#surrounded by tiefling corpses and says shit like this

[utterdrip]

hey astarion. what the fuck.

[sephiratales]

BG3 brainrot (may have spoilers)

Sometimes, I like that my ocs live the adventure together. My paladin Selene is the first protagonist, meeting all the companions, helping them and offering camp. But Sinrane survived also the crash, but was caught by bandits who then are in the ruins. And of course, it was a terribly bad idea to lock up a former Lolth worshipper drown in a cage underground surrounded by darkness. Especially when the drow is capable of everything to survive.

No need to say that Selene met Sinrane on a top of corpses, not the best first impression. But except for Wyll, the others think it might be a good idea to have her in their group of weirdos. Selene is weary, but Sinrane opens door without a drop of blood, only just a threatening look... And simply being a drow, Selene can feel her pain.

Of course they don't really trust each other during Act I. Sinrane fears Selene's oath might turn her blade against her. Selene fears Sinrane could betray them for her own survival.

They both learn to have more colors in the view of their world. Sinrane feeling proud when Selene stand by her side and both standing against Kagha. Selene seeing the drow making fun faces at the tiefling children, life is not in black and white, good versus evil.

They become closer, not really friends but not far. Selene sees the change when Sinrane sighs loudly when the elf and Gale talk about nerd books. Selene sees how Sinrane looks at Karlach, wants to hold her but take her hand away. She screams of happiness when they can finally both kiss. A little respite until Launë arrives, breaking the thin equilibrium.

Oh course, he doesn't understand why Sinrane is so pissed to see him, he doesn't remember her. But Sinrane remembers too well, her scar on her neck remembers too. But his brother is so charming, nice and kind now; she can't fight him. She can create a wall and hiss at everyone who want to destroy it. She hopes her brother won't follow, but life is a little shit sometime.

Sorry for my rant, need to get it out

[kaiju-z]

Seon Adventures: Episode 32 - Chain of Command

There was a victory. A bitter, bitter, ugly victory, from wherein our heroes were left amidst piles of bodies, surrounding the lake of Stren.

From hundreds, if not thousands of dead, there were 34 survivors. Among whom were Dak and Kit. We come back to the scene as our heroes get their bearings of this ordeal...

Bodies. So many corpses. And among them, the party of five stand. Tired. Weary. Hurt. Covered in blood, gunk and lake shit. Stren’s gook sticking to the soles of their footwear as they ponder on where to carry on to from here.

A decision is raised. While half the party ;Belli, Jun and Mournimar go to the nearest town to get help with the bodies, Luctan opts to join Malak on the daunting task to bury the fallen. As long as it’ll take.

From Bavorum, the elite guard make smoke signals, signing that they are drawing near to the scene as the less armored trio, followed by the trusty Morgan go off, carrying Kit to the town of  Askrivium.

Kit, who had been one of those luckily spared by the death curse. Kit, was slowly coming to, in her own cheeky way. Much to the amusement of Jun, who watches the half-orc bard bicker at the “sleeping” changeling rogue.

And while their group head for Askrivium, the two changeling having a little back and forth, the armored duo of Luck and Malak get to work. Steadily, taking shifts, on agreement, to do this deed.

2 hours pass. A large shadow comes over the horizon. That of the Darksbane Army, finally arriving at the scene, led by Laila Duststone. Joined by Terrowin the Half-Orc and Kraag the Orc Barbarian. Full force and mobilized, they approach the scene and one after the other, Terrowin and Laila talk with Luck and Malak.

Mournfully, Luctan retells the story of what happened, first to Terrowin, then to Laila. Each of whom at the very least are glad that the party is in full form, having lost no one among them. Laila encourages Luck to not blame himself over what had transpired, even as he does so.

Laila explains that the people, who touched the crystal orb will be gathering within a week to discuss what’s happening. Savron included. So it’s serious. Laila had come into contact with the crystal and born witness to what would happen.

Luctan wants to join them, if possible. But Laila declines, as they had done enough. She hands him a note with a certain number. A collective 25,000 Gold for the party, should they travel east next, before their work up north.

Still, the two holy fighters carry on with what they decided upon the end of the battle.

Among the bodies, a pondering Luck finds a familiar face. But it’s not who he was expecting. It’s one of the younger priests in the temple of Sa Doma. A tiny little Halfling woman.

The boys bond over sadness and emotions. Luck’s always here if Malak wants to talk.

Malak will remember this.

Luck tries to heal Malak. Nothing happens, but it’s the thought that counts.

Fastforwarding to Ascrovium!...

The squishy half of the party, and honorary member Kit, enter the grounds and... It’s a small town, definitely more of a stopping point for travelers than anything else. What’s shocking about the town, however, is the amount of people that are currently gathered.

The town is remarkably packed. These are families of people, who walked off in the middle of the night. Partners, etc .Everyone seems particularly tense, no one is sure where everyone is. 

It is at this moment that Belli decides to bring out her Thaumaturgy stone and get everyone’s attention...

Without mincing words, she tells everyone what happened. How their loved ones were gathered at the lake. How tragiclaly most of them met their end there, if, but for 34 among them. A small light of hope in the constricting darkness.

Most of the crowd is in shock. Some just start running. 10-15 minutes later, the town is cleared from the exess folk, everyone that could afford to make a run, heading there immediatelly.

“This broughtcast was brought to you by Peppery Pete.”

Jun commends Belli for her way of handling the encounter. Belli thanks her, attributing her skill to it either being her maturing or adding another layer of trauma to herself.

... yeah....

They check for a possible morgue and find a thin Half-Orc girl, who guards the graveyard with a pike, for her aunt, who had gone to find her father. Possibly among the people, who met their end.

The party quickly assess that the graveyard is too small for the capacity of bodies.  10% of the bodies seen at lake Stren could probably fit in and that’s probably without counting the ones, already occupying the dirt.

Their group end up heading for the nearest tavern, discussing Ficus’ relationship status as Jun finds him handsome, but Belli protects her brother, claiming he is “spoken for”. Which brings Jun to ponder on Ficus’ thoughts on relationships of a kind.

As they take to a tavern, get cleaned and find their rest in their own respective way, the armored boys are still at it. 1 AM. They are still working. Aided by the army, but are still going about it and watching out, just in case someone tries to nick something from the bodies. Which almost happens. But Malak’s stern fatherly disapproval brings Kraag to return the watch.

Morning comes. One half of the party wake up and have breakfast. The other has been working all evening, through the waking hours and have exhausted themselves physically. But by gum, so much work had been done.

As Jun gets the diggers food in a basket, Belli checks with her brother, updating him on Kit.

Ficus had been running all night, after what Belli had told him previously, making his way to lake Stren. Which. Is probably a long way, given that he probably started off at a different location.

“Welp. I’m sure that won’t come back to haunt me!” - Belli says, before burrying her face in Orion’s fur. (gross cat noises commence).

The party reconnects at the lake, where Luctan and Malak finally get to eat, while catching up their party on what had occured, while they were gone.

Once done eating, they gather their things and travel by carriage eastward. Luck gives Malak permission to take the holy axe from the bag of holding and Malak attunes to it on the travel. While the boys have themselves a good long rest after what they had been through.

(Also Belli is Stress Knitting. Headcanon time: The reason why the party’s clothes tend to look mostly fine after battle, is because Belli fixes the cuts).

Over the next couple of days, the party bond over battle strategies and counters to what they had just witnessed and Malak learns about a bit more about the battle axe he now has in his possession. The axe, a union of Radience and Hellishness carries celestial runes, speaking of holy vengeance.

On the 3rd day of our travel, the group take a different road, ‘cause for some of them this has been a familiar road already. Along the path, they notice stables. 2 men posted outside the door. But it’s just some stables.

Suspicious, the group stops as night approaches.

And, while Mournimar speaks with Morgan and Orion, this is how the Cultbusters would meet Henry and Ronald, a cute couple, doing some sort of business (speaking in heavy New York accents)

Henry, the beefier of the two and Ronald, an orange haired man with freckled cheeks.

The two sides come together and agree on casting Zone of Truth on each other, as a means to learn about one another, so less suspicion could be had.

They are here to guard the room and it’s contents. They won’t say what the room they guard holds within it, but they  won’t hurt the adventurers, if they don’t mess with the room.

The truth is being said. And Belli creatively speaks what she has to say. “You’re a tricksy little bitch and I like you!” one of the men admits, under the effects of the spell and Belli just has a laugh. She wants no drama.

Also, like it has to be said, but Henry finds Malak a pretty man. (We all do, but come on).

Once everyone gets coasy with one another, the party and the couple of Henry and Ronald join together for a happy dinner together.

The food is nice. The mood is high. Henry and Ronald seem to be delightful. Complimentary as heck about Belli’s cooking. The lads are the poifect gentlemen, basically.

Once the dinner is done, the party find places to spend their longrests in, but before the actual long rest occurs, Luck pulls Belli aside and suggests she send a bug-shifted Orion into the couple’s room. Just to be sure they were on the up and up.

