#i got a fucking nat 20 on the insight check for the 'try to figure out what your lover is feeling' option

[eff-plays]

Just finished Astarion's quest+romance.

I'M GONNA FUCKING BREAK SOMETHING AUGH

NEIL I AM IN YOUR WALLS

[queenrose730]

Reckless

The Winter Solider 

Master List

2014

It had been a while since you had been back to the Avengers tower. Once SHIELD got all official after the Battle of New York, they got a big fancy building in DC. You decided to keep an apartment at the tower but honestly spent most of your time now in DC. Now though, you had been forced back by Steve. All because of a broken leg. It didn’t even happen on a mission, although that might have been better. You were sparing with another agent when a mistake happened and your left leg was broken. Steve nearly took the guys head off when he heard you scream. Somehow between the pain you got Steve to focus on you. After all it wasn’t the others guy’s fault.

The doctors put you in a cast and told you to use the crutches for at least 3 months. Then they would reevaluate the leg. Steve caught you once without your crutches and set you back to New York. It forced you to take your job slower and you couldn’t do as much. Plus, Tony and Bruce kept an eye on you. After a week there, Tony broke down and figured out how to make an exoskeleton cast. This way you could get around more easily and hopefully complain less. After some trial and error, and the ok from the doctor, you had a brace. It came up around your thigh and had a plate that slid under your foot. The knee joint move freely but the ankle was locked, but could be loosened as you healed.

“Well it looks like your leg is pretty well healed agent.” It was almost three months to the day.

“Thank god.”

“I would still recommend the brace for another month but the ankle can be set to move freely.”

“Awesome. I’ll get Tony to do that.” The doctor at the tower was so much nicer than at SHIELD. Probably because they were ex-military docs. They somehow always were dicks.

“I’ll want to see you again in a month. But other than that you are free to go.” You hopped of the bed and shook the doctors hand.

“Thanks again. I appreciate you working with me.”

“You didn’t give me much of a choice.” He raised an eyebrow. To which you just shrugged your shoulders and headed out. The doctor just laughed as you walked out the door.

“Hey Jarvis. Let Tony know I’m on my way down!” It took all you had not to skip down the hall.

“Certainly Miss yln.”

As you reached the elevator you grabbed your phone to let Steve know how your leg was and maybe drop the hint about getting back to your regular work. Before you could type your message, number came up on your screen.

“Speak of the devil! I was just about to text you. I got the all clear from the doc.”

“That’s good yn.” His voices sounded off.

“What’s wrong Steve? How’d the mission go?”

“It was complicated.” He let out a sigh over the phone.

“How complicated?” Suddenly the conversation was serious. You changed the floor you were headed to, now going to your apartment.

“What do you know about something call Project Insight?”

“I’ve never heard of it.” The door to the elevator opened and you walked down the hall.

“Fury showed it to me. I need you to see if you can find anything out about it. Something doesn’t feel right.”

“Sure. Hang on a sec while I get my computer up and running.” You sat down at your desk. Setting the phone down and putting Steve on speaker. If something did sit right with him, it was trouble. You learned quick to trust Steve gut.

“Alright let’s see what I can find.” A quick search of shield records didn’t provide much.

“All I can see is that there is a file under that name but it pretty high clearance. Like Fury and a few others. What is it?” You kept click through files that you could open while listening to Steve.

“He’s got three helicarriers. At armed to the nines. He said it’s a way to neutralize threats before they happen.”

“What? So shield is building their own nuclear deterrent? How is Fury ok with that?”

“I don’t know. Can you see anything else?”

“No Steve. Not without hacking in and they would know it was me. I doubt even the people working on it know what they are building.”

“Ok. Well I’m going to have to do some more digging around here.”

“I can come down there Steve. My leg is fine.”

“No yn. Just stay there. Keep digging though files and see what you can find.”

“Ok. Be careful Steve.”

“You too sweetheart.”

You spent the rest of the night combing through any file you could get your hands on. Tony came up sometime after dinner. He was going to yell at you for not eating or coming down to have him loosen your brace. But changed his mind when he saw the mess around you on the desk. Instead he went back and grabbed you a plate. Pulling you away for only a moment so you could eat and he could take care of the brace.

“So how bad is it kiddo?”

“I don’t know Tony. The more I dig the more inaccuracies I find in all kinds of files.” You stared at the computer twirling your fork. “I think I might head down to DC.”

“Well I’ll get a jet ready for you. It’ll be on standby.” He stood from his seat and walked to the door. “And what is it the Rogers always tell you? He gave another pause and you turned to him. That’s right! Don’t do anything stupid of reckless yn.” With that he was out the door.

You took one more look at the computer before standing up and heading to the bed. If shit was about to hit the fan you at least need to get some rest.

Apparently you needed more than you thought. It was almost 8am when you finally woke up. You decided against breakfast for the moment. You checked for phone for any messages then hit the shower. After your shower, you started to pack your bag. A change of regular clothes along with your tac suit. Some toiletries and a few extras. Lastly was the fun stuff. In the hall Closet was your own mini armory. You pack your usual two pistols and a few blades. You also grabbed a couple auto injectors. Can never be to safe. While you were packing though you missed the alert on your computer. Something big was happening.

“Miss yn. You jet is ready for takeoff.”

“Thank you Jarvis.” You walked to the door and laced up your boots.

“There was also an alert that came up on your computer miss.”

“What?” You stood up and headed to your desk. Leaving your bag by the door.

Sure enough there was an alert. Nick Fury was dead and Steve was wanted by Shield.

“What the fuck!” You nearly topped your chair when you stood. Instantly grabbing for your phone to call Steve. There was no answer. Shit. Shit. Shit. You grabbed you bag and ran to the jet. Shit was hitting the fan. A lot of shit.

“Jarvis let Tony know I’m leaving.”

“Certainly.”

You flicked through your takeoff procedures and grabbed the controls.

“Jarvis try Steve again.” You shot up into the sky heading to DC.

“I’m sorry miss. He did not answer.”

“Fuck. Try Maria.” She was always close to fury. Hopefully she would know what the hell was going on.

“Hill.”

“Maria. What the fuck is going on?”

“Yn.” She paused. It sounded like she was taking to someone.

“I’m on my way to DC. Tell me what the fuck is going on.”

“Yn. I’m sending you Coordinates to land at. Do not enter DC air space.” Fuck. This was bad.

“What’s going on?”

“I’ll tell you when. You get here. Just get here.” She hung up. You pushed the engines to max speed.

You made it to the coordinates Maria gave you in almost record time. 20 minutes from her hanging up to when you touched down outside an old dam. Maria was out waiting for you.

“Tell me what the fuck is going on!” By the time you landed you were fuming. Not at anyone particularly but at the whole situation. “What happened to Fury? Where is Steve?”

“Come on in yn.” She turned to lead you into the damn. All you wanted to do was cuss and scream at her nonchalant attitude towards everything. You followed her down the damp hallways of the dam until it opened up into a small room.

“I could hear you cursing from in here yn.”

“Fury! What the fuck” He held back a laugh. “SHIELD said you were dead. How?”

“They needed to think he was actually dead but we got him out of the hospital and here for treatment.” Maria moved around the bed and started talking to one of the doctors. You took a seat next to fury.

“What is going on?”

“Shield has been compromised.”

“By who?”

“HYDRA.”

“Project insight is them.” You sat back in your seat. That would explain all the odd bits of info you had been picking up while digging through files. Fury nodded at your response. “How long?”

“I’m not sure. At this point we don’t know who to trust.”

“So why I am here? Why did you let me know you’re alive?”

“Because other than Captain Rogers, you would be the second person in line to kill anyone that might be affiliated with HYDRA.” He wasn’t wrong.

“So where is Steve now? What’s are next play?”

“Hill is working on how to get Steve. Then we stop Insight.”

Sitting around was not your style, but Fury told you to wait. Maria was on trying to track down Steve. Doctors where still working on patching up fury. All you could do was sit and wait. You knew that if Steve was running he would have ditched his cell. At this point it really wasn’t safe to call anyone else. Fury didn’t even want you call Nat. You only slipped a call to Tony to let him know you landed. He tried to press for more info but you shut him down quickly. You could hear the news playing in the background about Fury and Steve.

It was well into the night when Maria finally found something. A STRIKE team had been sent to a mall then Camp Lehigh was bombed. There was still no indication where Steve was at.

Then around mid-morning the next day more alerts started going off. Sitwell was kidnapped.

“That has to be Steve right?” You had taken up a post with Maria going through any SHIELD alerts.

“It’s a good chance. Keep digging.”

“God I should have come down here when he called me the other night.”

“There’s nothing you could have done. You would just be on the run with him.” Maria looked up at you over her computer. “And do you think Steve would want you out there or here?” You caught the smirk on her face.

“Yea yea.” You waved her off. Steve did just about anything to keep you safe. He learned quickly that your self-preservation was about as good as his.

“This is it!” She stood up quickly and spun her computer around. A STRIKE team orders to grab them on the freeway. They were helping out “the asset”.  “If I can get into one of those prisoner transports, I can get them out.” Before you could respond she was off to Fury.

“Take the team and get him.”

“Yes, sir.” She turned and started ordering the men around.

“I’m coming with you Maria.”

“No you’re not yn. I need you here.” It was an order from Fury.

“Fine.” You just watched as Maria and her team suited up.  

“I don’t what you doing anything stupid out there yn.”

“I know Fury. I know.” He was right. The likelihood you would do something stupid was pretty high. All you could do now is wait.

  The plan was easy enough. Steve, Sam and you each had a chip to place into the helicarriers. Linking them and taking them out of the air. Nat and Fury would take down SHIELD. Exposing everything to the world. Steve was on edge even though he didn’t show it.

“I want you to get on and off that helicarrier quick. Don’t mess around.”

“Steve I’m fine. If it’s about the leg, it’s ok.”

“Yn. It won’t take much for you to rebreak it.”

“Yep. And it doesn’t take much to break my other bones either.” You teased and jogged off to your starting point.

“Yn I’m serious.” He said over comms. You just laughed to yourself and continued on.

The guys gave you a head start. You listened to Steve talk over the intercom. People that you passed looking nervously between each other. Once you reached you carrier, it was mostly unguarded for the moment. Steve drawing the attention away from it for the moment. Just a few bad guys to take down. Suddenly the door above the carrier began to open.

“Uh, guys they are getting ready to launch.”

“Get that chip in place and get back to Maria yn.” You rolled your eyes at Steve even though he couldn’t see you.

You pushed harder to get to the control center to get your chip in place. Thankfully it seemed most people hadn’t quite realized you were already on the ship. Outside you could see that Sam and Steve were drawing the most attention.

“I got my chip in place. How are you guys doing?” Getting out was going to be a bit more difficult.

“I’m locked.” Sam shouted.

