Session 46: Pustules in the Basement
With Red and Autumn safely on their way, the party resumes searching the tower basement. Clarence prods Sartorii to look into the other cells to take advantage of her dark vision.The first cell contains a statue of a man tied to an old wooden chair by rotting ropes, some bottles of glowing liquid scattered around his feet in varying states of emptiness.
Clarence raises his shield and opens the door. The statue's eyes are wide with fear, his face pinched like someone was forcing his mouth open. Clarence doesn't recognize this as anything religious, but it's fairly obvious this was forced petrification.
Sartorii takes the bottles. The party inspects them and identifies them as mutagens. They're usually temporary. This is Stoneskin. Looks like five bottles were upended in that man's mouth until he died.
Next door is blocked by rocks.
Third door. Sartorii sees what looks like a human corpse, mummified by time, bound in a rotten straight jacket. Its face is all but erased by three vertical eye sockets that may have spontaneously burst open, judging by the pained expression.
Last door, unlocked. Small slimy pile in the center of the room.
Sartorii inspects the puddle of slime and sees the glint of silver coins.
The Sprite casts Mage Hand to jiggle the slime, which bursts and releases the coins.
The party retreats to the previous hallway and inspects the mirror at the end of the hall.
Beside the mirror is a slot for a keystone, which appears to have been removed recently.
The Sprite speculates the runes around the mirror have to do with conjuration or transfiguration schools, but they're so archaic he doesn't recognize them.
The Sprite jots the runes down to study later
In the next hallway, each door is labeled as labs. North doors labeled N1, N2, N3, south doors labeled S1, S2, S3. Double doors at the end of the hall.
N1.
25x25, mummified and vivisected drider, desk with a book of notes about drider anatomy.
The Sprite rifles through the notes. Nothing they didn't already know, must have been groundbreaking when the study occurred.
S1.
A blue flame flickers within a lamp upon a featureless podium. Nothing in this room.
Clarence and the Sprite stare at it with religion and arcana checks, recognize nothing.
Rutana occultisms it. Soulfire from the boneyard. If anyone touches it, their life force will be sucked out. There's a fine layer of ash on the ground which was likely people. Rutana shares this, and Clarence shuts the door.
The Sprite tries to Mage Hand the lantern. The hand gets sucked in and dissipates.
The Sprite shuts the door.
N2.
A circled of mummified corpses sits on the floor. It looks like they simply sat there and waited to die.
The Sprite doesn't sense anything magical about it.
They're wearing robes, frocks, lab aprons, things to protect them from chemicals while working with medicine.
S2.
A skeleton is bound in a man-shaped gibbet that would have held its living perfectly still.
The Sprite takes the potions and the book and stuffs them in the bag of holding.
Clarence sees something weird about the skull and points it out. The Sprite also takes a look, and doesn't recognize it as any modern race.
Rutana also takes a look, and just settles on not-quite-human.
Clarence gets a nat 20 to draw the skull. It's the most detailed, pristine drawing imaginable.
N3.
The party ties a rope around the Sprite. He flies into the room so as not to touch the glass or slimes. He inspects the bottles on the rack. They're full of an almost syrupy, viscous ichor. The liquid is slightly acidic and contains flecks of pollen or spore-adjacent matter. It smells metallic. He gets the feeling this would be used to clean.
Rutana takes a look at it too. It smells headache-inducing. She realizes what it is, and it makes her a little sick. The fluid uses fungus native to Pandemonium that disrupt psionics in an incredibly painful way. Judging by the ichor splatters, the creatures in the tank were likely from the Astral plane. The lab was to experiment disrupting the psionics.
Clarence isn't comfortable taking these potions due to the torturous methods by which they were created. Thinking it best not to leave them for someone else, the party stashes them in the bag of holding anyway.
S3.
Collapsed.
Double doors at the end of the room.
The doors open upon a ruined operating theater. A horrible, guttural noise resounds from the room as some creatures notice the intrusion.
Rutana recognizes them as fleshcrafting experiment byproducts. They would normally act robotic, but these act more animalistic. They're more purple-hued than they should be, the stitching faded.
The Sprite starts charging Horizon Thunder Sphere.
Sartorii's turn. She sheathes her sword and draws her bow, firing on one of the grothluts for 5 damage.
Clarence approaches one grothlut and claws at it, dealing 8 damage. He raises his shield and ends turn.
The grothlut opens its mouth and emits a pitiful, warbling moan. Clarence is sickened. The grothlut claws at Clarence, missing all three swipes.
Rutana steps foot within the room and casts Ray of Frost at the grothlut menacing Clarence.