Something felt off this night and he wasn’t sure what.

That was the gameplan!

And as the night progresses...

Luctan goes into his dreams again. Like multiple times before.

And... things happen. Sad things. And he sleeps.

In the meanwhile, Jun also has a dream of her own. Whether it’s anything like Luck’s is it’s own story.

In the middle of the night, something happens. 6 hours in, as the party have had their full rest, the flutter of wings awake Henry and Ronald, the latter of whom silently calls over Belli to witness what they were seeing.

.What Belli joins in on watching...

Is 5 imps.

Carrying Luck away. Each holding a limb, the 5th his head.

And Luck is sleeping.

Belli gets Mournimar’s attention and the digitigraded tiefling  bolts through the door, upon hearing that. Screaming his loudest “WTF?!”

Which wakes everyone up.

Belli wastes no time. And casts Sleep on one of the imps, causing it to let go of one of Luck’s arms as it drops on the ground.

ROLL FOR INITIATIVE!

All the commotion that follow  brings a red flash behind the board.

Just behind said board, a red creature with curled horns and 4 chains being wrapped behind it appears, hovering behind the imps. Glaring at the group.

Belli casts Polymorph on Luck. But Luck, sleeping, unfortunatelly counters it.

Annoyed, Belli chants a Vicious Mockery on one of the imps, while Chain Devil takes a stance.

Moves in close and attacks most of the party with his chains.

One chain smacks Jun and she gets restrained, grappled. Unable to move form her spot as the sickle at the end of the Devil’s chain stabs into her.

Another chain grapples Malak and a third misses Mournimar, which luckily takes the tension off of Belli as the 4th chain goes for the archer, stabbing hinto him like with the other two.

Jun uses all her acrobatic skill to free herself and do so easily from the chains. All her time as a dominatrix pays off as that is an easy feat for her. She immediatelly Hexes their attacker and moves in, ready to attack with her Gambler’s Blade.

And Luck’s still asleep.

Sadly, Mournimar isn’t as flexible as Jun and can’t find freedom from the chains. So instead, shouts at the Fiend in Infernal. He DEMANDS to know where they are trying to take Luctan.

This distraction gives Malak the chance to attack the imps, without having to move. Malak casts Toll The Dead on the imps on the right. While one is more stable, the other’s head outright explodes.

Because... “For Whom The Bell Tolls, Time Marches on.”

And before you ask, YES! THIS IS A DBZ REFERENCE!

Luck’s leg is free as Malak brings out his Spiritual Weapon. And smashes it into the nearest imp he can see, the sleeping one, messing him up visibly.

As the remaining 3 Imps try to escape with Luctan, Belli runs around from the other entrance of the barn and casts Dispell Magic on Luctan, putting all her Arcane skill into it.

And Luck wakes. glaring at his captors.

Your friends don’t care about you, they only like what you can offer them.” She gives an imp Anxiety. How much anxiety? Well, it straight up dies. So that’s the amount!

The Chain Devil attacks Jun again. Misses. Then grabs her and pierces her body with his thick hook again, causing bodily harm to the changeling. As she, Malak and Mournimar take continual damage from the chains wrapped around them, Mournimar’s pain response kicks in and he casts Hellish Rebuke at the Fiend.

Much to his shagrin, however, that doesn’t work out. As the devil is not even tickled from this effort.

It’s form starts to shift. It’s face taking a resemblence to Harker, Mournimar’s father, as he had last seen him. Face mangled. Burned. Aching.

The stress seems to be too much... but Mournimar steels his mind to the mental attack of the Devil. He will not be fooled by the mental projection of this Fiend!

Jun escapes. Again. Takes her rapier and dramatically cuts her thigh open. 

After last night she got brave. Bringing forth an electric stabbing upon the Devil with the power of her Blood Rites.

Luctan Teleports behind the devil, swings twice, misses. But then strikes a gash at the back of the creature.

And Luck heals Jun some. In Infernal, he tells the Devil to leave.

Mournimar struggles to free himself and Malak acknowledges that, casting Freedom of Movement on Mournimar. And then attacks the Devil with the Spiritual weapon, clobbering onto him.

The imps try to attack Luck from behind. But neither manages quite to get purching on the fighter/sorcerer’s armor, pathetically gnawing at the material. But nothing much else.

Belli attempts to dispell one of the chains, the one holding Malak. And succeeds, after which she mocks again. “You’re a cowardly little cunt. You will die alone and no one will love you.” sending waves of psychic damage to the fiend.

Frustrated, he looks between the two tieflings.  It looks between Mournimar and Luck and finally speaks, determined: “ He’s coming home. Now!”

As Malak gets freed, Jun gets snatched up again and soon Luctan catches the bane of the chains on his body.

Unlike Luck, however, all the pain causes Jun to go limp and unconscious in the grasp of the metal, much to Luctan’s shock.

The Devil shifts his face again, glaring at Malak. Taking the form of one of his late comrades.

But Malak is used to this sort of thing by now. He’s seen far worse in his nightmares. So he keeps his mind strong and defended.

As the two get carried away, Luck notices life in Jun’s unconscious frame, giving him strength to free himself from the chains, one of which goes limp. Then Luctan wakes her up again, wishing some vitality into her form, while Mournimar brings out his arrows and Marks the devil for the Hunt.

Fires, misses twice, but that’s quite ok.

Malak attacks, but misses by a few inches as his powerful Guiding Bolt blasts elsewhere.

He still has an attack, however, splatting one of the remaining imps.

Scared and alone, the singular awake imp turns invisible. And the party knows not where it’d go. (DAMN YOU, COTTON EYE JOE!)

Which is bad, because it stings Jun. Who almost drops again.

Ah. But in this moment you forget about the bard.

NO ONE DARE FORGET ABOUT THE BARD!!!

With Jun’s consent, Belli transforms Jun...

Then she mocks the Devil. “Luck’s our friend. If you’re that lonely just drill a hole in the wall.” But the Devil takes it in stride.

“He’s not my friend. I serve him. He just doesn’t know what’s best for him right now.”  Luck gets smacked around. Hard! And this chained hellman starts to chant in a mix of Infernal and Arcane.

As the Devil tries to teleport away with the grappled Luctan, a thick shadow comes from his left. And before he can react, the Chain Devil gets chomped on by a monochromatic Spinosaurus Seonipticus.

As Belli draws closer, Jun gets the HDYWTDT with her Jawsy-Wawsies. And she tears him to shreds.

Very easily she shreds this Devil and gently plucks the chains off of Luck’s body. And puts him down on the ground. The duality of Jun. She will tear you asunder, but she will also bleed on you and be nice.

As for the last of the awoken imps... Jun distractedly swings her tail and the Imp just gets punted into Hell. All that is left is a splatter on the wall, before Belli turns Jun back to her general fine self.

As Luctan and Jun catch their bearings,Malak and Mournimar join the bard over the body of the sleeping, if fucked up, imp. Deciding on a gameplan on questioning him, Belli stabs it through the foot.

Which. Um. Unfortunately kills it?!

Moments pass. Henry and Ronald still inside, the group convenes around Luck to get a better idea of what just happened. Jun asks the disguised tiefling if he’s ok, keeping an eye on him as she asks. He is. Feels oddly free. And he heals Jun once again as he confirms.

When asked to explain what this was all about, how the Devil knew him, where it was planning on taking him, a tired and less reluctant Luck encourages them to think of what he’s already said about himself.

“I’m not from Seon. I ran away from home after freeing my mother’s slaves. A Chain Devil and Imps tried to take me “home”.”

Belli and Malak begin putting two and two together real fast. They would know that the things the party just saw and dealt with were and are devils, not demons. Devils serve Potencia. Demons serve Quorrin.

With a tired smile, Luctan admits it.

“I guess, I’m the son of Potencia.” and he says this, his gaze never faltering from Malak’s face.

He proceeds to give them the briefest description of his recent interaction with her, in his dreams. Meeting her in her office. In a form he hadn’t often seen her in. Her disappointment in him for not allout killing the Traveling Gentlemen. Having expected “better” of him.

Wanting him to become an Arch Devil to one of the hells, who’s leader was missing. His refusal. And then, her doing something, before he woke up, being carried away.

And he looked at Malak, the whole time, having taken off his ring during the talk.

Whatever Malak was thinking, he was keeping inside and away from any insight that could be made on him.

Jun acts very flustered at first, when Luck spills the beans as he does. She had seemingly been in contact with someone and mentions “The Evenchord Boy”, something that subtly catches Luck’s attention...

As Luck takes a moment to catch his breath again from what happened, he takes a seat on the ground. Mournimar and Belli, surprisingly, were encouraging of him. Rather than judginess from Mournimar, given said Ranger’s history with the cult of Potencia and Luctan’s heavy connection... He had expected an earful. At the fucking least. But that hadn’t happened.

Luck could all but laugh. Pitifully laugh and ponder. More surprisingly, Jun would kneel beside him, arm over his shoulders and offers him an ear to listen to his troubles if he needs it. Somehow she understands. However that works, she understands and makes it a point to tell him some important words:

“Your roots don’t make you. You make you.”