“Two down. Captain how are you looking?” Maria was running the ground.

“Working on it.”

“Steve where are you? I’m coming to you.” You started working your way to the flight deck.

“Yn get back to Maria. I got this.”

“Oh fuck you Steve.”  You heard Sam laugh.

“I like her.” That earned a groan from Steve.

“Since you like me so much want to give a lift Sam?” You kept working your way to the deck. First plan was to grab a jet and head to Steve. You just had to get up there.

“6 minutes until it reached altitude.”

“Sam! Where is that ride!”

“I’m grounded. Steve’s on the carrier.”

“What happened!”

“Winter Solider.”

“Shit.” You pushed off from where you were hiding. Steve told you that somehow that was Bucky. That whatever happened to him when he was captured during the war must have helped him survive the fall. You knew Steve would be blinded by his friend. Even if he didn’t recognize him.

“Steve you copy? I’m on my way.” No response.

“Falcon. I got Rumlow.” Maria broke in.

“I’m on it.”

“Maria can you get into one of these jets and get it started for me?” You kept clearing a path.

“Space five. Staring engines now.” The jet just ahead of you roared to life and the hatch opened.

“I could kiss you girl!” You climbed in and headed to the last carrier.

By the time you reached the control center Steve and the Solider were already locked. You took aim and started firing at the Solider. It caused just enough distraction for him that Steve was able to lock him in a hold.

“Yn.” He hissed over the comms.

“Just get me that chip Steve!” Steve shoved the Solider off of him and started toward you. Climbing up the structure.

“Steve!” The Solider was back up an aiming at Steve. He tossed the chip at you. You barely got your fingers on it, leaning every part of your body over the railing. A shot rang out.

“Go yn!” Steve kept climbing as you rushed to the computer. More shots were fired. This time they hit you. First in your leg.

“Yn!”

“I got it Steve!”

“One minute!” Maria shouted over comms. This was it you just had to reach- Another shot. It hits you in the shoulder propelling you forward. You slam into the control center. Pressing the keys as fast as you could the door slid open. Just as you reached to put your chip in another shot hit your stomach. You fell before you could get the chip placed.

“Damnit.” Steve had reached you. He grabbed the chip from you and slammed it home. “We’re locked.”

“Get out of there guys.”

Steve reached down to scoop you up when he was shot in the shoulder.

“Maria. Fire.”

“Yn.” Maria questioned you.

“I said fire!” You shouted. Steve didn’t have words to say. Suddenly there was an explosion.

“Why?”

“Steve.” You gave him a sad look. He dug in you suit to find an injector. Quickly stabbing it into your arm.

“That was stupid.”

“So is this.” You pushed him off of you. “Where is the Solider?” Steve looked around. When he stopped you followed his eye line. The Solider was trapped under a large piece of metal from the carrier. “Go.”

Steve looked back to you.

“Go Steve.” You reached into your pocket and grabbed another injector. Slamming that one into your thigh. Steve nodded.

“Here.” He handed you the shield. The carrier started to tip. A quick glance saw that it was colliding with the building.

“Stupid and reckless.” You gave him a grin then stood the best you could. At the railing you gave a look down. There was a break in the glass directly below you and water beyond that.

“Get your friend Steve.” Before he could question you, you heaved yourself over the railing and out the bottom of the ship.

You used the shield to help break the water as you hit it. It still nearly took all the air out of you. Once you bobbed back to the surface you looked back up. The building seemed to have caught the carrier and it just sat there. The extra injector gave you enough strength to slowly swim to the edge of the water.

“Where’s Steve and yn!” Your comms still worked!

“I’m in the water under the ship! I’m trying to get to shore. Steve’s still on the carrier.”

“I’ll get a vehicle and get her Fury.”

“Copy that Hill.”

You just have to get to the edge before that carrier comes down. Pushing your muscles as they ached. The pain meds quickly wearing off even with the extra dose. You glanced back. Shit. The carrier was coming down. You didn’t know if you were clear but you hoped you were. Maybe the wave it caused would give you the extra push to the shore.

Tags- @ginger-swag-rapunzel

[paintedwarpony]

C2E125 HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NIGHT

Cyberpunk 1977 and the keyhole shirt

NEW MIGHTY VIBES

Reference to the Fireside Chat Fire

Fjord chose another level in Warlock

Yussa and the Happy Fun Ball

Story Fast Forward x1

Allura Vysoren mentioned in the first twenty minutes

Wisdom 7 Yasha offering to talk to Halas: "It'll be fine..."

Yussa giving them a new fancy fighting backscratcher

Fjord mentioning wanting to sell the fire resistance ring

Pally use of Shield of Faith

Caleb talking to Halas the Gem Wizard

Halas knowing a bunch of info about Aeor but refusing to give it up

Liam's double Nat 20s

Halas spooky idealist info dump

Somnovum infodump insight uncertainty

Wisdom Saving Throw 26 and the Anna Ripley Treatment

Proof that Halas does have some kind of ability to over take who's talking to him.

Halas = Ruby

"Eldredge Blaaaaaahhhhssssttttt."

Sherlock Monk: 18 + 14 = 32 History Check

Suggesting putting Halas in Lucien's body: Voldemort inside of Skeletor

Beacon Boogies

Trying to figure out where the Threshold Crest went

New Wizard Room and crazy spell push

MAKING MY WAY

Jester’s ritual circle freeform jazz dick mandala

"You push through the poopin'."

"Are you still talkin' about poopin?!"

Matt writing things down ominously

A wild threshold crest appeared

THE GANG GOES TO TAL'DOREI (I PREDICTED THIS MONTHS AGO)

The cast reaction to going to Allura's Tower

KIMA OF VORD

Story Fast Forward x2

Insight Check on Allura

Presents the Exalted Star Razor Vestige: "I don't know if this is enchanted or not..."

"AND FJORD GOT ONE!?!"

Talking about going to Xhorhas

Turned down by Archmage: STRIKE TWO

Asking to go talk to the Council of Tal'Dorei themselves

Fully Armored Kima of Vord

Taliesin suggesting to get more residuum

Fjord's little song of persuasion Nat 20

Failed Magic Carpet Check

More presents from wizards

Very off handed hint to Kashaw and Zahra

Jester moving from referring Artagan to as a god to just 'her friend'

Allura's reaction to Artagan's name

Borrowing Allura's staff

Caduceus offering his own staff in trade then returning it when beetles are mentioned

Fjord still trying to persuade Kima to come fight

KIMA LENDING YASHA HER SWORD

Kima stressing over lending out her sword

Allura's mage junk drawer

M9 Return Gifts: Tea and Celebones

Intellect Fortress

White Dragon comparison

Forgetting to send word ahead of teleportation

Rexxentrum to talk to Cobalt Soul, Astrid and Eodwulf

Hitting up the Cobalt Soul

Dairon's investigatons between Ceberus Assembly and Dynasty exposed

Veth's message

ZEENOTH UNDER ARREST FOR KIDNAPPING BEAU AS A TEENAGER

Beau getting some justice

Beau being to shell shocked to relay any info about Aeor or the Threshold Crest

Fjord to Jester: "Whats the matter with you?"

Do you remember-? Fjord: "No."

Yasha: "I was in and out mentally..."

Group Hug

Double See Invisibility

Realization that Jester and Veth didn't see their families

Hugging Dairon

Dairon and Beau heart to heart

"Is this dangerous? . . . How dangerous?"

Dairon's face journey as the 40,000 gold super magical cheese wheel is described

Classic M9 group discussion

Chat about Wurther's candy

"A light rain... I don't trust it..."

FUCKING OTIS

Planned Shopping

Talking about making last goodbyes

Plotting Trent's murder

ALLURA'S STAFF OF POWER and it making Caleb completely fly off the planet

Shuffling the items

Fjortitude

Cursed Dagger Shenanigans

M9 coming wise to the cursed dagger

SAM REROLLING A NATURAL 1 TO KEEP THE DAGGER AND STILL FAILING

It was a death dagger

The Fjorester "Breakup"

Matt dropping the DM Foot on item banter

Yasha not being able to talk to her new sword

Beau asks to borrow the whole Tower for a date night

Cat Ninjas

Empire Siblings taking care of each other

Caduceus dreams of home turns into a nightmare

YASHA AVATAR OF THE STORM LORD

Matt ending the episode in an Eyes of Nine dream

Ashley: "Lets just keep playing!"

MANIFEST LIST COUNT: 7-ish

This was a tough episode to predict. Man what a rollercoaster and serious Campaign 1 Candy.

[thetradeway]

Session 35: 6 Mar 2021: “Touch this tool…”

Mina texted us all last night to say she has been diagnosed with Covid. She’s very ill and probably won’t make the game, so if not I offer to take Kessler for her.

Get well soon Mina!

Can we hear Sophie eating her apple? No, but she says Matthew told her she would spoil her dinner. She thinks it’s more like having a crunchy drink.

Matthew and Ed have both hurt their shoulders this week, Matthew’s was a beer-related injury.

Joe: did they find the puncture wound where the dart went in?

Sophie, hurriedly: shut up!!

Those words again: WHAT, MIGHT, AND, THIS, TOOL, WITH, CAN, DO.

We are rested and the thieving boggarts are dead. Sadly that doesn’t mean we’ve beaten the Blue Alley. Carl is blocking the door; Gideon kicks him until he wakes up.

Brother Charity has written something for Tarragon; he hands her a sheet of paper which she accepts with trepidation. (Oh god.)

She uses a beast shape to turn into a mouse to avoid the awkward situation in which she has found herself.

We move on. Melaina and Tarragon find a hidden door in the corridor. (Brother Charity: “Tarragon my love, come down from there!”)

Another room, with bottles on the floor - some broken, some whole. The words STRENGTH, CANNOT are written on the wall; we add them to our list. There is a small gold door as well. Melaina peruses the wine and finds some nice stuff worth 10gp each. She also finds 2 RHPs. Nice!

She investigates the gold door. Gideon makes an arcana check on it. He rolls poorly, and can only tell that it is locked.

Have we got any keys? We decide, after some fluffing, that we don’t.

Gideon: “why don’t you pick the lock, elf?”

Melaina: “Why don’t you Grease yourself through it, dwarf?”

(It gets uncomfortably racial for a minute.)

Melaina sees no traps so she makes a pick attempt with a 29 but it doesn’t open. Gideon has a look for some magical locks but rolls a 12. Ahleqs has a try but can’t discern anything magical either. “Maybe it’s a pull door and you pushed it, try the other way.” 

DM: There’s no handle.

Is there a keyhole? Yes, but it looks more like a slot than a traditional keyhole shape. Perhaps there will be another key guardian further along. Or perhaps there’s one in the broken bottles in this room? We’ve earned a break, perhaps we could drink the wine Melaina found.

