- Resumed with Aurelia and Lily discussing Charon
- Mystery thing happened to Aurelia probably
- We only have 30 days to save Elturel
- We make our way down the chains.
- Balsam loses their grip and they and Cassandra fall into the river Styx
- Cassandra goes unconscious, Balsam can't swim. Tzon dives into the water and also goes unconscious
- Aurelia throws a rope that Balsam grabs and they grab and heal Tzon losing their Lance in the process
- Lily convinces a spined devil to save Cassandra
- We follow Lily away from the battle, Cassandra and Tzon clearly having gone insane
- Lily talks to the shield which says if we can free him, he will help
- Tzon hears a voice in his head that claims it can make it stop, he's Gaes-ed to kill Mad Maggie
As we finish our rest, Lulu tells us it shouldn't take us too long to get to Fort Knucklebone, a couple hours. around us there are meteors occasionally crashing into the area around us. We don't see any battle happening in the direction we are going. Aurelia puts a human leash on Tzon and tries to tell him to stay with her. He doesn't seem to understand but Aurelia thinks he has. Aurelia gives the rope to Skraps. Bean note: When Balsam cast Find Steed, her mane glows with embers now, giving Ponyta. Some heat radiation coming off her hooves.
We start to head forward. Off in the distance is a lone structure by itself. We ponder the time, it's one of the 12's when I check Cassandra's pocketwatch. It's very hot out obvious. There is a dark cloud quickly rolling in towards us. Aurelia hears a buzzing sound that's getting louder and louder. We dash towards another broken down war machine as flying around us is a swarm of weird fleshy bug things
We stay under the war machine for like 10 minutes before they pass over us. We travel for a couple hours. We see an undulating flesh mass off in the distance it's a wandering mass of these things just bumping into each other
Lily recognizes them as Blind-eyes or nupperibos, spawned from the souls of the incompetent or indolent. They are the least of the devils. They aren't dangerous on their own, but a lot of them can be a problem. they are like a quarter mile away moving in a direction not towards us.
Another hour of travel, one of Lily's stillettos sink into the sand, and then quickly her leg sinks and she's rapidly sinking. Aurelia sends out telekinetic movement, to drag her out. Lily keeps closer to Aurelia from here on.
Another 15 min of travel, on the horizon we see a fortified compound on a plateau. The center is a hill of rusty stone that resembles a hand. a jagged wall made of rocks, bones, and metal surround. There is a gatehouse atop which is a half dozen small creatures on watch.
As we approach the gate, we see the creatures standing guard are redcaps.
one of them yells down "What's the password!" Lulu doesn't know. A diff one says "we don't have a password" and they fall down laughing. They tell us if we want in we have to stand on one leg. Aurelia does, Skraps does while holding Tzon who just hugs Skraps tightly. They try to get us to do a handstand too before I thaumaturgy shout that we don't have time for this. They tell us to come inside then and stop being silly
We enter and see that the area enclosed in the gates is a bunch of junk, with ramshackle huts, a platoon of small fey creatures some are the redcaps, some drip with vile ichor. a bunch of kenku are carrying tools and working on some junk vehicles. They turn to look at us in wonder and greet Lulu. One tells us to wait where we are. he leaves and returns with a tattered looking hag. Her eyes move independently of each other. On her shoulder are some redeyed ravens. There is a weird frankensteiny dude following her
then the hag focuses her eyes on lulu and grossly talks to her. Lulu doesn't remember her because amnesia. She tells us her name is Mad Maggie. She welcomes us to fort knucklebone and asks what brings us to her. we update her and tell her about the river styx and stuff. Aurelia asks why she is of import. Apparently Mad Maggie owns Fort Knucklebone. She used to live in the feywilds but she was so curious about the ultimate misery in avernus. The redcaps wanted to follow her. She thinks that the ultimate misery here is that of Zariel. She says that Lulu was friends with Zariel before she fell. Maggie recaps Zariel's tale and says she is searching for relics of such. She says she is one of many respected Warlords in Avernus like Bitterbreath, a devil. Theonor, a human who runs her own gang here. Princeps Kovik (sp?) is her special rival. Mad Maggie says she can help Lulu remember and help fix Tzon and Cassandra.
Lily interjects and asks where Mordenkainen might be found. She tells her that we will get to it. She tells us that she can't fix Tzon and Cassandra for a price. She won't tell us the specifics but it will take some time to set up the ritual for lulu, but plenty of people around need help. Seems like that will help. she tells us to not steal anything or hurt anyone. Lily asks about the ritual. It'll require fiendish preparations, an arcane circle, she will make sure we are comfortable, she is going to ask her sisters for some help. They will be there too. They are less talkative. it'll take about ten minutes. we will join into a telepathic bond. it sounds similar to the ravenguard one we did. We will go dream diving into Lulu's head.
MECHANICAL EXPLANATION: Fort Knucklebone is a social encounter. 1-10 scale based on how people feel about us. The higher we do, the more things we want to happen will happen.
Mad Maggie heads into her cave, Tzon starts tugging on Aurelia's clothes, and points to Mags and does the choking gesture. Aurelia tells him she won't kill us and that she's a friend. Tzon picks up on the no of it but not much else. He pouts. We notice that one of the ravens on maggies shoulder is sending us a long stare. It leans in to the other raven and whispers something to it who nods in response.