Then he receives a kiss on the forehead from the changeling woman as he slowly realizes that he may have human relatives somewhere...

After a night of devilry and a slight argument with the duo of Henry and Ronald, the party finally get their second long rest. It would become revealed that Henry and Ronald were actually clerics, possibly of Dyunificus, who were protecting a bunch of kids and silver foxes and were keeping them secret from the party (understandably so) as Adventurers came in many moral colors.

Belli would pay them to ease their tensions, too tired and frustrated from the combat to argue with the men.

Some time passes again as the party carries on on the road. Luctan often looking to Malak, but giving him space.

Eventually they’d draw near to Crystalgate.

And take shifts in a campsight of their making.

1st Luctan, 2nd Jun, 3rd Malak, 4th Mournimar. All this to help Belli have a full rest to prepare meals in the morning.

Sure enough, the night is peaceful and when Belli gets her turn, she makes a perception check... She sweeps the area and-

She feels pretty alright, as she cooks. “These times are easy to appreciate the world. All six of us are safe.”

SIX?!

Wait. Something’s wrong. She looks and at the fire is an half-elf man with strong black curly hair. Deep brown eyes in the campfire light. Dark skin? He’s relaxed and casually pokes at the fire with a stick.

“Hi?!”

“Oh, Morning.”

“Oh, you can wake the rest of your friends, if you’d like. I believe we have some catching up to do.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Akar’niel.”

Belli wakes the rest of the party and, well.  He introduces himself to the group.

For the most part, it seems that he knows the names, though he’s not quite as familiar with Jun and Malak, nor does he seem to be aware of Luck’s true name.

He knows what the party have been doing and have been up against. He represents a higher power.

Before he disappears in purple smoke, he whispers something.

Luctan would look at his journal and read the mantra that he had sewn into the pages: 

“ When the Western Fields lie sundered, blackened with ash.

When Lake Stren turns red with the blood of your allies

When brother turns against brother in the North

When the Giants of the East flee from demons bigger than they

When the Council lie with their throats slit

That is when I will come for you. And it will be the End."

And as the episode ends, the party levels up.

Previous Episode / Next Episode

[inkydoc]

DnD adventures with training wheels - a small summary for myself

okay so I played DnD for the first time with two friends as players and me as the DM. They have never played a tabletop rpg before and this was my first time DM-ing so we all went into it with more questions than answers but we still had a tremendous amount of fun, I’m very happy :D also it was a good learning experience and I think I wanna collect stuff I learnt along the way :3

I like to say that m.a.g.u.s. is just dnd but Hungarian because it gives people a general reference but like... the whole thing plays so differently,  I actually can’t describe it properly :”D my friend said dnd kinda feels like playing Skyrim with all the quests and NPC-s and whatever and I guess she’s right? maybe it’s the way we play m.a.g.u.s. that makes it feel different, idk :D (and it’s not because we were playing Icespire Peak either, we played a pre-written adventure for m.a.g.u.s. too and yea, that was vastly different)

I can safely say tho that calculating long-range combat is just soooo much easier in dnd, holy crap

okay scratch that calculating in general is easier, but it also feels more deadly :D

(calculating levels seems a daunting task tho, one that we have yet to do XD)

it’s ever so interesting to see the different approach people take to roleplaying. Gotta love how awkward we made the first time the characters met each other, it was perfect, but I kinda feel like it was because we were awkward too. It’s okay though, it got a lot better as things went along :D but it looks like I need to set some rules about what the characters know/say and what the players know/say, sometimes it was hard to know what was said in character and what wasn’t.

I think my friends had a lot more fun exploring the various places and fighting monsters than roleplaying so I will have to shift the focus on those elements of the game, but still retain the parts where they need to talk to people to progress so it’s not just dungeon after dungeon. It was fun to see them turn the session into a low-budget Skyrim playthrough tho :D

I need to work on my roleplaying and improvising skills. A lot. I am not the best roleplayer and I am definitely not the best at quick snappy answers to shit people say so it was at times difficult for me to play all the NPC-s, but I think I managed.

on that note we tried the thing where I had a character too and it was hard :”D I think it worked, but often she was just standing in the background while the others talked to NPC-s and I feel like it won’t work in the long run... but we will see :D

five minutes in as I was describing the general surroundings my friends decided that they want an elephant so now for no better reason than I found it hilarious there is a scheduled elephant taking people to and fro between Neverwinter and Leilon. this kind of set the entire tone of the session and all my anxieties about bringing a boring game and disappointing everyone sort of vanished, or at least retreated into a deeper part of my mind.

I do need to get over the fact that other people are in fact flirty sometimes, but I had some NPC-s flirt back and somehow it did work out! it still needs work tho...

licking walls is now a perfectly legit way of finding secret doors. effective too! but I draw the line at licking corpses, it has a much higher chance of infection and disturbing the dead is not a nice thing to do.

I don’t know if chaotic evil player characters exist? I mean they probably do but am I ready to deal with one right off the bat? one of my friends decided to have a tiefling that is straight up a bastard, they’re constantly stealing stuff, they jump very quickly into any kind of fighting situation and they almost talked the other party member into grave-robbery so yea, that doesn’t seem to be fitting for a neutral character :”D it is fun to watch tho XD

on that note my other friend played her chaotic good ranger in a very chaotic bastard way so she is neutral from now on. I don’t think that’s a problem tho, I love these two gremlins but I can just see the murder-hobo aspect slowly looming over us and that I don’t like :”D

I kinda can’t believe orcs only have 15 hp. it seems a little low considering how a mimic has over 50...

I need to do more research on running encounters. somehow we managed not to have our characters killed but I need to know my shit better if I want to make fights run smoother :”D

dndbeyond is a moneyhungry bitch... it was fine for first level characters, we somehow managed with having the characters’ backgrounds on a piece of paper but then it just doesn’t have the stuff we want on further levels so I think I’ll just have to let it go. it would be so very convenient but I can’t ask all my friends to shell out 30 bucks each for a digital copy of a book that I own and can share, not in this economy at least :D (not to mention the countless pirated copies that I’m pretty sure wizards of the coast knows about but I guess they make enough money so yea.)

anyways that’s it for now I think? overall it was very fun and I did prove to myself that I can indeed do the thing where I am the DM :D

here have a drawing of my daughter, Ashera :3 I drew a violin (another first for me) and it turned out alright! also I’d like to apologise to the entire Witcher fandom, I saw an opportunity and ran with it XD

[rowan-raven-rogue]

dark!Caleb AU 🌙

for @yettinim; Chapter 1 (2380 words)

content: (canon-typical violence, widomauk if you squint, Trent Ikithon, bad German translation (please advise if you’re a native speaker!))

        He feels, rather than hears, the soft thrum, vibrating through his bones and settling at the bottom of each of his ribs. His head swims, vertiginous, as he is (but iss not) pulled forward, feet firmly planted - and then everything goes dark behind opened eyelids. He breathes, deep - phosphorous, ozone, and some ancient, otherworldly scent that spices his lungs and quickens his blood. In the void, he watches billowy clouds of purple and blue grow on the horizon and quickly engulf the darkness as he passes. Dark silhouettes of passing spheres and other objects speed by, their shapes elongating more and more by his increasing speed. Tiny dots of light begin to prick at the edges of his vision, and soon stars peek by as well, backlighting the distant clouds in a faint gray nimbus. His limbs and face buzz as he approaches that familiar threshold, the headlong speed of it all in constant contrast to the steady, pulsing hum in his chest. His heart beats so rapidly as to be nearly one continuous, clenching ache, a cold dryness at his temples and on his tongue, and - with a flash of familiar, silvery light, he halts, stock-still.

        The faint shadows of an infinite array of Caleb Widogasts stride past, every which way, as he stills like an anchor among them. Hypnotized, he watches their darkened forms, so exactly identical and wildly different all at once, mill and stride down countless paths, until something snags at his periphery. As he turns, he sees one of the figures pause. Tall, straight-shouldered, with the profile of short-groomed hair and a clean-shaven jaw; Caleb and his possible-self acknowledge each other for an icy heartbeat, until the other Caleb turns and continues on his path.

        Frowning, he focuses on the rhythm of humming vibration, affixing himself to it, avoiding the pull of infinite Calebs that tug him down every conceivable path at once. The void seems to grow and swallow him, as the other Calebs withdraw further and further. He’s struck, yet again, by the indecipherable scale of emptiness and potential, of everything and nothing surrounding him; the ancient, immediate dark. Finally, he looks down, surrendering to the warm, welcoming pulse of light that appears not a foot from his chest, and gladly sinks in to the yearn to touch. A tiny mote of glittering gray energy floats into his chest, filling him with sharp, prickling heat and burning cold, and he sighs, content, as the void disappears, extinguished by the Fragment of Possibility.

        “...Caaaleb? CalebCalebCaleb- oh, you’re back!”