We exit the room and continue down the corridor to find a grate with a room beyond. Can Tarragon fit through the grate, as a mouse? Yes, but she may not want to.

The walls are lined with red bricks. There are seven circular platforms hanging from the ceiling and the floor is twenty feet below us. The room beneath is filled with smoke. Tarragon decides she will stay where she is, for now.

“This tool with a soft touch can do what might and strength cannot,” says Melaina suddenly, out of nowhere. Ooooh!

Gideon gets stuck in the wall and immediately commences panicking. Stupid Grease Wizard! (Cue image of the DM picking Gideon up by the scruff like a grumpy old man kitten to rescue him.)

We all go back to the start. On the west wall there is a relief sculpture of a human skeleton, posed as if screaming. It reminds brother Charity of a statue his father had. No wait, it was a servant.

Tarragon and Melaina spot some more secret doors with their almost supernatural passive perceptions. Melaina investigates one; if she pushes a bit of stone she thinks it will open. It does.

THE LOW WAY is written on the wall. There is an open pit blocking the way. The whole corridor is filled with dust and cobwebs. The pit is filled with spikes. Okay.

Melaina makes an Insight check; she is pretty sure she could climb down the pit and back up the other side, picking her way carefully through the spikes. Gideon calculates that with a good run up, he could impale himself about ten feet into the pit.

We try the other hidden door. (Ahleqs casts Mage Armour.) This way there is writing that says THE HIGH WAY. Colourful frescoes depicting flying creatures line the walls. Short copper rods protrude from both sides of the corridor, all the way along, and lightning arcs between them all. They’re about 15 feet up so we could all comfortably walk beneath them, which we are immediately distrustful of.

Charity goes back to investigate the statue, with help from Ahleqs. The latter sees a small iron button in the skull. Duncan wants to press it, but Ahleqs is extremely reluctant.

He presses the button, while reminding us all that he has Mage Armour up. A door to Tarragon’s right opens. Now we have a third option, so we all go and make coffee and have a think. Carl discovers that there is a nubbin at the end of the corridor. Urgh, someone’s left their nubbin out!

(Duncan got called a prick by one of the local roustabouts, for wearing his mask outside. Well, go figure.)

Well then, what sort of death would we like? Spiky, electrified, or mysterious?

We choose mysterious, and find another door. No magic, not locked. The room beyond was once plush, but has fallen into disrepair. There is a door on the east side of the room. We search for a key.

Charity finds a desk with quills and ink, but nothing of note. Melaina searches the chair for loose change. Ahleqs starts pulling books to see if anything opens, but nothing seems to happen. Melaina finds a flute made from a thigh bone which screams when played. She tucks it into her pack.

We hear a voice from behind the door: “Entertain me”.

Ahleqs ignites Simon and has him do a dance; to assist, Brother Charity has some sparks emit from him. It doesn’t seem to impress the voice. Perhaps if Melaina plays the screaming thigh flute? She could, but she’s AFK.

(Ed apologises for leaving, he went to eat a sausage.)

Gideon does a little jig, as well as his rheumy joints will let him. Brother Charity tries the handle - the door opens. 

There is a statue behind the door of the wizard Kiliare, who is rumoured to have built the labyrinth. It is encased in a sphere of force, and its eyes seem to follow us. On the wall is written “Utter madness, pure rubbish.”

Hmm.

Gideon finds some vials on the floor and gives them a bloody good sniff with a nat 20. There are various magical potions from healing potions to alchemists fire and more. Oooooh!

Ahleqs does Simon’s trick again and the statue says “Urgh! Vermin!”

We ask the statue what sort of entertainment it requires. Its favourite form is riddles. Do we have any riddles for him?

“What has it got in its pocketses?”

“What’s black and white and red all over?”

It doesn’t respond to any of this.

How about: “This tool with a soft touch can do what might and strength cannot”?

The DM says we have all the pieces, but we’ve put them together in the wrong order.

Ahleqs: “Touch this tool…”

If we put it together correctly it will rhyme, the DM tells us. Keep them in the little groups we found them in: A soft touch, this tool with, etc etc.

This tool with a soft touch -

We can make insight checks.

(It rhymes, we should be able to figure this out!)

What might and strength cannot -

Wait, we might be missing a pair of words, it turns out. Joe checks; we are. Has he forgotten to tell us some words, or have we not been to wherever they are written? We haven’t been there, so we will have to investigate and come back here later.

Melaina finds a door in the plush room, to the north.

(Brother Charity tries to stroke mouse-Tarragon; she runs and hides behind Melaina’s legs. Charity: “You’re right Carl, I think she’s warming to me.”)

Behind Melaina’s door is another corridor filled with doors. Above the first one is written “take only what you can truly afford.” Melaina is immediately disgusted.

What were we looking for again, a genie lamp? No, a unicorn statue. Behind the door are thousands and thousands of gold coins. (If Zorya were here, we’d all be fucked. Sadly, Melaina’s greed is only a shade less than hers.)

Anyone proficient with arcana can tell that the coins are infused with transmutation magic…

The coins lie in such a way as to spell out words, in common: “ALL FAKE” Melaina picks one up to inspect it. It doesn’t seem quite right…

She tries an Insight check and natty 20s it. She gets a strong gut feeling that she wants to leave all the coins exactly where they are, so she does exactly that. 

There is a door further into this room, which Melaina investigates. It is not locked. Or trapped. To her knowledge. She opens it. The door beyond is made of stone and featureless but for the black iron gates at the other end. It looks like there’s something incredible on the other side; it’s shiny and bright and Melaina can’t help herself - she goes to take a look.

What is the incredible thing? It could be the sun, it could be gold, it could be a waterfall. It’s hard to make out. Mouse-Tarragon could probably fit between the bars if she wanted to. She does so - or she tries. She touches the bar - a magic mouth appears in the ceiling.

“Beyond these gates lies paradise. Enter them as you entered life and you may yet find it. Grasp the jewel and grasp the iron and be whisked away to the truest of rewards.”

We have a jewel with a couple of gates in it... 

Gideon: “Ain’t nobody grasping my jewels, I’m staying right here.”

It said ‘Enter them as you entered life‘... Do we have to be naked? None of us are especially comfortable with that. We go back to the corridor to try more doors.

Another magic mouth appears above another door: “Blessed are those who control their greed.” Because we all left without picking up any coins, we are now under the effect of a Bless spell for the next hour. #blessed!

Above the next door is a sign that reads “Incinerator”. Moving on…

Shall we have a look anyway? It’s not likely that the incinerator will attack us at the door. Not trapped or locked; Melaina opens it. There are little hand prints on the door at about Boggart level.

There is an eight foot pit with an orange glow emanating from it. Well. I guess that’ll be the incinerator then. Melaina has a look. It’s forty foot deep and at the bottom are a couple of Magmins. Like Calcifier! Ahleqs waves at one; it waves back.

Melaina sees the glimmer of metal at the bottom of the pit - kind of molten and solidified. There is also what looks like some kind of gemstone down there. She sends her mage hand down to grab the gem - wait, mage hand can only do 30 feet.

Gideon tears a page from his notebook and drops it in the pit; it floats down, and when it hits the bottom it is immolated by one of the magmins. He makes an Insight check, being a learned fellow. The creatures are fire elementals; they speak Ignan and no other language. So probably no asking them to hand us stuff, then.

Carl will lower Melaina ten feet down the pit so she can cast Mage Hand. She ties her hempen rope around her waist. Ahleqs assists him, and they both make STR checks and are successful. Melaina grabs everything she can reach with her mage hand, passing things up to us.

The gemstone is a moonstone is worth 27 gp, and the mixed metal slag (gold silver and copper melted together) is worth another 35 gp. Melaina pockets the moonstone and shares the slag.

We have three more doors. Melaina investigates the next door with a nat 20 - not locked or trapped.

A winding path of bright yellow tiles leads to another door on the far side. Tiles depicting magical funerary rites adorn the walls. 

GET THROUGH is inscribed on the wall; we add that to our riddle.

“What might and strength cannot get through, this tool with a soft touch can do”?

Melaina follows the path of yellow tiles to the door - behind it is a unicorn statue, Yay!

She tries to pick it up but it won’t move. The DM tells her that the door closed behind her as she came in. On the back of the door she can read the words “everything you see is mine.” The walls, ceiling and floor in this room is a single reflective surface, so she sees only herself. If she stamps her heel into it, will she break it? She fails her STR check, so no.

What if she closes her eyes and tries to lift the unicorn? at Ahleqs’s suggestion, she doubtfully tries this - it works! Brother Charity opens the door to assist Melaina - and now that he can see the statue, it teleports back to its original place.

Malaina closes the door, and her eyes, and tries again successfully removing the statue from the room. We put it in the bag of holding, and those in the yellow tile room are careful to remain standing on them as they exit.

We have a look at the remaining doors.

The one opposite looks like a plain wooden door. Melaina does her ushe but rolls a nat 1. It’s not locked or trapped, luckily.

We find ourselves in what looks like a wizard workshop. There is the stench of fire and acid, arcane goo in buckets. The whole room is difficult terrain. Brother Charity makes an INV check; a 12. He makes a DEX save, hashtag blessed, for an 8 total. Ah shit.

There are vials and bottles on the desk he’s looking at - he knocked one over and takes 8 fire and 8 acid damage. “Oh good lord. Um - ”

Did he at least get the book? No, but he can see it from where he’s standing. There are formulae written in it. He pats himself out vigorously.

Ahleqs has a look at another vial, and the DM is entirely too gleeful as he asks Ahleqs to make an INV check. He rolls a 9 and uses a sorcery point to re-roll it to get a 7. Make a DEX save!

He gets a 21, so he can halve his d10 results.

Kessler gets a nat 20 for her investigation! She goes around the room investigating; she finds 5 potions of greater healing and keeps all of them.

The last door is not locked or trapped. It is the smoky room from before! There are the platforms, hanging from the ceiling.

Oh, he forgot to tell us - when we were looking at the room from the other side - just a second… (oh shit, what’s happening…)

There is on the last platform, some kind of magical rapier. Melaina immediately wants it.

Twenty feet below on the floor is a pot spewing smoke. The platforms are hanging level with the floor we are standing on outside the room. The first is about ten feet away so with a good jump -

Charity makes a jump onto a platform; he makes it, but he hears laughter. We roll initiative oh no!!

These creatures are smoke mephits. Kessler’s two attacks both hit, but it doesn’t kill the first mephit. These are normally weedy, but they have been Beefed somehow. The smoke pot, perhaps? 

Melaina’s attack also hits for 32 damage - the mephit looks real ropey, all blood and scar tissue. She makes a jump out to the platform to join Brother Charity.

