Peak really wants to jack Mimips but Goha defends him out of professional courtesy as a fellow merchant, and also since their pet cleric Jowuan Zubari would probably be pissed off if he found out they disrespected the god of merchants by robbing one. This discussion happens in front of Mimips, but he doesn’t speak Common and has no idea how close he got to being jumped by an adventuring party.
Getting an idea, Goha takes a closer look at Mimips’ stuff and realizes that he’s charging a 20 percent markup on his items. Goha asks him about it and he confirms that it is what it is and who can really argue with supply and demand? Goha agrees with this logic, since of course it is natural for a merchant to jack up prices in a monopoly situation, but uses her Enchanting Smile and smooth diplomacy to convince Mimips to charge market rates instead. For her trouble, she gets a Wand of Aqueous Orb.
Cosgrove then gets in on the trading and exchanges the random antiquities they’ve gathered from other rooms in the dungeon as well as Viecar’s stash of gold for some potions and a Cloak of Resistance, which Peak puts on, though he grumbles that they could have had all this for a 100 percent discount if they’d gone with his plan.
Cosgrove then finally gets his chance to trade formulas with Mimips and spends an hour to get Ant Haul, Crafter’s Fortune, Identify, and Shield in exchange for sharing his formula for Reduce Person and Invisibility.
Meanwhile, Bomo decides to check the cave where Mimips said he entered from the Darklands. She believes Mimips but just to be sure she wants to look in the room next door. After confirming that nothing sounds weird, Bomo opens the door and finds a cave and a long tunnel leading to parts unknown, though presumably it’s to the savage Darklands as Mimips said. Bomo definitely doesn’t want to go hang out with dark elves and instead wants to go back to the surface where all the action is.
Finally, the party decides that they’ve gotten everything they wanted from Mimips. Goha wishes him good fortune, but he tells them he’s staying since business has been so good and sets up a counter. The party tells Mimips to expect a few more people to come straggling in later as well.
Bomo listens at the northern door and hears nothing. Goha then remembers that maybe Mimips would know something. Mimips tells them that he hasn’t explored the passage to the north since he’s noticed that the monsters seem to be wary of it so he’s been following their example by staying the hell away.
At this point another telepathic message comes in from Martella. She tells them that she reached the safe house but gets cut off before she can tell them where it is. All they get is that it’s at the “dignif-“. Cosgrove, Bomo, and Peak all wrack their brains but don’t know where this place could be.
Deciding to put a pin in it until later, the party open the door to the northern passage. They find an L-shaped hallway with a leering statue in the corner holding a sceptre pointing toward a door to the east. This sight sets off everyone’s Spider-senses and they’re certain that the statue is going to come alive and kill them all. They get further evidence for this theory when bloody circles start appearing on the walls.
Goha casts Detect Magic to confirm what’s obviously wonky and finds that yes, those bloody circles are actually some kind of curse. They ask Mimips if he has any idea what’s going on, but he just tells them he’s staying the hell away. No one’s really happy at this Poltergeist crap so they fetch their resident priest and Malphene Trant as a backup. Jowuan Zubari takes one look and thells them that the hallway looks pretty bad and he’s also staying away.
Of course, there’s nowhere else to go, so as the party scrapper, Bomo takes the lead in stepping into the hallway. She’s very careful to stay completely in the middle of the hall and not touch the wall in any way. Once she reaches the end, she finds that the door there can only be unlocked by two keys. These are obviously the two keys the party had gotten from Viecar and Factor 12. Bomo gets Peak to come up and they both simultaneously turn the two keys like a nuclear launch confirmation.
The door opens to a short hallway and then some kind of circular arena. There are circles gouged everywhere, including the ceiling, which is 40 feet above.
There’s magic detecting that needs doing, so Goha runs quickly through the hallway and gets to the end. She then steps out and casts her spell once more and finds that there are magical things hidden away in a hole in the ceiling.
The party soon carefully enters the room except for Cosgrove, who stays behind standing in the doorway. Peak isn’t too enthused at all the circles in the room and theorizes that they may be from the same artist who put circles all over the dungeon. Goha suggests letting Viecar out of his bag to tell them anything he can, but once Peak lets him take a look at the room, he freaks out and tells them to get him the hell out of there. Seeing as how Viecar isn’t very helpful, Peak shuts up the gremlin bag again.
The problem now is how to get into the hole in the ceiling with the magic crap. Bomo makes clear that she’s not volunteering to peer into the hole since she still has glitter from the last time she dealt with some weird crap hiding in a ceiling.
However, a voice now booms out in Azlanti, which Cosgrove happens to speak. “Who enters my kingdom?” it asks. “You interrupt my study of the will of the circles!” The voice calls itself the Hierophant of the Arc, Archduke of Tangencies, and the Beginning and the End. For the crime of interrupting its study, the voice sentences them to death.
The voice reveals itself when it hits Bomo with an Acid Arrow. Its Invisibility spell disappears and clinging to the ceiling appears a massive talking rat the size of a human child.
Peak tries to ensorcel the rat with a Sleep spell, but it easily shakes off the attempt. Cosgrove is still safe in the doorway so he takes the opportunity to drink his extract of Bomber’s Eye, which improves his throwing ability. Goha tries using the Wand of Aqueous Orb she had obtained from Mimips, but the rat again shrugs off another magic attack.
Malphene Trant has no long-range attacks, so she moves out of the way and back into the hallway. However, Bomo has a slingshot, but she misses the rat when she tries using it. Jowuan Zubari is also not much use so he follows Malphene into the hallway.
It’s then the giant rat’s turn and it shoots Goha with a bunch of Magic Missiles. It follows this up by summoning 2 Rat Swarms, which scurry out from under the arena seats and from unseen holes in the walls. Peak retaliates by casting Sleep again, and this time it works. The rat is instantly unconscious and falls 15 feet from the ceiling, which injures it greatly. One Rat swarm tries to defend its master by attacking Goha, but she jumps on some chairs like a 1950s housewife and avoids the disgusting vermin.
Peak shouts at Cosgrove to help out. He’s not super-enthused to contribute but he does enter the chamber and throw a Frost Bomb at the unconscious rat. It’s a critical hit and chunks of dead frozen rat explode all over the chamber.
Goha uses the Wand of Aqueous Orb once more and summons a blob of water to ensnare one of the rat swarms. It’s a success and the rats are stunned.
Now that she has something to chop, Malphene pushes forward. The hallway is blocked by Cosgrove and Bomo, but she steps over Bomo and quotes the movie Willow as she does so.
Malphene slashes at the rats masterfully, while Bomo pummels a few dead and Peak skewers some more with his rapier. Cosgrove and Goha finish off the rest with their crossbows, leading finally to a rat-free arena.
Flush with handily beating what was probably supposed to be a big boss fight, Peak tries to ingratiate himself with Malphene Trant. Bomo joins in by complimenting her skill at slicing rats. However, Malphene finds the whole rat thing rather disgusting and is turned off by the overpowering smell of rat piss. Peak’s attempt at friendliness unfortunately come to naught.
Jowuan Zubari is a little more friendly, though that might be because the party is paying him. He heals Goha and Bomo, bringing them back to full health.
Goha casts Detect Magic at the ceiling once more and confirms that more than one thing is magic up there. Peak summons his silver raven from the Figurine of Wondrous Power and instructs it to fly into the hole and bring down everything it can. Meanwhile, Bomo searches the body of their giant rat enemy.
And there ends this installment of our heroes’ adventures. To be continued next time.