        He blinks, and the lavender light of early morning stings his eyes. Immediately, the nauseating stench of rotting flesh floods him again; the blue tiefling girl is frozen, the tip of one finger stuck prodding at the center of his forehead, the other hand clutching her pink bag as it dangles, open.

        “Eh, ja, sorry,” he murmurs, shaking the hazy scale of possibility from his head. He resists the urge to wretch and choke on the foul smell in the air. Jester smiles and withdraws, closing the bag with one-handed grace and slinging it back over her shoulders.

        “Okay, we’re ready!” she whispers, her voice coated, like everything else, in the morning dew. She crouches behind the scrubby bushes that conceal their position, and turns a firm nod over her left shoulder. Caleb watches the half-orc Fjord, from behind a moss-covered boulder several yards away, affirm and pass the signal on to Beau and Yasha, further still; turning his gaze upward, into the boughs above their heads, Caleb makes brief contact with a pair of catlike yellow eyes, and Nott nods her agreement as well. Then to his right, searching and failing in the green-dark undergrowth to find the lithe, purple form of Mollymauk, before -

        - a crossbow bolt sinks into one of the garish orange buds of the enormous plant before them, and sprays the misty morning air with the wet-green stench of decay.

        Immediately, each of the buds falls open, releasing a gurgling screech and another wave of rotting stink. Pale green tendrils, thick as a man’s leg, begin to unravel and uproot themselves from the soil, and one shoots out, whip-like, just above Jester’s head. She ducks it with ease, and the familiar giant lollipop floats from behind just above the shrieking plant and sinks deep into the green, sickly cluster at its center with a thud. From the left of the clearing, a blue blur jettisons out and strikes at a second tentacle, then a third, as Beau’s staff whips over her head and whirls into a fanning circle behind her back. Close behind comes Yasha, swinging overly wide at the creature’s muddy roots, burying her sword into the sodden turf. As the plant continues to rear up on writhing tendrils, Caleb nearly gags a second time; more soil and debris shake from the creature, and he can just make out the distorted forms of moss- and vine- covered skulls, ribcages, spines, and the like, a mass of corpses which form the heart of the monster.

        A string of strangled epithets, mingled Common and Infernal, explode from the stand of trees to Caleb’s right. Turning sharply on his heel, Molly swings one glowing sword at an approaching knot of vines and tentacles, just barely stopping short as the blossom tipping the end slithers through the air. With a wet, heaving sound, the flower opens to deposit a mildewed, humanoid corpse directly before the whirling tiefling, who thrusts his sword into the body with a dull crunch.

        “Oh, lovely, it makes friends!” barks Molly. Caleb raises a blackening hand, ignoring the continued curses from Mollymauk mingled now with a series of similar protests from Fjord, who’s dealing with a mossy-green corpse of his own - and a stream of fiery rays bursts forth, sinking directly into the plant’s center. Hissing shrieks bubble forth, and greenish steam erupts from the ashen wound Caleb’s blown deep into the plant, but still it continues on with its gruesome attack.

        There is a wet, sickly sound of a crossbow bolt embedding itself into something to Caleb’s left - the decaying body attacking Fjord goes down, with one of Nott’s well-aimed bolts loosed directly into the back of its head. The giant, spectral lollipop once again slams into the orange blossoms and green vegetation above the plant’s core, as Jester sprints from her hiding spot behind the bush to Fjord. Beau strikes another whirling series of blows to the tendrils approaching her before hauling Yasha to her feet, the pair beset by yet another vine-covered, skeletal body. Caleb whispers the tips of his fingers into glowing black once more, and another blast of flame erupts into the monster’s body - barely singeing past the circling form of Molly, as he lops off the zombie’s head with one artful swing.

        A third bolt strikes the body before Yasha and Beau, earning a muffled “Shit!” from the monk as it topples forward, moldering jaw agape, and falls still at their feet. A shrill whistling, followed by a slick, heavy thud and a growling cry from Fjord - he’s been hit by one of the flailing tendrils. There is a roaring cry of Infernal from Jester, and the shimmering lollipop crashes down a third time.

        “Finish it!” she calls, the edges of her words still rough and grinding Infernal.

        Ignoring the wretching, nauseous protest in his belly, Caleb closes his eyes and prepares a final, fiery blast, silently praying for the fight’s end. As he opens his eyes to unleash the burst of flame, he locks onto a single, perfectly outlined skull right at the center of the monstrous creature; one delicate, orange blossom peeks from inside the vacant eye socket.

        The spurt of flames goes just too wide, fizzling out above the clearing and into the pale purple morning sky.

        “Dammit!” Caleb hears Molly’s frustrated snarl, as the tiefling turns . “Caleb, try-”

        The rest of Molly’s urging is cut short by a rapid burst from the center of the tiefling’s chest, as one of the creature’s tendrils spikes sharply through his back and emerges just below his heart. His words drowning in a spurt of blood, Molly only stares wide-eyed at the green and scarlet spearlike point, gurgling hoarsely.

        The cry that rips Caleb’s throat raw pulls every bit of air from his lungs and collapses his chest like a dying star. Focus, focus, focus, he thought desperately, and - calls.

        Something inside him begins to stir, then vibrate, then warm, and then burn with familiar pulsing energy. He feels… silvery. The air around him grows thick, nearly malleable, and as he breathes he focuses on the last fiery rays he had aimed at the creature, willing them in his memory to bend and strike true to the monster’s center. Everything around him slows to molasses-still, and a gray, oily radiance distorts his vision. He watches, ears and heart hammering, as the tendril withdraws from Molly’s chest in an exact backward path; he sees Molly mouth Caleb, try - turn to him, - dammit - and feels his own body shift, palm raised and burning -

        The clearing buzzes into impossible, sharp silence. Caleb locks eyes with the orange-blossomed skull, exhales, and fires.

        The creature, engulfed in flame, gives one last piteous, hissing scream, and the flames wither it to a pile of ash, dust, and bleached white bones.

        The party remains still for a breath.

        “...Fuck.” Caleb hears Molly murmur. Then there’s a whooping cry from Beau, and a scattered rustling as Nott drops out of the tree behind him.

        “Caleb! Are you alright?” the goblin says, her black-slit pupils ringed entirely by yellow.

        “I’m absolutely fine, Nott, sweet of you to ask,” says Molly, his easy, loping strides to Caleb betrayed by the nervous flicking of his tail.

        “You guys? I think Fjord might be poisoned,” Jester calls from across the clearing. Nott waits for Caleb’s curt nod, before scurrying off, clawed hands already scrabbling at her bag for her alchemical supplies. Caleb turns wordlessly at the pressure of a hand on his shoulder, the wide-eyed thanks of Molly…

        …and the entire forest dissolves, swirling, into silvery blue ripples.

        The surface of the scrying bowl gradually comes to a still, and in it is reflected a gaunt, sharply angled face, pockmarked and liver-spotted. Yellow-sheened skin hangs loosely in bags near the scrub white-bristled jaw, and hollowed at the cheeks. Wide-set, watery blue eyes are jaundiced at the whites, and clumps of stringy white hair cling above the man’s ears and encircle the shiny crown of his head.

        Trent Ikithon smirks, thin-lipped.

        “Caleb,” he says, clawing an arthritic hand to the stone pendant at his neck, “komm hier.”

        Minutes pass, and then comes a soft tinkling slide of metal on metal, as the magical locks to Ikithon’s study open.

        “Ja, Meister Ikithon?”

        A young man enters the room, dressed in the blue and gold military mantle given to all of Trent’s apprentices. Neat red hair, only just long enough to suggest a curl, glints in the dim firelight reflected across the surfaces of dozens of scrying bowls. The young man stands, a respectful distance behind his master, straight-shouldered and wiry, a lean, agile strength.

        “Das Leuchtfeuer, Caleb.” says Trent, oily and dark. “The Beacon.”

        “Soll ich es für dich holen, Meister?” says Caleb. Proud, angular features twist, just so subtly, on the water’s surface, rippling into concentric, wolfish expressions. “Tell me where, and I will go.”

        Ikithon straightens, pauses. “Tell me what you know about scrying, Caleb.”

        Without hesitation, “It is a form of divination, using a focus - in this case, Master, bowls of holy water, sometimes crystals, or mirrors - through which one may see a person or object of their choosing. The spell becomes more effective the more knowledge you are able to obtain of the target, or if you have a portrait, a possession, or better yet,” he finishes, “a body part.”

        “Very good,” Ikithon concedes. “A minor correction. Under normal circumstances, one may only divine something which exists on the same plane,” he said, lightly stroking one gnarled finger across the surface of the bowl in front of him. “However, in this study, I have created a pocket dimension through which we simultaneously occupy all and none of the planes. What does that mean, Caleb?”

        “Each of these may be used to scry on a different plane,” Caleb answers, with certainty.