Charity makes a DEX check as Melaina lands on the same platform as him. He gets a 14; he’s fine. Phew. It’s his turn. He enchants a divine hitting club, and strikes at a mephit. He rolls at DISADV because he’s trying to balance with Melaina on the platform, but manages a hit for 9 blud damage.

He hits and kills it, it explodes in a puff of smoke. It’s gone - but it’s exploded into smoke, obscuring Charity’s vision for his next attack. He makes a jump for the next platform; at DISADV because of the smoke.

Charity: “God will guide me.”

He falls in.

(it’s only 2d6 damage, but it’s super funny.) He is now in very thick smoke, and Blinded.

Grease Wizard is up.

DM: “Tell me you’re going to do a geriatric run and jump.”

(Ed has been thinking; let’s say a person weighs 70kg or so. If they fell 30 feet they would be travelling at 87 kph; if you could run at that speed into a wall in D&D, you would take 30ft of damage for a horizontal splat instead of a - anyway.)

Gideon, as he leaps into the pit, missing the platform entirely: “TALLY HOOOOOOOOO!!”

Melaina rolls to see how long it takes her to stop laughing.

Ahleqs goes up to the edge, and in no way makes any kind of jump. He stretches out a hand and casts Fireball, using Careful Spell to avoid Melaina, who now stands alone on the platform. He decimates most of the mephits.

One of the surviving ones flies around the corner and does Cinder Breath at him; everyone in the corridor makes a DEX save. Only Carl fails, and he is Blinded. Another mephit attacks Melaina but misses. The second one hits though, for 4 slashing damage.

Tarragon makes an attack with her quarterstaff after she un-mouses,  remembering belatedly that her staff is broken and does half damage when she hits. It does half the damage she had hoped for. Well, shit. She backs up, putting the thing away.

Another mephit flies around the corner and slashes at Ahleqs’ eyes with its claws. Melaina’s one hits her again for 3 slashing damage.

Brother Carl rubs his eyes and paws at the air in front of him, grunting. That’s about all he can do. (Joe can’t find the blinded icon so he gives Carl a bleedy eyeball instead.)

Kessler kills another mephit - it explodes and we in the corridor (Ahleqs, Tarragon and Kessler) are Blinded for one round.

Melaina shoots the mephit remaining in the corridor with us. She makes the attack at advantage because it’s engaged with Ahleqs, even though that is about the equivalent of being engaged with a piece of lettuce. She kills it and it explodes into smoke, increasing the amount by which we are Blinded.

Brother Charity blunders around on the ground. That’s his turn. He rolls to see which direction he blunders in. Gideon does the same, and manages to blunder in the exact same direction.

Ahleqs casts Burning Hands, once he’s moved out of the smoke from the mephit, and gets two of them for full damage and one for half. Another mephit hits him for 4 slashing damage.

Tarragon does a Thunderwave, killing a mephit but not before pushing it ten feet away so the smoke won’t Blind us again. Kessler’s crossbow attack kills the last one, taking us out of combat. Phew!

Carl’s eyesight gradually returns over the next five minutes or so. Ahleqs offers him some eye drops if he will just push his hood back a minute... He reaches out to push it back for him but hesitates. He changes his mind and pats him on the head instead. Carl flinches violently.

We decide to let Melaina continue hopping from disc to disc; it’s easier if we don’t join her as the platforms swing violently when another person lands on them.

She rolls a 28.

The floor below is just normal flagstones. There is some muck and slime around, but nothing especially dangerous. Brother Charity laments his shoes, which were rather nice before he fell down here. One of the pots that are belching out the smoke is about ten feet in front of Brother Charity. It’s about five feet across and doesn’t have a lid. They’re bigger than he thought they were; he had wanted to push one over or turn it upside down to stop the smoke, but he gives up on that idea.

Melaina’s roll to jump to the next hanging platform is a 12, but she’s still hashtag blessed. She makes it - with a bit of a wobbly landing, but she makes it. She makes three more checks: a nat 20 for a 30 total, then another nat 20 for another 30, then an 18 for a 28 total. Ho-lee shitt. She needs to find a new party because we’re holding her back.

She gets to the rapier. It’s magical and of some value, but roll20 doesn’t seem to have it. It’s a Moon-touched sword, which sheds moonlight for 15 feet. Woo, fancy!

DM awards her inspiration for her amazing rolls, and doesn’t make her roll to get back.

Gideon and Charity are still blundering around in the smoke below. Ahleqs and Brother Carl lower a rope and pull them up.

Brother Charity sees that Tarragon has un-moused and runs toward her; she re-mouses and runs away so he shouts his second poem after her. Oh, fuckin’ hell.

Ahleqs has never heard a more beautiful poem recited to the back of a retreating mouse.

We return to the statue and tell it the poem - the one we put together from the writing on the walls, not Brother Charity’s love poems.

The statue says, “the answer of course is a key”. A wand appears in the air in front of it. There is writing on it in abyssal and draconic. Ahleqs takes a look at it - it is made from many low quality emeralds. It is a wand of secrets, and can reveal hidden doors and traps.

Brother Charity speaks Draconic. He makes an insight check to see if he can piece the rest together.

“All that is yours is mine and what is mine cannot be hidden.” 

He keeps the wand for now, after some discussion. So there’s the High Way and the Low Way still to explore. There is also something that goes in the golden door, that we haven’t found yet. A coin, perhaps? Ahleqs puts a gold coin into the slot.

Nothing happens.

Do we need to take one of the cursed coins, and put that in the slot? We’re reluctant, because we don’t want to be hashtag cursed.

We go back to the High and Low ways. Brother Charity waves the wand at the electrified path and it points at something in the middle of the floor, revealing a pressure plate. Melaina makes an INV check; she sees scrapes on the sides of the walls. She discerns that were the plate stepped upon, the floor would lift up and deliver us to the copper rods and our electrified deaths.

She disarms the trap.

We go down the path to find a silver-plated door engraved with circles of various sizes - from coin size to about two feet across. Gideon has a silver key…

He gets stuck in the wall again and has to be rescued before he can catch up and bring us the key. He reaches up and puts the key in the lock. (In D&D land, do all doors have handles at different heights for the different sized races?)

He opens the door.

We make DEX saves; anyone who gets under a 12 is knocked prone. A wall of polished steel spheres spilled out and knocked into us. Tarragon is knocked back to gnome form; now she has no form of escape from Brother Charity’s amorous poetry.

The walls of the chamber are line with bricks - weapons and equipment alongside bones and dried gore fill the room. The floor is littered with bear traps - rushing ahead before the DM can finish his description of the room, Gideon steps in one and takes 19 damage; he is also restrained.

Melaina spots ten feet of chain, as she picks her way delicately through the traps. She also spots another secret door, but the DM realises that Gideon has set off another trap. We roll initiative, but we call the session there. Joe will roll initiative for the monster next week so we don’t know what we’re fighting. Uh oh...

[swanky-batman]

Bringing Down the Hammer Part 2

Tony Stark x Reader

Warnings: Seriously- swearing. Violence, graphic depictions of small stories, drinking, adult situations. Just. All of the things.

Part two finds us the first morning of Y/N’s stay at the famed Avengers tower and her attempt at a normal life.

Masterlist  || Ko-Fi

Beginning

———————-

Your alarm rang and you fell off the bed, not used to the set up of the end table here compared to your place. 

“Fuck me.” You rubbed your arm, sighing as you went and got into the shower.

“Morning!” Wanda greeted, surprisingly cheerful. 

“Morning.” You greeted back, your eyes widening at the sight of the coffee pot. “You guys got to-go cups?” You gestured towards it as you checked your watch. Bucky and Steve walked in, coming from an apparent workout as Wanda nodded and opened a cupboard.

“Thanks.” You smiled to her, nodding towards the boys who walked in.

“Hey!” Nat called from the top of the stairs, finishing getting dressed. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

You pointed at your chest, looking around, “Me? What the shit did I do?”

“Language.” Steve sighed and Bucky snorted, rolling his eyes.

“You’re supposed to wake me up so I can go with you to work.”

“Nat, no offense but you are the last person I would ever purposely wake up in the morning.” You chuckled, grabbing a pack of pop tarts out of the open drawer (thanks to Wanda) and grabbing your to go cup, heading towards the elevator.

“Yeah, well, too bad. I’m not having you get killed ‘cuz I’m cranky in the morning.”

“Cranky?!” You laughed, turning towards the room, “The last time I tried waking her up she shot me. Actually shot me.” Wanda, Steve and Bucky all gaped and laughed at the same time.

“In the arm.” She scoffed, “Besides- these people will do so much worse than a love tap.”

“I need an updated dictionary, ‘cuz getting shot is not my definition of a love tap.” You checked your watch, “Damn, I gotta get going.”

“I’m coming with you!” She called.

“You don’t even have shoes, my dear.” You smirked, giving a general wave to the room before scooting into the elevator while Nat tried to frantically run upstairs.

You popped one of your headphones in and hit your morning playlist, starting the walk to work. It actually wasn’t that far and you didn’t have a vehicle either way since you lived in the city. “Should only be about a 20 minute walk.” You checked your watch again, throwing your pop tarts into your bag and taking a sip of coffee as you walked.

A screech from behind you made you shoot back a look, seeing a flashy sports car driving up near you, “Need a ride?” Tony called, looking over his sunglasses.

“I’m good walking, thanks.”

“I have an angry widow on my six that says otherwise.” He smirked, giving a small shrug as you sighed and got in the passenger side.

“Thanks. Nat is a little too clingy for me to handle this morning.” You smirked, keeping your bag in your lap.

He sped off, chuckling, “Where are we off to?”

You gave him directions on the way there, noting the motorcycle chasing behind. “Christ she doesn’t give up.” You chuckled, nodding towards it.

Tony smirked, “Call Romanoff.” He spoke to the car, and when she picked up you spoke up.

“Nat get off our ass- clearly you know I’m getting a ride at this point.” You flipped off the person behind you who weaved around a car to get closer. 

“What are you two talking about? I noted that Tony took you and came home.” Her voice tensed, “Who’s following you?!” You looked over at Tony, mouth stuck in an open jaw gaze as you looked back.

“No-nothing.” You stammered out, your heart speeding up.

“Your friend is god awful at pranks, Romanoff. Hanging up now.” Tony pressed end, immediately speeding up, putting up the cars defenses. A dark tint came over the windows. Nat’s face lit up your phone as she called you, and your breathing picked up.

“Well, fuck. So much for my day to day.” You paused and shook your head, laughing. “We have got to be imagining it, right?”

Shooting came from the bike as people around ducked down, screaming.

“Fuck me!” You lowered your head automatically.

“Hold on.” Tony called, speeding around a parked car and onto an incoming highway traffic.

“To what?” You shouted back, instinctively bracing the side of the car and the arm rest by Tony’s arm.

“O-kay.” Tony’s face tightened, looking a little uncomfortable.

