- Not doing it! I was distracted with Dragon Age oopsies
Resume after killing the orthon. Eliza cannot enter a servitude contract due to another contract. She would sign one saying she wouldn't pursue us again, in exchange for information and she pulls out a bag filled with heavy coins in it. "The deal is you fuck off and pay us?" says Skraps. She says yeah and we can ask whatever questions we desire.
Tzon asks after an immovable rod, but Eliza doesn't have one. Aurelia asks why he wants one and it does seem to just be because its cool as fuck. Aurelia then asks if she knows where we could get our vehicle fixed. She answers that the Wandering Emporium has mechanics but they y'know wander so its hard to locate but then Eliza shoots up into the sky and looks off into the distance and flies back down informing us that it appears the annoying mages tower is back in town, just beyond it is the Wandering Emporium. The mage is Mordenkainen. Skraps and Balsam are a lil distracted with how hot Eliza is. There is a whole conversation about all of it.
Aurelia asks after any like major threats. She says to avoid the River Styx which yeah we already know. If we see any giant floating fortresses, steer clear as those are where Zariel stores her legions. Aurelia then reaches out for the bag of coins. It's very heavy for a coin bag. It has 10 soul coins. Aurelia seems fine carrying all 10 which is strange for reasons I can't remember. "Hate to see you go but love to watch you leave," says Balsam. She flirty waves at Skraps "Hope to see you soon," and she flies off.
Tzon reiterates he wants an immovable rod. None of us have heard of the Wandering Emporium before. SHORT REST Tzon hops in the drivers seat. We all climb in and take off. It's still a rocky ride, but we were able to ensure the axle won't snap on us. Aurelia pulls out her instrument and plays a little "Diddle" (ditty). She gives inspiration to Balsam, Skraps, and Lily.
We travel for some time until we see on the Horizon, an iron tower atop an island in a lake of boiling blood. No windows only one door. Other descriptions. Horns, lightning, etc. We start making plans to get across the lake of blood. We need to across 200 ft. Aurelia, Cassandra, and Lily start looking for how Mordenkainen gets across. Nothing comes to their attention.
Balsam summons Bean and ritually casts detect magic and gallops around the lake seeing if anything pings. I don't detect and illusion, transmutations, nor evocation magics that would be expected, but I do sense a vague ambient unschooled magic pulsing from the center of the lake, every 15 seconds or so. Very faint. They feel different than anything I've felt in the past. Seems to be altered by the Hells. I also notice a small crowd of some kind of creature out front on the island.
Skraps yells out "HEY HEY YOU!" with a response of "YEAH WHAT DO YOU WANT?!" "DO YOU HAVE WINGS?" "NO!" "SOUNDS LIKE YOURE FUCKED!"
Lily thaumaturgies offering something in return if they can help us across. She succeeds at a persuasion thats real vague on what we have. "One Second!" and then some fly towards us. There are some black insect like creatures. There are also some green winged ones. I think 3. The green ones are 11 feet tall
He accepts something I missed and a wing massage from Tzon while flying us over. As we get flown over we can feel the heat coming off the lake. We get dropped off right next to a bunch of Yugoloths (sp?) The lil bug ones are the little beetle boys we saw before. Mezzoloths (sp?) The green ones are Nikaloths (sp?)
They don't really pay too much mind to us as we are dropped off other than a lil bit of disgust. Tzon's massage seems to be going well. The green guy asks how much to betray their friends and stay with him. Tzon denies him for now. Lily asks how much to hire him as a Taxi. He says a lot. He hopefully will be employed my Mordenkainen. He can't fly Bean over since she weighs a literal ton. A little convo with aurelia and Balsam about our little side adventures and Balsam offers her to hop on Bean and give her a rear before we fly over. Finally he flies Aurelia and Balsam over.
The green guy offers to buy Tzon from us, but then Aurelia spins it to be talking about what his deal with Mordenkainen is. He says that the mage is always looking for mercenary work so whenever the tower is there, they gather. It showed up in town yesterday. The front door is up on a big ole balcony about 60 feet up. The green guy has never seen someone go up to the door without Mordenkainen coming out first.
Lily uses Suggestion to try to get him to go knock on the door and get us an audience with Mordenkainen. It succeeds and he flies up and knocks. As he does, he takes fuckin 116 points of damage, and he gets hit with a 9th level Disintegrate but he doesn't die. He is real fucked up though. As he is hit with it the leather between the joints on his wings and his skin disintegrates off of him. He is essentially just meat now and is stuck up on the balcony.