        “And more,” corrects the old Master. He pauses again, staring deep into his own reflection. “Time, much like our multiplanar Universe, is not a singular thing,” he said. “It fractures, it bifurcates, it,” and he gently skimmed the water again “ripples, over and over, collecting in infinite loops. In some cases.” He lets his pupil reflect on this for half a breath. “I have also collected means to scry on timelines alternate to our own, Caleb. Universes which are hardly recognizable as parallels to our own, timelines in which one single action altered the course of history… and some, which, in the grand scheme of things,” he grinned sharply, “are not very different from our own.

        “The Beacon is an unusual artifact,” Ikithon goes on. “Can you tell me why?”

         Caleb inclines his head, politely; a trained soldier might have noticed the tenseness in his shoulders, anticipating admonition.

        “If,” he begins, “as you say, the natural order of the universe is to exist, multiplicate… then one could assume something unusual would exist outside that order, in- singularity.” Caleb concludes. “There is only one.”

        “Excellent,” says Ikithon, beckoning his pupil closer. Caleb complies, stepping forward briskly to watch the rippling font over his master’s shoulder. “In all the many timelines I am able to divine, there is only one Beacon, Caleb. And,” allows Ikithon, “shall I tell you something interesting about the person who currently possesses it?” He generously accepts his student’s polite silence before finishing, “I can’t see him.”

        “But… you know his identity, Master?” says Caleb, hungrily. Ikithon grins again, reaches up, and pulls one red hair from just behind his student’s ear. He deposits the hair on the water’s surface, and, in the ripples, watches something cold and cruel draw Caleb’s piercing blue eyes half-closed in recognition.

        “I’ve got a task for you, Caleb.”

[kilerya]

The tiefling sisters -Ven’s story

ok so here’s the first part of the backstory of the tiefling sisters Andvenom (Ven to friends), the chaotic neutral Circle of the Land(Underdark) druid, and Solys the chaotic good Circle of the Land (Grassland) druid who got separated very young and reunited through some...sheer stubbornness on Ven’s part honestly. This partt is Ven’s backstory I’ll post Solys’ backstory later...when I get around to writing it.

Putting this under a read more cause it’s very long and probably like 2 people are interested in reading it at best

when they were very young (like 5yo and barely a month respectively) their mom was on the run from some potentially bad people who caught up with the the three of them and the group they were traveling with in the Underdark, the mom managed to hide her eldest at the beginning of the attack but died soon after, the only real memory that this poor little tiefling keeps from that night is someone running off with her baby sister.

A couple of days after the attack, little tiefling is still there surrounded by wreckage and corpses when a band of mercenaries passes by and investigate (cause you know, free loot maybe), they’re scary but she doesn’t have that many option so she approaches them. They ask what happened there but she tries to answer but can’t, just stutters and sobs a bit. One of the mercenaries gets annoyed and picks her up by the back of her collar to try and intimidate her and as soon as she’s level with his face she slaps him with a Poison Spray cantrip much to the amusement of the rest of the band. The surprise (and y’know, 1d12 poison damage) makes him drop her and she scrambles away, before he can retaliate his boss tells him to back off and comes to talk to her himself. He introduces himself as Istar, leader of the Shadow Vipers and tells her that so long as she can make herself useful they’ll keep her fed and relatively safe (they live dangerous lives and all) is she comes with them and well she’s a scared, hungry and alone 5 years old she doesn’t have any other options that she can think off so she goes with them.

She does her best to be useful but there’s not a lot she can do around the camp (in a system of caves that lead down to the Underdark, they were on their way back when they picked her up) and the people around aren’t very nice, they’re all a pretty selfish bunch brought together by greed mostly, Istar finds her little poison trick amusing but doesn’t have a use for it right away, a couple of days in her stay the mercenary druid Meira takes pity on her and starts teaching her since she shows at least a little talent for the craft. No one in the camp can pronounce her name (cause it’s Infernal) and they don’t make too much of an effort to learn so for the first few months most of them just call her kid if they want to address her. The mercenaries take her on missions sometimes, talks that have the potential to go bad where the possibility of having a small tiefling burst out and spray poison in someone’s face before running off can be an advantage, they have a trigger word for it, when things go start going bad Istar goes all threatening saying a variation of ‘anger the Shadow Vipers and you’ll be met with steel and venom’ and that’s her cue to do her thing. Since that’s the closest thing that resemble someone talking about her she starts thinking of it as her name. The first time she gets to tag along on a supply run in town she wanders off in a shop to look at stuff while Meira is busy haggling at the counter, one of the shop’s employees approaches her to make sure she doesn’t break anything. When he asks for her name this little 6 years old tiefling proudly says ‘Andvenom!’ which leads to a very confused employee and a facepalming Meira who doesn’t argue with it cause well... it’s not like anyone bothered to give the self proclaimed Andvenom a proper name in Common, but she does insist on calling her Ven when the name sticks and so does Istar to avoid any poison spray related unpleasantness.

Over the years Ven learned some reaaaally questionable morals from the mercenaries but also a bunch of useful skills like use daggers, pick locks, stealth, spot valuables, cheat at cards, play innocent and generally lie really really well... you know, criminal stuff, and Meira taught her a few more magic tricks, which turned out to be very useful cause eventually people weren’t as surprised by the whole Poison Spray thing and once one went ‘aHA I’m immune to poi-’ and got slapped with a Thunderwave instead and that he really wasn’t prepared for, neither were his friends behind him, it was one of the few times the mercenaries actually seemed genuinely impressed by her little tricks. She’s more comfortable using poison/necrotic damage based magic to fight as well as fire that she has a natural affinity for since she’s a tiefling. She also relies on magic a lot out of combat to make up for her really low strength, she learns Spider Walk specifically to avoid having to climb anything ever. Since she’s been trying to prove herself and her usefulness from a very young age she grew a really competitive/contrary streak, for all that she grew to know better than to be too eager to please and perceptive enough to know when someone is trying to bullshit her, any of that wisdom goes right out the window when someone says she can’t do something, tell her she’s not able or not allowed to do anything and she’ll run at it out of spite which caused her some trouble with some of the more mean spirited mercenaries (you know that first guy she Poison Sprayed ? kinda holds a grudge)

Because the mercenaries are a pretty varied bunch species wise she doesn’t really get any shit from them for being a tiefling and she’s pretty proud of her origins cause they give her some pretty cool skills. There’s been one incident that bothered her when she was a young teen (about 12 or so), the mercenaries passed through a pretty superstitious small town and the people were aggressive towards her saying she was cursed and trying to chase her out before she caused a disaster to fall on them. In a rare show of compassion, Istar (who’s a half orc and has dealt with shitty people before) took Ven aside that evening and told her those people were full of shit and didn’t know what they were talking about, if she was cursed the Vipers wouldn’t be doing nearly as well as they were and the only reason she her presence could ‘cause a disaster’ anywhere is cause she would actively make it happen because those people were assholes and they deserved it, she is who she is and anyone who has a problem with should get a Poison Spray in the face. It cheered her up a bit but the incident still stays with her for some time. The next time someone tries to mess with her she goes full on intimidation Thaumaturgy amplified ‘YES I AM EVIL I WILL BRING A PLAGUE DOWN ON YOUR HEAD MWAHAHA A PLAGUE OF FIRE AND VENOM (back to regular volume) ...or you could stop being a dick, your choice’, so she is aware that some people have trouble with tieflings but fuck the lot of them she has no intentions of hiding what she is

Ven still gets nightmares about her mom’s death and losing her sister, not very detailed ones she doesn’t remember who the attackers were exactly but one thing is always really clear: someone, she doesn’t know if they’re a friend or enemy, taking her baby sister and running off disappearing into the darkness. The older she gets the more she gets convinced that it was a bad person who STOLE her sister and deserves to pay for it. There’s always a little hope when meeting another tiefling that it’s her sister and they’d somehow recognize each other right away and go off to make a lot of money kicking ass together. She doesn’t tell anyone in the Vipers about it, Meira knows about the nightmares because she’s the one Ven is the closest to but not to the point of opening up that much more. Sometimes after she starts taking on solo contracts, she finds some signs of activity of the people that killed her mom including an old torn up report talking about that day, it’s too damaged to get too much information out of it but it’s a lead she wants to follow in hopes of learning what happened to her sister. She knows better than to just rush off on her own without a plan so she goes back to the Shadow Vipers’ headquarters to ask Istar for some backup, it doesn’t go well at all. He thinks the whole thing is a fool’s errand and her sister probably didn’t make it no matter who took her and refuses to send anyone out unless she’s willing to pay for it. They have a big argument about it and Ven eventually storms off, grabs her stuff and leaves. Istar is convinced she’ll be back soon enough when she realises it’s pointless so he doesn’t send anyone after her.