“What? A good okay or a fucked okay then?” You dared not look ahead, instead focusing on his face and features, trying to gain insight as to what was happening. 

His arms tensed and you felt a scraping on the sides of the car as he pushed through something. You braved a look back to spot more than one vehicle on your tail as your phone lit up again with Nat’s face. You threw your phone in the back seat with your bag, breathing through.

“Okay, what can I do to help? Are there weapons?”

“I’m Tony Stark, of course I have weapons.” He smirked tightly, trying to play it cool. “The question is can you use them?”

You blinked for a moment, shaking your head. “Probably not. But I can drive.”

“Oh no you don’t this is my baby.” Another set of bullets came in and his face tensed again.

You sighed, hitting the cruise control button as you reached underneath his seat and pushed the bar back, flicking your leg over the middle console as you held the wheel. Instead of fighting you, he seemed to give in. Here came the awkward part, you sliding in and him sliding out. You were in between seats and he shifted in between seats as well, trying to move behind you as one of the cars came up and bumped into you, knocking you back into him, his arms sliding around your waist. 

“You good?” He asked, trying to steady you before receiving a nod and sliding the remainder of the way out.

“Fucking murk these jerks.” You called, finally able to pull the seat up and be in full control, taking it off cruise and looking in the mirrors. 

Tony reached into the glove box and then looked back and flicked the back seat up, revealing a half pieced Iron Man suit.

“You always come prepared?” Your eyebrow twitched into a tease and it earned a grin from him.

“There’s too many cars here.” He hissed, looking around.

“Got this.” You called, keeping an eye on the five bikes and vehicles behind you.

“What-” His head flicked over to you as you flicked the wheel, riding over a bump and a slight grass hill, spinning off the entrance ramp the wrong way and onto a street leading towards construction.

Three managed to stay directly behind you as you weaved into the site which was closed today.

“Shit shit shit.” You flicked your eyes to Tony for forgiveness as you crashed through the locked metal fence, “I’m sorry.” Gaining speed again, you rode quickly as Tony kept a tight line on his face, slowly opening the sunroof to lift his body up and point his gloved hand out, shooting missiles at the two cars behind you.

You reached a hand up to his chest to steady him a little as you swerved away from the incoming car who came from the other side.

A few minutes and some obstacles later you were back on the street, moving quickly to get away from the scene. Tony was back inside, silent, his jaw tensed.

“Take a left up here.”

You obeyed, following his directions to a small parking garage all the way to the bottom. You parked, staying still for a few minutes.

He got out, slamming the door, making you jump a little before opening yours.

You looked at him for indicators as to what he was feeling. Pissed, kinda scary, kinda sexy? Nope, don’t need that. You rubbed your face, clearing your throat.

“What the hell was that?” He asked, finally making eye contact.

Yep, all those things you listed and more- hurt? “I’m guessing it was Hammer’s goons.”

“No,” He took a step closer, “That driving.”

You paused, looking up at him. “Adrenaline?”

“Bullshit.”

“Who’s the sailor now?”

“Stop. Evading.” His face was just in front of yours and you could feel his heat in front of you. 

“Tony-” You looked a little sad, sorrowful.

“You need to tell me what the hell is happening. You are doing exactly what I asked you not to do!” You could feel his anger.

“Look-”

“You put my family in danger!” He shouted again.

“I’m sorry!” You shouted back, this time matching his anger.

“I don’t think you understand what just happened. What if Natasha was the one who picked you up? You guys would have been dead on a bike right now! I need to know I can have you back at the house- I think I’ve earned the explanation.”

You sighed, lowering your tone a little. “You can keep yelling questions but are you going to let me answer anything?”

He paused, his face shaking for a moment before he backed up ever so slightly.

You took a breath, trying to calm down. “Look- these guys are really Hammer’s goons as far as I know. They are the only ones I know of that want me dead.” He looked like he wanted to scream back a sarcastic answer but he kept himself contained. 

“Fuck I wish I had more than coffee right now- look. Long version is- I work in criminal justice, I’m working on a program to join multiple different parts of programs together to expand records for the overabundance of Jane and John Doe’s. The mafia wasn’t exactly thrilled with the idea of me linking bodies to different jurisdictions. Kidnapped me a while back from Florida, but because my program was being implemented in the United States they figured they would move me to a different part of the world. Well, for that among information they wanted.” You paused, biting your lip and pushing back those thoughts. 

“Is that how you know them?” His eyes still looked dangerous, but the rest of him seemed to calm down a bit.

You nodded slightly, “Budapest was a wild ride that I am not legally allowed to discuss.” You smirked, trying to lighten the mood.

Tony paused, soaking in the information.“What the hell happened there? All we get are weird snippets of ‘memories’.”

“I’ll leave the details to your imagination. Getting out of the area was a challenge, the only thing I could do was drive those two out near the end. After multiple days, undercover aliases and stolen cars that couldn’t be linked to us we finally got to a spot where we could take multiple flights before getting to New York. That was last year, I moved to this city. I’ve had my fair share of hiding and secrecy. I need this to be over.” You met his eyes, “I want to be me again.”

He met your eyes, searching your face for a few minutes as you both remained silent.

Some squeaking tires were heard coming in and you both jumped, Tony coming to stand in front of you, still wearing his glove.

“It’s me!” Nat yelled, throwing her helmet off. “What the hell happened out there?”

You stepped around Tony, “Look, Nat-”

She stopped you, looking at Tony, “Why does she look sad? Did you press her for information?”

“He deserved to know as much as I could tell!” You spoke up, trying to get her to look at you.

“Damnit Tony!” She shouted, “Do you know what that does to her?”

“Hey!” You shouted back, “I can handle my story telling now.”

Her mouth stayed tight, “We can talk back at the tower.”

“I can’t go back.” You pulled back, “It’s not fair to put all of you into danger-”

“Who the hell is supposed to look after you then?” She shouted again, getting angry.

“Nat it isn’t fucking right!” You shouted back, “You guys don’t have anyone watching out for you! You should feel safe at least one place.”

“So should you.” Tony spoke up, placing his hand around your shoulders. “Let’s get back home.” He nodded towards Nat, leading you back towards the car.

———————-

Tags: @i-regret-this-already, @breezy1415, @seninjakitey, @imboredsueme, @courtneychicken, @marriedtopeterparker, @imeannooffensebabybut, @cassiopeia-barrow, @daphne-fandom-writing, @notmyfault404, @i-larb-spooderman, @aussiearies, @marvelismylifffe, @kdcollinsauthor

[swinging-from-my-cable]

Last week's session started on a banger!

Kathleen, who had some horrible nightmares about her family being dead, didn't sleep well and was (fitting since I was tired because it was a late session) totally out of it. The only person in the group who has known her for more than two weeks asked about it, and when I asked for an insight check,

Natural fucking 20.

Which was kinda a waste, because as long as she rolled higher than a 10, I'd have given it to her, but at a nat 20, our barbarian knows that Kathleen is lying through her teeth about "not sleeping well". We promised to talk about it later, which I'm still trying to decide where exactly to start because a natural 20 deserves a bit of good RP and I'm dying to let some of Kathleen's messy, painful backstory out. Kathleen is not, though. I've got til Saturday to figure it out, and ensure I've got the acting down and the tissues available. Everytime I rehearse getting the story out (I did some theater stuff as a kid, so I rehearse this kinda stuff lightly because if I go solely off improv, I might fuck it up), I get teary eyed and sniffly, so the tissues are needed.

Other thing I need to decide is if the rest of the party gets to hear it. The gnome will probably try because she is a sneaky character, but would Kathleen know that?

Then Zambini showed us how to keep things with us from location to location, so Kathleen's notebook won't get lost, which is exciting. Also, I'll gladly buy some more of that paint because she'll need it for things later.

We fought a really long fight against some mercenaries, exploding the lab, and I rolled low on all my investigation checks (fitting), but did find a forge and managed to silver my ammo with some melted silverware. However, I'm running decidedly low, so I picked up a looted crossbow, just in case.

We got into the library, I picked up a book about Lothvain's folk tales and immediately started flipping through looking for my favorites, which were deemed "smut" by the DM, because he likes making fun of my love of a certain myth, even though it's more of an adventure story with romance.

The puzzles would have been fun if I was better at visualizing and if I had more spoons towards the end. Considering she's got a point of exhaustion at this point, that is going to affect her answers to the barbarian's questions.

Looking forward to another session at the end of the week, hopefully with spoons!

[thetradeway]

Session 36: 13 Mar 2021: Effulgent

Mina is feeling better and will hopefully be joining us. It’s not been the same without the constant bickering with Gideon. <3

I am playing from the basement as Mattie is on nights and is sleeping upstairs.

Matthew has a new job, NOT making the coronavirus. Or starting the zombie apocalypse. Mina has lost a stone and a half from having the ‘rona. Other than that, she seems to be on the mend. She has been reading through the campaign diary while she was ill, and found it very entertaining. Job done. :)

Right. Gideon stumbled into this room (“Bravely! Bravely stumbled in!”) and got bitten by a bear trap. So - initiative? A door opens on the opposite side of the room and out pour six skelly-bums. Melaina hates them. One shoots at her but misses. (DM: “Perhaps it had a bad childhood.” Melaina: “I’ll give it a bad adulthood!”)

Tarragon entangles two skeletons, but also Melaina. Whoops…

A skeleton stabs Gideon and he goes down. Oh no… Brother Charity makes a death save - what? Wait, he got mullered by the big balls from last week. He succeeds - and gets some HP back. (Huh. How he do dat.) 

17 to hit Ahleqs? “No! I mean it hits, but I don’t like it.”

Gideon makes a Death save. “Watch this!” He rolls a 17. One down…

Ahleqs is scared of the skeletons. He screams and casts Fireball. He screams his magic word, which is “Sorry!”, and uses a sorcery point to avoid Melaina, who is now surrounded by skeletons. He does manage to hit all of them though, and obliterates all but one, which he doesn’t see until he removes his hand from his eyes. He enters the room and makes a DEX save to avoid the traps, rolling a nat 1. He rolls on the crit fail table and takes 20 damage. He takes a healing potion as his bonus action. He is very attached to his remaining hit points.

Melaina uses her action to try and free herself from Tarragon’s Entangle, and makes the save. She also takes a potion as her bonus action. (Matthew is doing some back seat dungeoneering, but luckily Sophie is finding it useful.)

Kessler moves forward and takes a few potshots at the remaining skeleton; her first shot hits and kills it. How de do dis!

She moves forward to try and help Ahleqs out of the bear trap. Even with Guidance she rolls poorly with her strength check and the trap snaps back and hits him again. He is sick a little bit.

Gideon and Melaina are both still stuck in bear traps. Ahleqs gives up and uses a spell slot to Misty Step out of his trap. Kessler, who has been offering him cyborg legs if he loses his meaty ones, finds herself talking to thin air.