One grothlut approaches Rutana, but misses its attack.
The last one approaches Clarence. Misses twice.
Two of the grothlut are smaller than the other. They seem younger, less purple, less intelligent.
The Sprite lobs a fully charged Horizon Thunder Sphere into the room with a warcry of "Sorry Clarence!"
It deals a 18 damage to the big grothlut, plus 7 to Clarence and the other grothlut. He sparks for the next minute.
Sartorii glanks a small grothlut opposite Rutana, then fires at the small grothlut by Clarence.
Clarence retches, fails. He misses his attack, so he tries again instead of raising his shield. His second attack is a crit! 24 damage. He eviscerates the large grothlut, which explodes like a zit. Everyone except the Sprite and Cortez are affected.
Rutana takes 5 damage and is sickened. Clarence and Sartorii save.
Rutana casts Exploit Weakness. She notices that when the large grothlut died, the other two wiggle their head tendrils, she guesses they have a mental connection. She bops the small grothlut with her parasol and nails a crit, dealing 4 damage. Second bop also deals 8 damage.
The other young grothlut flails ineffectively at Clarence a few times.
The Sprite casts Magic Missile at Clarence's grothlut, 10 damage total.
Sartorii takes out her stabbin' stick and starts stabbin'! Crit sneak attack! 36 damage!
She runs her rapier through the back of the grothlut's head, through its spinal column, and out its nose. The grothlut just melts apart.
Clarence gets to clawing. 6 damage and then a crit, and the last grothlut is dead. All that remains in dissolved goo, the same as all the other goo in the room.
In the center of the room lies the mirror's keystone. The Sprite grabs it with Mage Hand.
The slime also contains 90 silver coins.
The south wall of the theater has a tunnel entrance. Sartorii hears squishy movement. She guesses there's more of those things, but can't tell how many or if they're approaching. She recalls Red mentioned people were dragged that way by Creatures.
The party decides to go into the tunnel.
Rutana leaves Cortez outside the tunnel, outside of explosion radius.
Clarence extinguishes his torch and the Sprite extinguishes himself. Sartorii leads the party down the tunnel.
They come upon one branching tunnel. It contains a trash pile for whatever lives here.
The next branch is coated with mucus and strips of flesh and meat.
Sartorii continues alone down the meat tunnel. She sees some creatures relaxing, having gorged themselves on the slurry. At the far side of the room is a corpse stuck to the wall holding a staff.
Sartorii notices the opposite branch also has some creatures.
The party moves on.
The next branch contains what looks to be egg sacs, but the bodies don't quite fit the casing.
Next branch. No creatures, seven egg sacs. Sartorii describes the pustules against the wall, but doesn't give further detail. She explores further to see if it's safe to light torches. Satisfied, she leads the party into this chamber. Clarence and the Sprite light up and inspect the sacs. Clarence determines they feel solid, almost like a sleeping person. The Sprite surmises the sacs are almost embryonic, feeding whatever is inside.
The party agrees to slice one open.
As the sac is sliced open, one of the wolven villagers falls out amidst a puddle of liquid. He retches, realizing he's drowning. Once realizing he's free he starts to panic and ask where he is. Sartorii holds his muzzle shut while the party calms him down. They recruit him to help open the rest of the egg sacs.
Seven wolven people are freed! Some seem to be Autumn's hunting party, others seem to be villagers.
Everyone lines up and Sartorii leads them out to the operating theater.
Cortez flies up to Rutana the moment they're back.
Rumbling sounds in front of the party.
Sartorii and Clarence go to investigate. The Sprite and Rutana stay with the villagers.
The entrance to the basement is fully caved in.
Clarence and Rutana lead the villagers to the mirror to see if it's an escape, while Sartorii stuffs the Sprite in her pocket to go inspect the rest of the tunnels.
Rutana slots the keystone into its slot. It emits a hum and gives slightly. Clarence presses down on the keystone like a button. The silver of the mirror turns completely untarnished, then appears as standing liquid. Rutana inspects it and determines that it's a door, perfectly safe.
Clarence steps through to look around real quick. It's cold, thicker than water, does not cling to the skin. Clarence is dry when he emerges on the other side.
Two people gape at him, surprised by his sudden appearance. The room is of similar architecture, a slightly-sunken basement. A centaur, two gnolls throwing dice, a snake person. The two people closest are a kitsune and a blue avian person.
"Hey, uh, you good?" the kitsune asks.
"Maybe, uh. I have some more people to bring here. It's gonna be weird."
The whole room laughs.
"I'll be back in one minute."
"We'll be here."
Clarence backs into the soup.