Ven’s in her early twenties when she goes off on her own to find her sister, it’s not easy and she hits a lot of dead ends but she’s entirely too stubborn to give. When she’s not actively investigating she picks up mercenary work to be able to pay for living expenses on the road, a lot of the jobs she takes are escort missions that’ll take her roughly in the direction she needs to travel, it’s not the best paying ones but at least it saves time. Eventually she manages to track down the person who ran away with her sister and get the name of the town where she was dropped off all those years ago. As angry that Ven is to learn that her sister was abandoned in a field for a druid to find (and you know, the years of build up resentment over the fact her sister was stolen, even if it turned out to be for a good reason), she doesn’t kill the woman, hurts her badly but doesn’t kill her. Since the place she has to go is almost on the other side of the continent, Ven joins a merchant caravan as hired muscles to get there while still getting paid. It’s the longest she stays with any group aside from the Vipers but she doesn’t form any real attachment to any of them, she acts friendly cause they might be useful but that’s about it. She does learn a few useful tricks from a bard traveling with them who has about as much morals as she does (they bond a bit over being terrible people). It’s a very long trip to her sister’s hometown and when Ven gets there she finds out Solys is away on her own adventure...

[kaiju-z]

Seon Adventures Episode 31: From The River, From The Lake

A day has passed since the party bested the highwayman Stone Giant (Dave).

They find themselves now in Bavorum, where most of the group had their first encounter with each other... and the Death Cult. And many people travel with a strange pace form one entrance point of Bavorum, to the next, leading them to Lake Stren...

With careful perception from the group, they take note that the people transitioning from entering to exiting the town through this particular route walk absentmindedly, as though not of their own volition. Their gazes, distant, vacant.

It is through this insight that Belli takes to approaching a familiar looking dwarven woman, attempting to shake her free from whatever’s keeping her mind clouded. Alas, even with Malak’s help, they don’t manage to free her, as she carries on...

With a message of the activity being sent to Layla Duststone, head of the Darksbane Army and a hope that the soldiers she had sent to the lake would do what they can, they deduce that the time draws short and so the party makes a temporary split. With most of them taking to the road, Belli goes to acquire the services of the town guards.

After a brief tiff with the half-elven receptionist beside the head of the town’s guard, Belli reunites with said head of the guard. Shenanigans ensue as Belli goes through the motions of trying to convince the dwarven man that there is trouble. That people are under mind control and heading like sheep for the slaughter.

It takes some time, but after pointing him to and encouraging an investigation of one such person, under control, the captain of the guard requiesses 20% of his guards to help. Among them a spunky Halfling lady named Anka, who is all for equal representation as Belli rallies the “troops”, on horse back.

Together, the riders travel to the lake.

Where they reunite with the rest of the group.

And it donns on them just how fucked they are in this situation. It doesn’t take a high perception to note just how many people are gathering. Hundreds. And still more in coming.

It feels... It feels so overwhelming.

Lake Stren. A place that at one point represented a moment of respite for The Cultbusters in the days before they even named themselves, was now a place of dread. As countless sacrifices were arriving.

And among them, among the sea of people that surround this lake, we see Kit.

Kit, in her true appearance walks vacantly towards the lake.

For Jun, a pleasant surprise to see another Changeling so soon after the club in Crystalgate. For Belli, a moment of horror as she realizes what could happen to her.

The worried half-orc carries her over to the rest of the party with fair ease, as she has the strength advantage on the rogue. And attempts to shake her awake at the very least.

Luck’s eyes turn to the lake and he scans. Mournimar sees him first, Dak. Standing in the center of Stren. Unmoving from his position.

Deciding on a course of action, Luck gives instructions to the rest. To do what they can to shake the people around them awake. Guards to assist. Apply pressure, if needed.

Then he heads for Dak.

As Malak tries to help Belli in snapping Kit out of it, Jun tries to see if there’s anyone casting any spells around them. Someone that could be the point of origin for the spell.

But no such luck there.

As the group try to coralle people away, they soon go back to their spots as the four try to get to more people.

In the meantime, Luck approaches Dak and tries to shake him awake, after words don’t seem to get the job done.

As that doesn’t work either, the disguised tiefling does the only thing he has left in the repertoir that isn’t using his weapons.

He sends Dak to Dick Kick City.

And that-that actually does the job!

As the poor cleric aches in pain from the rude awakening, Luctan explains to him the situation he finds himself in. Then turns to the rest of the party and tells them to go for the crotch kicking as well.

And with Dak proclaiming that he has a plan, moving to get on with said plan, the party goes into action.

For every 10 people they hit, 2 wake up.

And time passes. And more people come. 2 hours.

2 hours later, the sun goes down. Down behind the marshy swamp. Down behind the hills and trees. And silence overcomes the area.

An eerie silence. The kind you only get to hear on a night of extreme violence...

And then?  The silence is eventually interrupted.

Just a few notice at first

Low retching. Like a dry heaving sort of sound from the people that have gathered around the lake. And then a few more join in. It’s not a lot of people at first... Not the majority, anyways. But this is what happens as people begin to hack and spew fluids from their mouths.

Malak, specifically can tell in the most decorated of priest robes that start heaving and fall down to their knees, heaving.  And a few more start doing the same.

Kit begins to shiver. And Belli has enough. She takes Kit and brings her to a tree far from the lake, to which she ties her lady.

It is in this moment that Malak makes a split second decision. Something overcomes him and with no other choice in sight, Malak grabs his axe and swings it at the neck of the closest charmed priest. He decapitates him instantly.

Blood spews int othe water, the head dunking, then bobbing in front of the collapsing corpse.

Blood gushes from the neck and into the lake, while the guards start rushing the retching people and dragging them back.

While she doesn’t stop shivering, Kit doesn’t seem to do what happens next to the remaining charmed folk. To these... followers of Fornas.

As we drag as many as we can. Those that are on their hands and knees barf and hurl blood. And gore. Their insides become their outsides in a vicious bloody waterfall of many angles.

The Cultbusters do as best as they can. Luck runs. He casts Prestidigitation at the blood and gore and does so multiple times, trying to diminish the never ending stream of it upon the water, Belli uses her Mage Hand, dragging people away scooping the gore away.. Mournimar carries as many as he can. Tries to restrain as many as he can. But he isn’t strong enough to do much else.

Jun takes initiative as Malak did and uses a spell. A Burst of Swords surrounds her as she aims at the people around her. Malak cuts people down. Vicious,crazed, pained.

Belli cracks and casts Shatter on a group of folk, hoping she doesn’t full on kill them, but knock them back. Bu the snapping of bones and sinnew says otherwise.

It’s horrible.

As the moon comes up. All this is just horrible.

Something starts drippling in the middle of the lake. Clay slides in and gathers in the middle, until the water starts to boil and this HUGE! Creature of blood and clay drags itself out of the center of the lake. And the hundreds of people, who were heaving?

They just drop.

This thing.

This massive monster.

Larger than the Stone Giant itself?!

It turns to look at us.

Those, who have been trying to undo what it’s been working on.

And it comes at us.

Roll for Initiative.

Mournimar is the closest in sight. Said Mournimar backs away as fast he can and takes a hit.. But manages to shrug off whatever was going to happen next.

As consequence for the attack upon him, Mournimar sets off his Hellish Rebuke, setting fire to the freakish monstrocity. And then, with a quick trigger finger, Mournimar fires his Sparrow Arrows, after setting a Hunter’s Mark on this vile creation’s frame.

His arrows strike true.

Using this opportunity of distraction, Jun moves in next. She calls forth inky black tentacles that wrap themselves around the bastard, this shithead, this peace of FUCKING SHIT THAT SUCKED THE LIFE OUT OF THSE PEOPLE!

But it frees itself with some ease.

And turns it’s attention on the changeling and the disguised tiefling beside her.

One smack for Jun. One for Luck. Both manage to shrug off whatever the thing that should not be tried to infect them with.

It reaches into the lake and more blood pulls up form it’s arm and starts swinging it’s arms faster and it’s now hasted! It’s attention still on the one it smacked last. It hits Luck again. He resists again.

But the fury that overcomes the tiefling burns with a powerful fire that scorches the limb that attacked him.

And on Luck’s very turn he points a finger at the clay and lake floor pecks of this dark creation and impales it with a Grade 1 Guiding Bolt.

Belli’s next as she tries to polymorph the ground around it into something unfavorable for it. But that doesn’t seem to work. She attempts to mock it. 

“You look like what crawled out of a frat house’s toilet.”

But it also somehow resists that.

With the thing having used up all it’s reaction time, the bard moves back to a safe distance.

Malak comes next. On his turn... Malak, raging, aching, fearing, manic, remembering, rehashing, charging... Malak goes full on Kamehameha pose and shoots a 4th level Guiding Bolt! at the creature, blowing off a huge chunk off. Geting the full attention of the monster.

Malak doesn’t move. He stands his ground as Mournimar deals signifigant damage of his own with his special arrows, impacting the body of the creature.

The final arrow shot takes a piece from it’s shoulder. It’s just falling apart like playdough at the rightcheous fury and attack of the Cultbusters.

On Jun’s turn...  She runs up and uses a Curse. She attacks with her Gambler’s blade for a good amount of damage. And itt’s attention shifts again. The water around the lake was bubbling and we see a similar pattern, as though it’s boiling in it’s chest.