Brother Charity, reaching out a hand as Tarragon moves into the room to Healing Word Gideon: “Tarragon my love, be careful!” She slaps at his hand, crossly.

Kessler tries to move forward to help Gideon, who is spectacularly ungrateful about it. She sets off another trap, to a “Ha!” from Gideon.

(Ahleqs: “If we leave them, do you think they’ll gnaw each others legs off?”)

The DM says that if we all keep still for a minute, Melaina can scan the room and try to point out where all the traps are. She rolls a 15, uses her inspiration to roll at advantage, rolls again and gets a 13. Well, poop. She does see the traps on the southern half of the room with the 15, though.

Brother Charity: “Would now be a good time to read another poem?”

Tarragon: “NO!”

Has Gideon tried Greasing himself to slip out of the trap? He doesn’t think that would work.

Melaina has disarmed the traps. She can roll again to find the rest of the traps, after a brief poetry interlude.

Brother Charity is asked about the initials at the bottom of the poem. It turns out they’re his, and they stand for Sir Ardvack Darkspire.

Melaina disarms the traps in the northern half of the room, but rolls another Nat 1 to help Gideon out of his trap. (They get him out eventually.)

We investigate for treasure. Tarragon gets 8gp. Nice! (Gideon falls into a cymbal. Or maybe into the Matrix. A ten inch crash, unless Duncan is very much mistaken.)

Melaina investigates the smaller room - on the wall is a mural depicting a sea of human skulls. She’s stumbled into a goth’s bedroom. There is an alter with skulls that have gems for eyes - she wants to pry them out with her dagger. We all take a short rest except Melaina, who is busy prying gems.

There is good news and bad news for Melaina. The good news is that she pries the gems out with ease. Damn, that’s some good roguing! The bad news is that she failed to notice a creature squeeze itself out of one of the now empty eye sockets - it attacks her. Does 16 hit? Ooh er hang on. Yes.

The thing drains 1d4 of her STR score. (She will die if it reduces the score to 0 - oh fuck!) Luckily she’s rolling like shit today and rolls a 1. We roll initiative! (Except Ed, who is apparently asleep. Or eating more sausages.)

Tarragon casts Moonbeam, and is very happy when it does more damage than she was expecting. Melaina is AFK so Matthew shout-asks her what she wants to do. She returns to take her turn, and uses her new Moon-Touched Rapier to attack it with a 24, for 6 piercing damage. She bonus action Disengages and walks away, because if it hits her again she may die.

(Ed has returned. Was it sausages? “… Maybe.”)

Ahleqs - save the day! He makes an Investigation check as a free action. With a 15 he can tell the thing looks humanoid but with a skull for a face. Its ‘shroud’ is black, and looks tattered. (Like Spirited Away!) He doesn’t like it, and casts Shatter. No-Face fails its save and takes 18 Thunder damage, and dies.

Melaina takes her short rest.

We decide to take a long rest, actually, as the spellcasters could use some spell slots back and Melaina is extremely poorly. The room is fairly safe now that Melaina has disarmed the traps, and Kessler can cast her Alarm spell just inside the door. Brother Charity spends some of his rest penning another poem for Tarragon, and reads it out when we all awake.

Tarragon turns into a skunk and sprays him - he makes his DEX save at disadvantage and rolls a 3. He makes a CON save (DC20) and fucking makes it. How annoying. She has hit him, but he is not poisoned or blinded. He does still stink however, and will do so for four months. He is, unfathomably, delighted about this.

We have a pair of uninvestigated double doors on the northern wall of the room; Melaina investigates with a 14. Not trapped or locked. She pushes them open.

Dried gore is splattered all over the walls, ceiling and floor of the corridor behind; whirling blades start spinning across it, swinging from the ceiling and slashing out of the floor. There is no obvious disarming mechanism, but we might be able to avoid them. Ahleqs casts Mage Armour.

He picks up a skull (trying not to be sick) and throws it into the corridor; the blades shatter it and dried brains are thrown from the skull and add to the gore. So not illusory blades then. Ahleqs has a little sit down. Could we Indiana Jones it?

Melaina gets the idea she could probably dodge these if she was careful. (Sophie is AFK. When she returns she wants to know what to roll.) She can move at normal speed and make two DEX saves, or she can dash and make one save at disadvantage. Someone is eating crisps so we have to stop for a moment.

Melaina makes it down the corridor without a scratch. She finds herself in a dome shaped room made of marble. There is a plinth in the middle with a plush red cushion atop it. She investigates. There is a single copper piece. She Investigates that. No traps.

(Ed is playing bass? Is it Hocus Pocus by Focus? Or Focus by Hocus Pocus?)

Melaina Mage Hands the copper piece. A magic mouth sarcastically says “Congratulations.” But nothing happens. As the coin lifts off the pillow, the knives and blades disappear from the corridor. She is immediately distrustful, and makes an Insight check to see if the DM would really do her like that. She remembers the slot in the gold door, and thinks that this coin would fit in there nicely. She pockets the coin. Can she give the sarky pedestal a kicking? She could, but it’s just a pedestal. She decides it’s not worth her time.

We take the DM bus back to the room with the slot in it. (Ed figures out his mouse controls for Roll20. Only seven months in, lol) Tarragon is still a skunk; Brother Carl stands as far away from Brother Charity as possible. Charity smiles at Tarragon; she bares her teeth at him. Charity leans against a wall and gets a white dusty stripe down his back, and starts talking in a French accent.

Does Melaina put the coin in the door? (Soph is making dinner but shouts from the kitchen - “I bloody well do!”)

Behind this door she finds a Lantern of Revealing. Noice.

We have opened both the silver and gold doors, and found the Unicorn statue. We have won D&D! We traipse back to the Dagger.

Ahleqs has the statue in the Bag of Holding. A voice in his head tells him that the statue is a real unicorn, transformed into a statue; it is the voice of the unicorn herself. Her name is Primara, she tells him. She begs him to find a way to free her instead of turning her in to Mirt, and she will find a way to repay us. He makes an Insight check and rolls a 20; he believes her.

He stops dead in the street and has a big think. Does he think the voice is Mr. Pickles? No, the voice specifically said it was a unicorn. It’s called Pandora. Pasadena. What was it again?

He tells us all about the voice in his head; Tarragon takes a step back from him in case this is some Tides of Chaos shit.

Ahleqs concentrates and tries to communicate with the voice in his head. He asks how we turn her back. Primara says probably with magic. He relays this to us. His first instinct is to ask Mr. Pickles for advice, but he doesn’t know if he can summon him any more.

He still has the magic item he was given to summon him, so he tries that. He rubs the amulet and calls the Al-Miraj’s name three times, and he appears.

“Yes, my boy?”

Ahleqs asks if he knows about unicorn-horses. As opposed to unicorn-rabbits, like what he is.

“RABBIT? How dare you!”

Ahleqs apologises and explains about the unicorn statue. Mr. Pickles demands to see the statue. Ahleqs opens the BoH and lets Mr. Pickles peer inside. We are in the street, so he does it stealthily so as to avoid attracting attention. Well he tries - and rolls a nat 1. He can reroll those (sorcerer ability) so he does.

Mr. Pickles’ eyes go wide. He tells Ahleqs to take her to a temple straight away. Tarragon is on good terms with temples of Mielikki and Silvanus, both nature deities. If we take the unicorn to the temple though, we won’t get any money, is the thing.

Tarragon votes we take her to Mielikki, as she is associated specifically with unicorns. Ahleqs thanks Mr. Pickles and apologises for disturbing him, and we decide to help the unicorn rather than give her to Mirt. Tarragon leads the party to the Shrines of Nature. 

Tarragon starts shouting names when we get there to see who shows up; Amithrel appears. She is the high Druidess of Silvanus. Tarragon tells her about the statue and pokes Ahleqs to get him to show her the statue.

Amithrel brings us into the shrine and we explain about the statue and where we found it. We brought it here to release it back to the feywild, Amithrel clarifies?

Yes. Yes? Yes.

She starts setting up to do the ritual to release her, and asks Tarragon to assist. The statue returns to unicorn form and thanks us. She shimmers.

If we call for her aid, she can help us. (Like casting a Summoning spell.) We can call her once. Amithrel will pass news of our deeds to the other druids in the circle, and Tarragon is given the Druidcraft cantrip as a thank you. She immediately uses it to conjure some flowers.

We are also given a healing potion each. Sweet!

Amithrel asks why we were in the Blue Alley - we tell her Mirt sent us. Amithrel looks worried. She says Mirt is not an enemy we wish to make. She suggests lying to him about why we don’t have the statue.

So - let’s get our story straight. We couldn’t work out how to get the statue out. We believe the one was there must be a fake.

(Tarragon asks Kessler to have a look at the quarterstaff, and hands it over so she can have a look at it at her leisure. Kessler takes it to her lab.)

Mirt greets us and asks to see the statue. We tried, we tell him.

“Tried?”

Melaina lie-explains, with Guidance from Tarragon. She rolls a 12; Ahleqs uses Bend Luck, for another d4, for a total of 16.

Mirt doesn’t believe her. He suggests we hand it over. “We don’t have it!”

“What have you done with it?”Mirt demands, getting angrier by the second.

Brother Charity approaches, and puts a reassuring hand on Mirt’s shoulder. “My good man…”

Mirt makes a WIS save; a 15. (Matthew sounds excited.) Mirt needed to beat a 15; there is some discussion. Did he make the save? I think tie goes to the runner.

Ahleqs Bends Luck again, forcing Mirt to roll a d4 and subtract that from his total - so he fails the save.

Brother Charity: “Might I suggest Sir, that you forget about all this Statue nonsense and go home.”

Have we won D&D?

Mirt will leave and forget about it for now, but the DM isn’t sure about the long term implications. He may have questions once the spell is up.

We need to get Kessler to Artifice a really convincing Unicorn statue. Gideon can transmute stuff? If we find a wooden Unicorn statue he could turn that to stone. Well, his transmute thing only last an hour. So we could do it, and that would give us an hour to skip town.

We definitely haven’t made a powerful enemy today…

How long has passed since Charity went mental? DM says about 5 hours have passed since we left the Alley. Only 18 hours left, give or take. 

As Mirt leaves, Jirr approaches us. She gives us drinks on the house, to celebrate us surviving Blue Alley. We ask her what her favourite bit of it was. She says she didn’t enjoy any of it. Ahleqs shows her his mangled leg; “This was my least favourite bit.”

She is faintly disgusted, but still lets us have the drinks. Melaina goes with Jirr to the bar; Jirr gives her a note. It’s from Shanks, who has a business proposition for her. She is to give Jirr a sign if she is open to a meeting. She is, in fact, open.