He asks for help and then the doors begin to open revealing:
He kicks one boot straight into the Nikoloth's chest right off the balcony, splatting him on the ground killing him. Balsam tries to start a slow clap DOUBLE NAT 20s!!!!! Every single being joins in and the exact beat of it to make it perfect. Mordenkainen gives a bow and a flourish "Let this be a reminder you don't come to me, I come to you" He scans the crowd and notices the 7 of us. "Interesting guests, are you looking for a contract as well?" We agree. Tzon banters with him about his massage skills and such. "What brings you to my tower? Surely not just coin?" The yugoloth are now very upset at us because of the interests. Aurelia speaks up and tells him to give one of them the job, and tells him that we have something more interesting to bring to him. She elbows Lily and gets her to gas him up when he asks what we have heard of him and then Lily asks for information. He tells her his info doesn't come cheap. We ask to speak privately so as to not yell. He makes a door appear and open for us to enter. Lily's tail is out and proud.
Mordenkainen is already downstairs as we enter. He welcomes us to the Tower of Urm. The door closes behind us. His presence is wild and intense especially behind his eyes. We need to talk to him about the shield and also Zariel's sword/ the 2 paladins who saw the sword last.
As we walk into the bottom of his tower, its much larger than the outside implies, we also see a bunch of dead, imprisoned, or experimented on devils and demons. Some of the experiments seem to be like magical enchantments, modified polymorph spells, bending the whims of his magic in ways that wouldn't usually work. He apologizes about the mess. He doesn't oft have guests. Balsam asks if any are still alive? He says yes but he doubts they wish to be. Balsam is excited about the pain they must be in. His goal isn't the pain, but moreso the magics involved in such. Namely that the distant planes are harder to survive in so are more interesting and requires different magics. He tells us that we shouldn't stay in the hells for too long as the effect of the very nature of the evils will seep into us.
Lily asks if he maybe has a meeting room for us to be in a less distracting area. He snaps his fingers and its as if the room changed around us and we are now in a majestic parlor with psychedelic windows and a tall and infinite bookcase, but it only takes up a small portion of the room. Red velvet chairs and a massive black oak desk with a golden throne behind it that he sits in. He summons 7 of the red velvet chairs for us and we sit.
Lily offers him some wine, and asks for some glasses and we begin talking. We ask after the location of one of the fallen 3, Zariel and her paladins. Specifically the paladins or the pit fiend that witnessed her turning. We tell him we are trying to save BG. He tells us he COULD, but he would ask us of a task first. He is in need of some powerful materiel for his experiments. He needs the blood of a powerful fiend, specifically a pint of blood from a baelor (sp?), a pit fiend, or something even more powerful. He doesn't have directions to one, but it doesn't matter specifics. Balsam mentions they are quite adept at drawing blood, and a pit fiend has such large veins which will make it easier. Mordenkainen offers a special jar for us to use. It's a gemstone jug (tigers eye) with a wide mouth and a cap. He tells us to fill it with said powerful fiend's blood and he will gladly perform the ritual for him.
He says he plans to stay for an additional 7 days, so as long as we get it to him by then we will have our answer. Aurelia asks if maybe we could turn off the disintegrate spell for us so we don't fuckin die. He says he won't lower his defenses, but he points to Balsam's necklace and asks "May I?" and takes it and casts a spell on it which imbues a carving of runes across the back of it. "The carvings will disappear, but it's a one time sending spell. You can use it for whoever you want, but it's meant to contact me so I will let you in."
NOTE! The wine tasted like wine while we were in this building.
He snaps and we are back into the original room. The door reforms and he sends us on our way. Tzon asks if we can be teleported back across the lake. NAT 20! We are back with Bean and our car. We discuss maybe seeing if we could buy the blood at the emporium if they offer any. We gotta get the car fixed anyway. Tzon is in the drivers seat ready to go. We hop in and Bean runs alongside.
We start driving off towards the emporium. We have been awake for a while so we are getting tired and discuss if we might be able to rent a tent or something to long rest at the emporium. We eventually see a form of oasis with a bunch of infernal machines and we get out and hear a bunch of soft lilting music. We see a bunch of colorful tents and smell some wonderful smells. We hear a welcome from a Ma-Hadid! He tells us that we look weary and that we look like we need a weight taken off and to come in. Skraps asks if they have a mechanic. They do. Ma-Hadid says yes but that can't be all we are looking for. He tells us we could come to the Infernal Rapture, a hotel, spa, and restaurant that he runs. He says the food tastes really good unlike elsewhere on this plane.
He snaps his fingers and summons a menu written in Infernal.
He then realizes and snaps his fingers again and shifts it to common.