We look around for folks to help. The large creature that's with Maggie groans and does a hop like it's in pain. A few redcaps make fun of it. I shout to ask Maggie if it understands words. He does. I say this might hurt, but I investigate his leg. Looking him over the best I can tell, he's very docile, but his leg looks fine, its more that he was put together with various pieces of various devils. It appears the issue is at the bottom of his foot. I try to pick his leg up but he doesn't want to lift it. I convince him to lift it up, and inside there is a sharp piece of bone devil lodged in it. Lily hands me some tweezers and I firmly hold his foot, and gently pull it out. He seems very excited after I wrap his foot up and he rushes off into the cave seemingly to show Maggie. The redcaps seemed disappointed they couldn't make fun of his dance. I tell them he still sounds like that, and they say "good point" and in a chorus all make the moaning sound
We look over and see Lulu watching some Kenku, Chukka and Clonk are their names.
Aurelia checks in on how Lulu is doing. Lulu says she doesn't remember her friendship with Zariel, but she sounds like she was good when Lulu knew her. She seems in good spirits about it all. Lily asks if she thinks that maybe remembering things would remove those good spirits, but Lulu said she can't worry about that.
We go to the kenku who are swearing and yelling about whether they will be able to fix the infernal vehicle. Aurelia asks if we can help. Something is clearly broken. They say we need to catch a hezrow (sp?). It's a kind of demon. Frog-like. Big oozing hides, kind of the manifestation of embodied evils. We are going to have to use "The Scavenger." They point to a huge weird machine with a claw handing off it. It handles like a small bus.
he said we can't kill the hezrow, but we can catch it and drag it back. One of the kenku will drive it, but we will need to operate the machineries of it all. Cassandra and Tzon will be stored in the back. Aurelia tries to get Tzon to not move his hands all over the place but he won't so Skraps ties them together. We climb in. We have to leave Bean. I warn the Redcaps that she will kick if they mess with her. I man the grappling claw, Skraps mans a harpoon flinger. Lily and Aurelia both hop on Devil's Rides. Chukka is on the helm, Clonk is also on a harpoon flinger
Before we get in, Mad Maggie comes out, and says calls for Tzon and Cassandra. We bring them to her, she pinches their cheeks and calls them cute. She looks to Cass and closes her eyes "Much darkness in this one" she Cass's mind looking for the issue "Family trauma" she looks at lily for a moment. Her hand glows in a deep brown radiance, and Cassandra's mind comes back. She then focuses on Tzon pressing her temple against his. he puffs up his face and she gives him a little kiss. "oh a virgin" same aura and his mind returns.
Cassandra immediately is like I need ten minutes. Tzon asks if he can go back (kinda as a bit), he says he needs to talk to us. He tells us he has to kill her. Cass also says she has heard the same voice. I ask if anyone might know about the thing that's doing this to Tzon. Lily knows that it's probably the Geas spell. Cassandra doesn't have Remove Curse prepared at the moment. I ask if he can hold out, and he begins to feel a whining headache. Lily asks if she can try something. She tries to feel around for a signature of sorts as to who has done this or whatever. She'd need some kind of divination magic to figure that out unfortunately. Tzon doesn't even want to think a thought about not doing the thing he's been told to do. He has the understanding that even making a plan to do anything other than kill Maggie is a violation. Tzon is going to make a plan to kill Maggie tomorrow. He still takes a fuckton of damage because he understands what we are trying to do by trying to get him to do all this thing where it's not actually a murder. I pick tzon up and try to tie him up, but Tzon worms his way out. Der'ik appears but now its Inititative time!!!
Aurelia is up first, she smacks at Tzon with the blunt side of her blade. She hits, and he deflects doing no damage. Second try added psionic strike. Hits also. This knocks him out.
Out of initiative. Spare the dying just in case. I hog tie him, and also manacle his feet and also manacle his hands. We discuss what the plan is now, because he will probably be needed for the ritual. We make a couple of ideas, maybe a slow acting poison that we heal up. maybe just remove curse tomorrow. lots of ideas.
The kenku come around and notice and we all pile into our respective vehicles, tzon stored in the back. Tzon is out for 4 hours or until we heal him. It takes Aurelia and Lily a moment to get their bearings on the bikes, but then they do. We head out the gates and Chukka lays out a plan. We are gonna sneak up on em, get their attention and separate them, Grab them by the feet and raise them up and pluck their feathers. As soon as we have it we should head back. Clonk yells that he sees some hezrou. Chukkka hands Cassandra a telescope who holds it to her shoulder so that de'rik can see through it. There are a couple.
The bikers split off and go to grab their attentions. secret secrets between Ben and Dustin. They head towards the middle of the two hezrou and then split up after that. They both succeed at that, They juke between them each grabbing the attention of one. Aurelia leads one towards the Scavenger, Lily leads the other away. I grabby hands with the claw in anticipation. Aurelia heads straight to the Scavenger and then last second jukes out of the way. The hezrou leaps over the scavenger. I grab onto it as it passes over and it's grappled. The kenku slam on the brings and whip it around which slams the hezrou into the side shaking all within.
Lily drives off trying to stay 90 feet away from the one she's leading. It leaps forward closing the distance to 50 feet total. But she is able to pull back to 90 feet easily. She keeps doing large circles around the scavenger. She is distracted and doesn't see a pit of bones ahead of her until the last second. She tries to jump it but fails, and she slides and falls off the bike which skids away from her. The hezrou leaps towards her in the pile of bones!!
END SESSION WOWIE!!!!
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