After some... thought?! It goes for Malak, bludgeoning him with it’s accursed limbs. And it’s infection comes onto Malak, who feels his body slug, some. His vitality draining some from his body.

A second hit comes.

Luck intervenes. The very nature of his lucky existence, his presence causes the large fucker to miss Malak with the second strike! Which causes the freakshow to look back from the human to the tiefling.

And Luck gets smacked again for his attack, blood flowing from his nose as his helmet gets flung off. The infection doesn’t seem to be passed on as Luctan glares and calms his breathing for the moment, his newer wounds healing up, if slightly.

Pulling at his greatsword, Luctan activates Steel Wind Strike.

And misses.

He surges on. And swings again and again, but the damn creature is just too fast. He keeps missing by half an inch!

Belli’s up next.

As Luck moves to get in the way of the monster, in case it attacks Malak again, Belli gets the fighter’s consent and casts Polymorph on him.

Transformation central.

Transmodification central.

Are you ready? Can you feel it?

Luctan becomes a fucking T-Rex!

As Luctan Roars in defiance of the monster, Belli inspires Malak, who along with Jun repositions, due to the change of shape and size of the tiefling fighter.

The now inspired Malak casts Spiritual Weapon and smashes the clay and blood creation from the side with his Spiritual Axe.

Bonus action.

Lich Slap.

Even further damage. This thing is, by this point, beginning to crumble. Barely keeping itself in one piece.

Mournimar makes his move. Figuratively and literally. Dashing from the right of the party to a mound of rocks on their right, he switches from a Hunter’s Mark to a Zephyr Strike. Hit and a miss. The thing is staggering.

Jun’s turn!

Hex. The creature becomes weaker in it’s physicallity.

Jun, who would then move for cover under the standing frame of Luctan, would grip her blade tight in hand.

Booming Blade + Blood Curse.

Combine that with two attacks of her blade.

And then it happens!

With a sharp eye she evaluates the creature’s very state of being.

Running out of cover, she starts climbing it from an angle and reaches to the shoulders, on top and the open wound up there… the blood from the creature starts to rapidly flow. She stabs it and the spell explodes. And this-This Goddamn thing’s brains, if it had them, explode back behind it, splashing into the water below.

As the body begins to break apart,  Luck leans forward so she can land on his head. Once Jun comes down from the T-Rex Tiefling’s body, said T-Rex starts to viciously stomp on the remains that turn into clay and gory mush under his saurian feet.

Belli lets him blow off some steam in this form for a while, before ending her concentration on the spell. Once luck drops back, she turns to Kit, who no longer shivered, but seemed to have passed out from all that stress.

While Luck carried on stabbing at the “body”, he’d soon be stopped by Mournimar and Belli, who’d hold him in a hug.

Jun would compliment Malak’s initiative, before said cleric would scan the area.

He’d check on the people. Most of them are dead. Those they dragged back seem to be alive, if badly wounded. Anka and Dak are alright, as are the rest of the guards.

Belli sends at Anka to get people to help with the bodies. There’s a pause and then she hears. “Oh shit, you can’t see me nodding! Yeah, yeah, I’ll get to it.”

The Death Cleric would then head for the nearest body of a cleric. Crouch.

And then cast “Speak To The Dead.”

5 questions time.

As the eyes open, Malak asks... and gets answers:

1. “What is the last thing you remember?” – “The temple. I was cleaning.”

2 .What Temple?” – “The Temple in Kaelum.” That’s in the south east, on the main road from the front lines to Crystalgate.

3. “Did you know that this would happen?” – “What would happen?” He doesn’t know.

4. Do you remember anything troubling happening in or around the temple?”- “No, the gifts were plentiful. Nothing was wrong.”

5.Who were the gifts from?” – “The… Fornas, d’uh? Are you dumb? Do you have a brain?”

The spell would end and the spirit would take off.

But Malak wasn’t done.

He’d cast the spell at a second body, one with a rough cockney accent.

(Laughter happens, because it sounded like he was interrogating Gromi from the Icespire game, X’D)

1.  “What were the gifts from Fornas you recently Received?” – “All the good turns of fate and luck, my friend. The fortunate landing, the flip of the coin. That is gift.”

2.  “What is the last thing you remember?” – “I went to take a nap.”

3. Anything troubling happen in and around the temple?” – “No, Morrum’s been quiet.”

4. “Have you received any requests from Fornas?” – “Fucking Karaoke, what do you think? We just do what we always do; we clean, we keep the place clean for people coming.”

5.“Does anyone in the cult of Fornas practice Necromancy?”- “I mean, it’s not really encouraged. But people do what they gotta do.”

( Then Perish. )

With that done, the stiffens anew, the soul takes off.

Luctan stands and heads for Dak.

All the while...

The others inspect the mass that was once attacking them in a solid form.

There is a slight pulse coming from inside the clay-gloop. Malak and Belli and Mournimar choose to dig. In the center of the creature there’s ...

A sort of whitely glowing blue bundle. It glimmers in different parts of the moonlight they experience. Thin, irredecent material. Unwrapped.

Inside there are three treasures of note. First. Scale mail armor. Weirdly irridecent light armor. Belli identifies it as “Etherial Armor”. It glows in the colors of the rainbow and gives protection to the more dexterous of folk.

( Ethereal Armor: Light armor made with a thin, iridescent material. It glimmers in all the colours of the rainbow and glows ever so slightly. Strong as steel, it grants the wearer an AC of 14+DEX)

There’s also... This, like. Dried up hand. Ew. With really sharp claws. Definitely not human and doesn’t match any of the bodies in the area.

( Totes not the hand of Vecna.)

There’s a large steel chain attached to it. Attached to 30ft hempen rope. Identify. It’s called “The Creeping Claw.”

( Creeping Claw - A dried goblin’s hand bearing wickedly sharp claws. A large steel chain link penetrates the base of the palm and is attached to a 30 foot long hempen rope. A creature can cover the hand in their own freshly shed blood (1HP damage) which causes the hand to animate. The creature can then mentally control the severed limb and command it to move and interact with objects. The hand walks on the tops of its fingers or climb 5ft up per round through use of claws. The hand can perform simple tasks, can exert ten pounds of force and is as dexterous as the creature controlling it. Requires more blood after 5 minutes.)

Mournimar uncovers a great axe. Gold trim upon silver frame... Identify gives off a name, The Fated Potential. There is writing on it that most of the party can’t uncover, except for Malak.

Jun seems to recall a story, from olden times in this region. About how the weapon came to be from some sort of union between a Celestial and a Fiend. An Angel and a Devil.

One of Fornas’ angels. It seems to make sense then, as to why Fornas servants were tied to what happened here.

So brutally tied...

She checks with Malak on whether he knows what we do with this item. Malak finds the axe interesting. He likes the axe. And will investigate it further. Should it not be cursed, he will hold onto it.

That and the Creeping Claw. Which he puts in a bag, along with the axe. As for the armor? We’ll see.

While this was happening, Belli would contact Ficus and update him, in the middle of a job, as to what had happened.

As Malak plans to bury the bodies, we come to a close.

Previous Episode / Next Episode

[friendlyunclej]

From Scarab to Sand Lord

Prologue

     Like every other Half-Elf, I wasn’t born in Serhya. I came over on a damn boat as their only cabin boy. My mother tried to receive safe passage for me and her after our home became too dangerous for us to stay in. The asshole High Elf Quartermaster killed her and tossed her overboard while I was looking over a book she told me to read. Before I could look up, he had me in shackles and tossed me in a jail cell in the brig. When the ship’s Dwarven captain came back, he didn’t enjoy the Quartermaster’s company and attitude anymore so he smashed his head to pieces against my cell door. He unshackled me and had me working to pay for my passage from Tyriok to Zealor. Honestly, it was probably the best thing to happen to me.      It was about a three month trip across the Solemn Sea. Within the first week, I had my first taste of rum. By the end of the first month, I out drank everybody on the ship while the captain pat me on the back with a proud laugh. By the end of the second month, the captain made me his First Mate, but it didn’t change anything important. Once the third month came to an end and the dock was in sight, the captain offered to make me the new Quartermaster, despite me only being eleven years old at that point. I probably would have said yes if I hadn’t seen how beautiful the women were in Serhya.      Seeing my interest in the soft bodies which always seemed to be on display in Zealor, the captain took me to his brother, who ran a pretty decent brothel at the time. He dropped me off with him and I went through the same thing I did on the boat. When I wasn’t working, I was travelling the streets of Zealor, surrounded by so much color and life that I couldn’t help but be in awe from it. Each day I was there, something new came from nowhere it seemed like. What I loved the most was that I never felt alone, despite having no real family. At least, I felt like I didn’t have any real family until a few days after my fifteenth birthday when I met a red-headed smooth talker named Ronan who was about half my age and double as confident. He was part of a nomad tribe so he wasn’t always around, but, when he was, we’d turn the entire city into a playground. My ass got in more trouble than I ever thought I would be able to get into with Ronan around, and we both had huge smiles on our faces whenever we did. I was even sent to travel with his family a few times to transport goods between the city and some neighboring villages or trading posts. We were practically brothers by the time he told me about his tribe’s “Nightingale Trial” for something called “The Solovey”. It almost broke my heart when he told me that he might not live through it and that I shouldn’t come looking for him if it turns out that way. I didn’t see him for a good number of years because of it.      During those years he was gone, I became owner of the brothel once the old man passed away. Before you get any ideas, he officially signed it over to me in his will. His son was pissed that his father felt like I had been more of a son than he had, so he ran his own brothel out of spite. Believe it or not, I was about nineteen at the time and I still hadn’t been with anyone. In a few years, I turned the brothel into the greatest sin bin in Zealor history and I never partook in my own merchandise. It wasn’t until my boy, Ronan, came back that I mustered up the courage for some strange.