Jirr and Melaina return with the drinks. A short while later, a female tiefling approaches the table.

(Kessler rolls a 26 with her Tinkers’ Tools to fix Tarragon’s quarterstaff, seconds after Joe states that the DC is 15. Roll a d4 - a 1. It took her 1 hour. Kessler heads back to the Dagger with the fixed quarterstaff.)

The tiefling asks to join us.

Ahleqs, looking at the rest of us for confirmation: “Ye-yes?”

As she sits, Kessler arrives; Shanks turns her head and says, “oh bloody hell.” Charity tells her Kessler was sacked from the force. Shanks looks greatly amused.

Kessler, seeing Shanks: “Stop, thief!”

She returns the quarterstaff, and offers Ahleqs the cyborg legs again; he will see how far he can get with his meat legs. Kessler sits next to Shanks, presumably specifically to annoy her.

Shanks has set up a meeting room in the cellar under the Dagger, she believes we cleared it out a while back? She has a proposition if we want to talk in private. We do. She leads us back behind the bar, and down to the trap door where Cass let us down so long ago to fight the bats and rats when we first arrived in Waterdeep.

How aware are we of the goings-on in the Underworld of Waterdeep lately? Do we know about the turf war between Xanathar’s lot and the Shadow Thieves? Not as such, no.

The Shadow Thieves used to run most of the Sword Coast. Monopoly on smuggling and thievery. Xanathar is the head of a rival guild that came out of nowhere, and is now the most powerful criminal organisation in Waterdeep.  Both gangs are into things like slavery and trafficking, neither of which Shanks and her group want any part of.

Shanks says that most thieves are just trying to make a living, and you can hardly move in the city without running into at least one of the warring guilds. She wants to form a new guild and operate under the radar, staying well out of the way of the other two.

Would there be protection for us, if we get involved? “Yes.” Then Ahleqs is in.

What exactly does Shanks want us to do? She is trying to get some specialists on board; but they need warriors. Like us. She’s heard tell of our shenanigans, and for some reason believes this bunch of idiots and Melaina can help her. She wants us to clear out an area of the sewers to make a base of operations.

No-one really goes down to the sewers below the sewers, which are left over from the elven city that was here before. But there’s a hitch.

Scouts in the area started finding body parts. Not all human or humanoids. Limbs ripped clean off. People are calling whatever is doing this the Flesh Ripper, and it seems to be lairing in this part of the sewer. Though it is keeping other things away, Shanks needs someone to deal with it.

Well it’s that or deal with Mirt, so…

She tells us to rest up, gather any provisions that we need. She can give us a map of the sewers from the Cartographer’s Guild.

How will she make this worth our while, Melaina wants to know? We will be made members, get in on the ground floor with the new guild. Access to trades, fences, trainers, hard to find items. Access to the Skull Port maybe, later on.

Kessler wants to know if the guild will put up with her, considering her previous occupation. If we will vouch for her, Shanks will call it water under the bridge. Tarragon agrees to do so. Shanks sticks out a hand to Kessler and they shake - while Kessler makes an Insight check with a dirty 20 to make sure she isn’t stealing anything.

Do any of us need to do any shopping? Is anyone in need of potions? Didn’t we find some potions, in Blue Alley?

Kessler, clanking: “What potions?”

Do any of the arcane casters have second level spell slots? Any of them who do can have the spell Woundbind, learned from the Watchful Order. Swish. Not as powerful as divine healing magic, but in a pinch could be super useful.

Ahleqs is proficient with thieves’ tools so he could buy some - oh wait, how wimpy is he, exactly? Joe has given Ayas some tattoos, perhaps Ahleqs could get one. It will give him a boost to his AC. It’s not as good as Mage Armour, but it is constant and permanent. He is uneasy about it because of the pain aspect, but with some convincing (and if he can choose the design) will go ahead. Gideon could maybe use one as well - it would put his AC up to 13. It’ll be 50gp, thanks to a bad persuasion roll, but he will go ahead.

Tarragon sells her glabrezu horns. She rolls 4 persuasion but is handed 250gp (the flat price for two glabrezu horns), and being unused to money, is convinced she must be amazing at persuading. She immediately sets about spending it to get drunk, and buy drinks for randos in the Dagger all night.

Just as well because Brother Charity stands up and begins to read.

“Look into my eyes, and you will see, what you mean to me. Search your heart. Search your soul. And when you find me there. You’ll search no more. Don’t tell me. It’s not worth trying for. Don’t tell me. It’s not worth dying for. You know it’s true. Everything I do. Ooo-woo. I do it for you.”

Tarragon re-skunks, but Charity makes his DEX save this time. She un-skunks and goes to the bar to get hammered. Kessler buys her the first drink.

Ed dips out as he’s tired, but agrees to add Bosley to the character vault for when I do one-shots. Duncan will add Halbrecht (and Elsie!) as well, and Mina will add Shokan. So we’ll have a go at this flesh ripper next week then!

[thetradeway]

Session 20 Halloween 4! 22 Nov 2020

Kessler finds herself untrapped, so she makes her way back to the chaos.

She immediately shoots at Spider-Tarragon. (To be fair Kessler doesn’t know it’s her.)

Another phase spider appears and has a go at snacking on Kessler. It misses. A second spider appears, but the others manage to kill it. Ahleqs tries to tell Kessler that the other giant spider is Tarragon, but she still tries to square up to her after the fight.

We take a short rest, though most of us are out of hit dice. Tarragon makes a poultice and gives it to Gunna to help him keep his insides inside. Kessler casts her Alarm spell, which jolts us awake after not long - the horrible doll shows up again, oh no!!! Roll Initiative!!

(Joe shows us a close up of the doll’s face. We all wish he hadn’t.)

Tarragon Cure Wounds’s Gunna again, and goes giant wolf spider - a giant spider is Large, and will not fit in the room. She gets an extra 11HP which at this point is nothing to sneeze at.

We move on through the door at the south end of the corridor - behind it are three undead nasties.

Ahleqs uses Tides of Chaos to give himself advantage on Eldritch Blast, hits a ghoul, grows a beard of feathers and bursts into tears.

Giant wolf spider Tarragon kills one of the ghouls - hooray! She waves her legs in victory. Melaina runs from the horrible smelly licky thing and shoots it. She tries Sharpshooter, and it misses. Looking at the beasts, she surmises that they have been trapped in this little room for a long time and are a bit mad. (Oh god another one arrives and attacks Gunna.)

Gunna tries a trip attack; it doesn’t work, but he does manage to hit it.

The licky thing moves past the ghouls; they step aside to let it pass. It attacks Kessler, but doesn’t manage to paralyse her. She makes a CON save against the stink, passes, and becomes immune to it for 24 hours.

Ahleqs does Tides of Chaos again for Eldritch Blast - it hits, but he is transported to the Astral Plane until the end of his next turn. With a yelp, he disappears. A ghoul attacks Gunna but it misses. Tarragon passes her Constitution save and is immune to stinky man, and bites him - he fails his own Constitution save and takes the full poison damage. DM says he is looking ropey. Hooray!

Melaina gets the second to last ghoul with an arrow - Now he’s wearing his stinky insides on his stinky outsides. Gunna makes a Constitution save - gets a 9 and fails. He is poisoned by the last remaining ghoul. He misses his attack (at disadvantage bc poison), and vomits a little bit.

Stinky man licks Kessler and she goes down - no, wait, she has 1HP. She smacks it with her Thunder Gauntlets - it takes 10 thunder damage and perishes.

We take another short rest. There are two doors in this next room, which looks like servant quarters. Ahleqs finds that neither is locked but is reluctant to open them. Gunna opens the southernmost door (Tarragon readies Thorn Whip) to find a grotty bathroom with a smear of green slime in front of one of the bathtubs. There is a pile of broken shelves on the northernmost wall. Gunna backs out slowly.

He goes back in to investigate the shelves. He finds three little vials that might be healing potions. Yay! He calls back to us: “There’s nothing in here, guys!” He takes the bottles to Tarragon, who positively identifies them as Healing Potions. Gunna distributes them.

We check out the other door; Tarragon readies Thorn Whip. Gunna goes in - he has found the bogs. He doesn’t want to Investigate this room.

We go back north along the corridor past the spiral staircase and beyond, and Tarragon feels a whoosh of air as a knife flies out of nowhere - that fucking doll is back. Melaina misses with her Chromatic Orb. Ahleqs uses Tides of Chaos and begins to Levitate.

Tarragon casts Minor Illusion to create an image of the ghost that screamed at us in the dining room; the doll hisses and clenches its fist around the knife. (Sadly she doesn’t have time to explain so the others all think the ghost has reappeared - Gideon runs away.)

Gideon takes a look at the doll and determines that although the thing is healing itself between appearances, it is still starting to look damaged. As Joe puts it: ‘it is no longer mint in box’. Gideon Scorching Rays it and does some serious damage.

Gunna attacks the illusory ghost. Normally physical interaction with the illusion would reveal it to be not real, but the image is of a ghost; there is some discussion before Joe decides to have Gunna roll Insight; he gets a 4 and now believes that the ghost cannot be killed, screaming at us to flee.

Melaina shoots the doll (Gideon: ‘Shoot it in the brain, Melaina!’) She misses, and hides behind Gunna.

Kessler punches the doll. The doll attempts a stab in return but misses; and misses again with her claws.

Ahleqs does Eldritch Blast with Tides of Chaos again and produces a unicorn; good thing he didn’t become a pot plant, because he’s already Levitating.

Tarragon dismisses the illusion, not wanting Gunna to waste any more turns on it. Gideon administers a Chill Touch and kills the doll - hooray!

Before the Unicorn leaves, it touches three of us so we can regain HP. Kessler, Ahleqs, and Gideon. Ah, thanks :)

Kessler takes the doll’s head and rolls it down the stairs.

The next door is locked so Melaina picks it. Gunna charges through screaming “SHIELD WALL!!!”

He notices something unnatural, but not unexpected - an ethereal skeleton, writing in a ledger. It says he is expecting ‘you’, and that Gertrude may proceed - we feel something evil move through us. It is a ghostly woman, who then disappears through a door in the eastern wall.

We have heard Gertrude mentioned before - something to do with the advisor in the scrap of diary that Gideon found. Kessler touches the skeleton and it crumbles to dust.

(Mattie brings me a London Fog and a cake pop. Aw!)

We move on - Gunna goes to the door through which Gertrude went.

He sees a little girl on a bench, Gertrude offers her a doll. Stab wounds begin to appear on her dress, and she falls to the floor and disappears.

The double doors leading out of the room are carved with trees and the name of servants - the last one is Oscar Montarthas.

We move through the doors. Or we try, there is something heavy on the other side. We pull the doors instead. Gunna and Kessler see a chest on the other side - we all make Strength saves, Ahleqs with advantage from Tides of Chaos and can immediately take another action - which he uses to experience a sense of dread.