"- MENU -
APPETIZERS
- Pickled vine blight salad -
- Pan-fried myconid cap with garlic butter -
- Spicy shredded stirge sliders -
MAIN DISHES
- Broiled quippers served in a port reduction -
- Roasted wereboar seasoned liberally with pepper and paprika -
- Twice-battered axe beak strips with a brandied plum sauce -v
- Deep fried miniature giant space hamster, seasoned to perfection with rosemary, basil, thyme, and tears -
DESSERTS
- Candied phase spider eyes in a raspberry liquor reduction -
- Sweet apple tart with a celestial caramel drizzle -v
- Rare miniature stench kow cheese selection -
- Coffee/Tea -"
He tells us they offer a variety of spa treatments: "body, foot, and hand treatments, massage therapy, skin care, general grooming and bathing" included at no additional expense. There are also some more costly options: "dream therapy, whole body restoration, and longevity therapy, as well as a host of services for every appetite, both wholesome and degenerate." Soul coin per person for the dining, sleeping, and standard spa services. The additional options are an additional soul coin.
Aurelia sets aside the 7 soul coins needed for us all to enter. Lily asks if Aurelia feels any different for holding all of those soul coins. She doesn't seem to and says they are just coins, and Lily is like no they aren't and then Aurelia tosses the bag of 6 soul coins remaining to Lily. It just feels like a heavy bag of coins, though she can feel the souls inside but nothing like detrimental other than a brief feeling of rage and despair. Lily takes a turn holding them.
He tells us that there is a bit of a contract to enter, but he will return us our coin if we refuse to sign. He presents, in front of each of us, a contract that says:
Lily reads over it intensely with a lil guidance or whatever from Cassandra. It essentially says he will provide sanctuary if required, we cannot incite violence. Failure immediately forfeits our soul to him, and we will be kicked out. There will be a creation of an open contract for our death and severed head. We have to pay upon leaving (the 7 coins) or our soul is forfeit. It's clear and straightforward IF you know how to read a contract. We cannot hinder another client from receiving a service. Also he can cancel at any time without warning.
It seems altogether straightforward other than the immediate cancelling but everything is essentially null and void if we did get it canceled like that. Tzon asks for examples of the more dubious acts of inciting of violence. His example is that someone tried to overthrow him and shit. It was Bitterbreath one of the warlords. He tells us who the fuck Bitterbreath is but it's hard to follow this character. It was a pit fiend who was demoted to a horned devil for pissing of Zariel essentially.
Aurelia asks after pit fiend blood and then Lily and I ask after maybe a blood facial. It's an additional cost. He provides us quills which fills itself with red ink (Lily assumes its probably our own blood), though Balsam wants to supply their own and cuts the back of their hand dipping the quill in and signs. The "ink" fizzles and instantly dries.
He leads us inside the emporium. Inside are a few businesses: "Firesnake Forge, Burney the Barber, From Here to Avernus, Ichor’s Aweigh!, Z’neth’s Larva Farm, The Rose Repose, Gabool's Pitchfork Emporium, Sister Elga's House of Curses"
Skraps activates the group chat for 5 hours (schrodingers cass, if Cass is left outside she is in it and balsam isn't, otherwise she is not and Balsam is. Also if cass stays outside Lulu will also stay with her otherwise she is in) Tzon is left out no matter what. Aurelia also passes out 1 soul coin to everyone for other expenses.
This place feels like a more fun Hell Renn Faire. We make our way inside the Infernal Rapture. It also is way bigger on the inside than it looks from outside. We see all manner of beings in here, Devils but no demons, a human woman who is carrying a parasol made of claws/bones standing outside the restaurant looking over the menu. And many other mortals and immortals/outworlders. None seem to be of the good persuation (Angels and the like.)
We decide to get food first. We make our way into the restaurant and immediately a bunch of imps fly us in an empty glass and individually take our drink order. As we place the order they fly away and immediately ass they pass a new one flies in.
Tzon: Virgin Mojito
Lily: A Negroni
Balsam: A Gnome Blood and Human Tears Old Fashioned. The Ice is perfectly clear and stamped on all 6 sides with
Skraps: A Lumiere (Gin, Green Chartreuese, St Germaine, Lime, Orange Bitters.)
Aurelia: "Banging Bloody Mary with a Garden in it" Specifically has an old bay rim, and a terrifying amount of garnishes including crab, bacon, lobster, etc.
We also order our food. It's decadent and amazing. Balsam gets the miniature giant space hamster for sure. It's so good that we are dead silent while eating our meal. After the main course we have our desserts. We notice that we are being sustained and not hungry, but also we never feel full to the point of bursting. We could just keep eating if we wanted. We do get drunk though. The miniature giant space hamster tastes like sadness in the way that makes us like tragic stories. Aurelia sheds tears as she eats it.
The restaurant is full. There is a bar. There are reserved booths with like shady meetings happening, but in a mob sense.
As we decide to stop eating eventually, WE END THE SESSION
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