The Old Serhyan Adage

     There’s an old saying in Serhya; “There is nothing we do which we don’t want to.” I heard that for the first time during the first year as the brothel’s owner. A female Dragonborn who came to me, wanting to be part of my house, told me that when I asked why she would leave a comfortable home in the marshlands to pleasure the highest bidder in Zealor almost every night. I had her working the next night and caught a smile on her face that grew wider with each client. When my brother, Ronan, came back and let all of my workers know that I still hadn’t got laid, I shouldn’t have been surprised when she was the most eager to show me a good time. I’ll be honest, I never saw myself getting with a Dragonborn, but I got to say that that was the best damn night of my life. Well...maybe a very close second.      After a little over six long years, I had my brother back. Despite being older, stronger, missing an eye and carrying a massive hammer which should have broke his back in two, it was still the same Ronan as before. He told me that he was in some sort of magical coma that somehow kept his body alive, well, and healthy. So healthy, in fact, that he wanted to make up for as much lost time as possible. His jaw dropped when he heard about my rise to fame as the brothel’s new owner and I was more than happy to help my boy out. Unfortunately, I forgot to tell him about the importance of pulling out.      For almost an entire week, he went from girl to girl in my house, tasting everything I had available. I told all of my workers not to ask for payment, and they were more than happy with not getting paid. Laying with the wielder of the Solovey was more than enough payment for all of them. The fact that he was more handsome than half the guys in the city helped pay for it as well. However, he always paid up front, despite many insisting that he didn’t need to. Just from that, he gained the respect of my entire house quicker than snake venom. Unfortunately, one of them decided that she wanted the fame of mothering the child of the Solovey’s wielder instead of just laying with him for a single night. It’s been nine years since Najka was born and none of us know if she’s actually Ronan’s or not. Ronan would give up the world for her either way.      After giving birth to Najka, Selise, her mother, decided to keep her from him for about a year or so. As a whore in a brothel, she knew she didn’t want to raise her in a place like this, so she told Ronan about her and he jumped at the chance of being a father. He raised her as best as any father could for almost a decade. I had the great honor of being her “Uncle Pho” and godfather. Whenever he had business in town, I’d turn my house into a sort of a daycare for her. She didn’t fully grasp what was actually happening here until she got older anyway. She just thought that everyone liked to wrestle and scream with each other for no reason.      When she turned nine, Ronan did something I would have never expected. We were walking around Zealor together when he told me his plans.

     “Wait, you’re leaving?” I asked, dumbfounded.

     With a sigh, Ronan responded, “Yup, grabbing a boat to Kalldor in a few minutes. I have to. There’s something I need to do and I can’t bring her along.”

     I placed my hand on his shoulder and said, “Well, I’ll check in on her whenever she comes to the city. I got work on my Oasis soon, which is near your tribe’s walking pattern so I could join them for a mile or two. She ain’t staying in the house, though.”

     “I know,” he stated, “I already told her about everything. Well, everything I felt she needed to hear, at least.”

     “What should I do if she asks about when you’ll be back?” I asked, worried about what she’d want to do.

     “I bought a pair of Sending Stones and I’m leaving one with her,” he told me, still staring at the docks, “If she ever gets too lonely, she can send me a message on that.”

     I chuckled a bit before saying, “Look at you, Ro! Pining for that ‘Responsible Father’ title, I see!”

     He chuckled before taking a deep breath. He continued, “Pho, I know you got other plans, but-”

     “Say no more,” I interrupted, “I’ll keep track of her as if she was the most precious emerald in Serhya.”

     “She is, Pho,” he responded, sternly, “She is.”

     I glanced over and saw him with a look serious enough to make a war general back down. I smirked a bit, seeing my best friend more responsible and concerned than I ever thought he was capable of.

     I put him in a headlock as I teased him, saying, “Hey, you get any more serious, I’m going to have to tell the girls at the brothel to hide their smiles whenever you come around.”

     Cracking up, he responded with, “You better tell the guys, too. I pretended to flirt with a Half-Orc and I swear he blushed at me.”

     Putting up my fingers, I playfully said, “ ‘Pretended?’ I could’ve sworn you were serious with half the guys in my house! Even me, that one time.”

     “Who said that I wasn’t?” he said with a straight voice.

     I released his head as we both erupted into laughter. We laughed so hard that my eyes started to water. I wiped away a tear as I said, “You stay safe, you hear me? I’d rather not cross the Solemn Sea to collect your handsome corpse, ‘Nightingale’.”

     “You have some courage while I’m gone, alright?” he spouted back, stone faced.

     I nervously chuckled as I asked, “Courage with what?”

     “With that Halfling woman you fast-tracked up the ladder,” he said with full confidence. “She joined your house less than a few months ago and you already have her pined as your replacement while you start that...uh...”

     “Oasis,” I reminded him.

     “Oasis! That’s what it was,” he shot back at me, “But, seriously, I gave you a niece. I’d like to have one as well, brother.”

     “Pfft! Me and that Haifling? Whaaaaaaat? Nothing’s happening there,” I shakily retorted.

     “You truly are a shit liar, Pho,” he said, laughing a bit.

     I paused and looked down at my hands for a second. I sighed as I said, “Yeah, you always could see through my bullshit, Ro. Unfortunately, what ain’t bullshit is that ship of yours that’s taking off in about ten minutes.”

     We both stood up and took a deep breath before drawing each other in for a hug.

     He whispered to me, “Thanks for being my brother.”

     I whispered back, “Thanks for not dying to that thing on your back.”

     I slapped him on the back of his neck as I said, “Now, move, fool! The ship’s dropping its sails.”

     He rushed off and caught the ship just before the wind carried it off, shaking hands with a purple-skinned Tiefling. Najka, who had been searching for us for a little bit, caught up and dashed right past me. She ran all the way to the end of the dock and almost fell off into the water as she waved goodbye to her father. I walked her back and asked about where she got a stuffed doll of an odd-looking mastiff that seemed to be wrinkly with a slightly squished face. She told me that some old lady said that it’s a special breed of dog which hasn’t been seen in decades. We continued to talk about it until I returned her to her grandparents.

Epilogue

     It’s been a few months since Ronan left for Kalldor and life’s been pretty good. My Oasis is damn near ready to be home to a sizable village’s worth of people. I kept its name simple because I wanted it to be known not just as an oasis, but as “The Oasis”. Damn near all of Serhya lives under a government that chooses its highest according to wealth. As the previous owner of the greatest brothel in Zealor history, I had become a Lord of the Sands and I felt the need to make my own town since Zealor’s technically ruled by a kid. I should have told Zita that before leaving her the brothel.      I made the right move placing my Halfling girl in charge of the brothel. She’s made more money keeping everyone happy, healthy, and safe than she ever did telling guys to either get it up or shut up when some clients only wanted a shoulder to cry on. I visit her whenever I return to the city. I check in on the brothel and she always finds a way to make me stay an extra night or two.      Najka’s been happy and Selise is starting to try to develop a relationship with her, now that she’s a barmaid instead of a member of my house. Najka wants to see her dad again and she always asks if I’ve seen him when I check in on her. She seems to always get sadder when I tell her that I haven’t. I always change the subject to keep her spirits high, and she told me that she met “Auntie” when she and her grandfather went to the brothel asking for me once. She said that she was sweet to her and that it was fun talking to someone the same height as her. I smiled wider than I thought when I heard that.      The only thing that worries me is that there seems to be some scary reports coming from all across Serhya. I’ve heard some travelers speak of a monster in the bogs on the west coast that spit acid. Others have talked about seeing activity at ruins we all thought were uninhabited for years. The worse I’ve heard of is the pyramids. Of all the awful legends I’ve heard of in regards to the history of Serhya, the absolute worst have been surrounded the pyramids. I’m sure it’s nothing, but paranoia stems from caution according to my old ship captain and, right now, I’m more paranoid than a Drow running from the Underdark.      Even if some issues do come, it doesn’t matter too much. I’m not the same Scarab that crawled off of a ship. I’m a Sand Lord now and I’ll be damned if anyone’s taking that from me. The only thing that does matter is if I can keep my family from being caught in the crossfire.