Everyone fails and is sucked through the doors except Ahleqs Gideon and spider Tarragon, who are shut out. (From here, I cannot see what’s happening, and am going by description only for a while)

They see horrible stuff on the other side - a man stuck to the ceiling, as horrible black tentacles feed on him. There is a green gem on his chest that seems to be feeding on him, and potentially feeding the rest of the house with evil energies. There is a body in a chair - it is dark advisor Gertrude.

Gunna moves toward her and her head snaps toward him with a horrible grin. We roll Initiative!

Ahleqs begins by pushing on the doors - they don’t open. Of course. He is not very sad about this. Gunna tries to tell him there’s a circus on the other side.

Gideon: “Well, Ahleqs, seems like they’re done for. Perhaps we should leave!” He makes an Arcana check on the door - magic is involved in keeping it shut. No duh. (he only rolled 11.)

Melaina hides behind a pile of corpses and shoots (Gertrude?) for 24 points, but she shrugs a lot of that damage off. Fuck.

Gunna hits her with a 25 for his longsword, and forces a Strength save which Gertrude handily makes. She shrugs off most of the damage. No wait - his sword is magical, so it does full damage. Phew! He does 2nd Wind and hits her again - but rolls 11 and misses. He waits to be Disintegrated. Luckily we are told she wants to play with us first. He tells her that they got off on the wrong foot.

Gertrude ignores him and reanimates the pile of corpses. Fuck. Melaina has been spotted, as a consequence. She doesn’t like it! Gertrude commands the corpses to attack. One attacks Kessler but misses. Another has a go, hits with a nat 20 and forces a Constitution save, which she fails and is paralysed for 1m (but can reroll at end of each of her turns.) Another attacks Melaina but misses.

Tarragon pops back to gnome form and casts Guidance on Gideon so we can maybe try and figure this door out.

Kessler fails her next CON save.

Ahleqs blasts the door with Firebolt. He misses. An eye appears in the front of his forehead for 1 minute.

Gideon is eating a piece of pork the size of his forearm, so we wait for him to finish his mouthful so he can do his turn. He rolls a 28 on another arcana check with Guidance for the door - it is sealed with magic but it can be destroyed. “Keep doing what you’re doing Ahleqs, I like your style!”

Melaina hits Gertrude with her rapier and does 10 piercing damage. Gunna attacks with his longsword and forces another STR save, which she makes.

It’s her turn - she casts Magic Missile. Nope, Joe doesn’t know how to cast it at the level he wants on Roll20. Bear with him…

She Polymorph’s Gunna. He gets a WIS save. At ADV because he’s Captain Gunna? No? Will 11 do it? No? Oh dear. He becomes… wait… a giant toad. He’ll get her with his froggy tongue!

There is some Roll20 fuckery while Joe tries to get the toad token to represent Gunna. We’ll come back to that; Gunna is a toad. 

One of the corpses attacks Kessler - at ADV bc she is paralysed. If the attack hits it is an auto-crit. Luckily it misses. Its friend has a go as well - that one hits. (Matthew is sure there is a ‘DM win’ button.) It does 28 damage - Mina thinks it is an insta-death, but it’s not. She’s down though. Melaina gets bitten for 10 damage.

Tarragon uses her last spell slot to cast Thunderwave on the door splintering it, then goes Brown Bear. Kessler fails a death save. Ahleqs draws himself up to his full height and casts Eldritch Blast on the door with ToC. He does 8 points of damage to the door, but doesn’t break it, and must roll on the table for the next ten rounds on each of his turns. Shit’s about to get weird.

Gideon shocking Grasps the door for 8 Lightning damage - it’s looking damaged. A couple more good hits should do it. Melaina shoots one of the corpses with a Natty 20 and puts it down. Woo! He fizzles down onto the floor like a melting witch or a burst balloon. She hides behind more corpses.

Mr. Toad, it turns out, is amphibious. That’ll fox it. He’s also chaotic good, so that also helps. He is totally out of his pond here, so instinctively he perceives the creature in front of him as a threat and makes a bite attack - 23 to hit Gertie. It does a bunch of damage, and also grapples her. Lol! Next turn he plans to swallow her.

Gertie drops concentration and reverts him back to Gunna; he is extremely disappointed. It is also an awkward situation, because he had her grappled with his mouth. (Let’s not think too hard about what might have happened if he’d swallowed her and she’d died, and lost concentration then.)

Her eyes go weird - Gunna makes a WIS save - despite his self-encouragement he fails and is Sickened. She draws green necrotic energy down from the gem on the ceiling and regains some HP.

A ghoul attacks Gunna but misses. Now Gunna is flanked so the next one gets ADV. Nat 20; fuck. It forces a CON save, which Gunna has DISADV on, but makes the save and is not paralysed.

Bear Tarragon busts through the door, her capacious backside making room for the other two as she forces her way in! Good grief, shit’s fucked in here. Cue a ton of bear gifs on the group chat.

Ahleqs becomes invisible. He rifles through Kessler’s power armor for a potion, finds it, and stuffs it down her neck.

Loremaster Gideon hesitates. What to do, what to do. How do Cone spells work again? Ed draws some lines. DM allows Gunna to do a DEX save to avoid it. It’s Thunderwave! It forces a CON save so Gunna gets 2 shots to avoid it. (At DISADV bc he’s sickened, but makes it.) Gertie makes her save. Booh. He does knock one of the ghouls against a wall though, so yay!

Melaina takes a potshot at the crystal on the ceiling. DM grants ADV as it’s stationary. 19 to hit! 16 points - but they’re wasted. The arrow just sort of bounces off, leaving the crystal intact and still embedded in the chest of the man on the ceiling.

Gunna attacks, makes another CON save to remove the Sickening - fails with a 14, and vomits a little. It’s a worrisome colour. Bright fuchsia.

Ahleqs is invisible so Gertie can’t target him, so she goes for Gideon instead, forcing a WIS save. He gets a Natty 20, good thing too, because that was Phantasmal Killer she just cast. (Oh fuck.) He sees ghosts floating up out of the corpses, but he knows they’re not real. She forces another WIS save for her bonus action though - a Dirty 20! He ain’t even bovvered. “Your tricks have no power here, Hag!”

A ghoul scratches at him and misses. It’s Gideon’s lucky day! Another ghoul flanks him, rolls a 23. Scheise. CON save; 18!

Bear Tarragon claws and bites at the second ghoul, killing it. She eats a bit, extremely pleased. (Is she still full, when she reverts back to gnome form? She says she tries not to think too much about it.)

Kessler gets up and throws a firebolt at Gertie. She shrugs about half of the damage off; hooray.

Ahleqs can take one additional action immediately. Woo! He fires an Eldritch Blast at Gertie with ToC. Natty 20! He does become visible again though. Creatures have DISADV vs his next spell! Seeing that she doesn’t seem resistant to Force damage, he does Eldritch Blast with ToC again; this is going to kill him one day.

Duncan, OOC: “Oh shit”.

Us, immediately: “What??”

Oh no - he casts Fireball centred on himself - no, 70, not 7. Oh fuck me thank god. So what happens is, everyone in the room becomes invisible for the next minute. This is going to be carnage…!

It’s Gideon’s turn - he can see no-one but Ahleqs. (And Ahleqs can’t see him.) Gideon reaches out blindly to Shocking Grasp whatever’s in front of him. He is at DISADV. He misses, and becomes visible again.

Melaina can only see Ahleqs and Gideon - ‘Well I’m going to shoot one of them then, aren’t I?”

Ahleqs, resignedly: “You’re well within your rights.”

Melaina holds an attack, I think?

Gunna swings wildly, believing everything has disappeared. It could be ghosts. His 16 at DISADV hits, forces a STR save. Ghoul rolls 23. Booh.

It takes 15 slashing. He re-rolls his CON save vs the Sickening, and fails again. It’s okay, he still hits about 23% of the time.

Gertie disappears - gnomish Tarragon appears in her place and says ‘Ouch, you hurt me!’

This bitch.

The ghoul swings at Gideon but misses, and becomes visible. Tarragon, now seeing the ghoul, attacks it. Melaina’s held arrow finishes it off.

Kessler is still invisible. She can see Bear Tarragon, so she knows the fake Tarragon is fake. She runs up and punches it. (Poor Tarragon!) 25 to hit. 6 Thunder damage, right in the noggin. DM: “You monster! It reverts back to its ‘less ugly’ Gertie form.” 

(Rude.)

Eldritch Blast from Ahleqs with ToC, 9 Force damage. He is surrounded by faint ethereal music for the next minute; could be Enya, could be Jurassic Park theme.

Gideon: “Well…” He’s lost his character sheet. His computers making noises! Punch it in the dick! Shocking Grasp. 11 misses. Oh, suck.

Melaina scooches around for a clear shot on Gertie; she does Sharpshooter and hits it. Woo! 19 plus 11 damage! That got her attention. She does shrug some of it off though. Melaina hides behind her pile of bodies again and rolls a natty 20 for a total of 28, becoming one with the pile.

Gunna is still at DISADV, rolls a 16 and hits. Woo! He forces a WIS save, tired of her making her STR saves. She seems very hardy for an old bitch. She fails and is Frightened of Gunna now. Yeah! He does twenty-onesies with his magic sword and kills her, swinging around and chopping off her head. He and Ahleqs are both sick a little bit, for different reasons. 

Gertie shrivels into a pile of black ooze. The man on the ceiling twitches and the vines wither, the gem falls to the floor. The man falls as well - he thanks us with his last breath before disintegrating to dust before our eyes.

Ahleqs’s size increases by one size category. Then his skin turns a vibrant shade of blue. We all stand back. He regains all his sorcery points. Then the damage of his spells maximises. Then everyone within 30 feet takes 1D10 necrotic damage, which Ahleqs absorbs. He apologises, while crying.

Gunna decides to have a little sit down. Melaina makes a sleight of hand check and gets 23. She swipes the emerald as the rest of us watch Ahleqs. (Melaina, a thief: “What gem?”) She finds a little bag next to the Gertie goo. There’s a weird stone as well. We will do Arcana checks next week but for now, the building begins to shake. We Benny Hill it back the way we came.

(Gunna is no longer Sickened; he is also no longer ten years older. Gunna: “My beard! My knees! My balls!”)

Gideon, Tarragon and Kessler take 10 bludgeoning damage from bits of ceiling; Gideon goes down.

Gunna and Tarragon get Gideon onto Tarragon’s back, and we make a run for it. We manage to get outside, where we see a huge pair of eyes looking at us - it’s Popcorn. Phew and also yay!

We defeated the evil night hag Gertrude! We won D&D!!

I think it’s time for a bloody good Long Rest. This has been absolute fucking chaos.