The Embrace of Madness - Part 2

Participants

• Damek Lestus
• Tingle
• Kaladan of Norixius
• Arden Rook
• Zeek the Zapper
• Iria

Recap

See session 14 for recap

Live Notes

Meanwhile, as the larger group of heroes bests puzzles in the old forge, Iria has been tumbling through the fire portal for kind of a long time.

• Iria lands in a hot room, can't really see other than the light and roar of magma
• She hears a "tink" and grinding moving stone
• She feels her way around the room and stumbles upon Damek and Zeek. She learns at this point her voice makes no sound
• Arden shouts a warning to make sure its really her
• Zeek explains the entire plan. Iria seems to react positively
• Iria motions for writing and Tingle provides parchment.
• She draws DTG with a heart around it. The party groans and accepts.
• Upon discussion, the party discusses options for resting. After a bit of discussion, they decide to continue on, with objections noted.
• Tingle identifies the hammer Zeek is carrying as being under a Curse of Feisty Betrayal
• The party carries on into the cold tunnel
• The feeling is claustrophobic, crumbling, humid, and deeply unsettling
• Zeek strongly considers the drinkable qualities of the seepage, but despite its abundant presence none of it seems meaningfully capturable
• Tingle's spider pal does a whole lot of scouting and reveals a great deal of what's out in the rooms
• Iria, Damek, Tingle, and Arden approach the room with the body.
• Tingle mage-hands the pouch off the body. A few rations and things, but there is a notebook, which the mage hand retrieves
• The notebook chronicles ahtos followers daily life, shopping for sundries and supplies, training plans, etc
• One hastily-written recent entry "never will turn against normaad or ahtos again. the abyss is too unpredictable to control. the others didn't make it, I think I can escape. Mortosia"
• Tingle hooks a rope and hauls the chest out of the room. Zeek struggles to open it. So does Tingle
• Kal and Arden work together to make it happen
• 💎 Treasure!
• The party proceeds to the next room, which has a few sarcophagi
• Damek scouts the way in, looks around the room, goes to check the one sarcophagus that is open
• Suddenly a foot sinks in on a step and an iron gate slams shut
• A piercing scream shrieks from another of the sarcophogi. Multiple party members drop to the floor with 0hp.
• A corpsy lady crawls out and claws at Iria, doing a pile of damage and rendering her Frightened
• Damek casts a circle of silence, calming things, while the party frantically tries to collect themselves
• Zeek periapts himself stable
• Iria manages to sink a hit after the wight comes screaming silently at her, then dances away deftly dodging the attack
• Damek follows up with a backhanded hit
• Before the last wisps of life escaped him, Kal manages to restore Arden in the nick of time
• A few hits are traded, JKS having a bit of momentum for a while avoiding most frightened saves
• Tingle makes his saves and is stabilized
• Arden gulps a potion and is back at it
• Damek cracks a couple good hits
• Further hits are traded
• Iria sinks a massive critical arrow hit
• Damek follows up with back-to-back crit hits
• Kal, then Arden, sink a few arrows
• The banshee panics, decides to attack Damek again, immediately paying for it with its life

Victory!🎉

• The group checks out the other sarcophagi, finding bodies dressed as followers that appear to have suffocated in there
• We proceed into the other room to speak with Normaad's image
• Zeek takes the lead, Normaad seems pleased and empathetic to see us
• Normaad has learned the big bad is named Zench, and its from middling levels of the nine hells
• Normaad recognizes we are weak and we can't rest
• Summons at each of our feet a potion that recovers 2/3 of a long rest, rounded down
• We proceed through the hallway through the room with the sarcophogi
• Spidey scouts the place out. a couple of follower bodies on the ground
• We hear the voice in our head again, the heartbeat sound overwhelmingly loud
• "Such a waste, ahtos. so many fresh souls. Normaad is an affront to your own kind. do you even know of what I speak?"
• The group checks out the room. Zeek spots some bloody squirming down the hall, Damek tries to read a book
• Tingle helps to read, and finds the book gives some information about the middle levels of hell, and trickery and greed
• Before the party proceeds into the room with the bloody veins everywhere, Kal breaks open a door into another room
• There's a cult follower on the ground. Zeke doesn't make friends, Arden heals him up.
• The follower says we have to destroy the the heart before its too late
• Zeek finds a crawlspace and we all start huddling through
• We bust into a jail looking room with a couple of gross zombies in it

Initiative!

• Damek hurtles through the crawlspace and beats into the first zombie a couple of times
• Arden drops into the room, sinking an arrow into another one
• Tingle offs one of the zombies with a dark energy light saber throw
• The other zombie attempts to gnaw at Kal, but doesn't succeed
• The party makes short work of him

Victory!🎉

• Tingle looks around for magic, and finds a potential aura from the wall
• Zeek smashes the wall down, revealing another passageway
• This passageway opens into a hallway overrun with heavy veins of bloody growth
• Zeek and Tingle venture into the hallway, where thin tendrils start to nip and burn at their feet
• Zeek finds a lever that won't stay flipped, Tingle assist in locking it in place with the immovable rod
• Zeek backs out into the room, and suddenly we enter...

Initiative!

• Arden gets a baaaad feeling
• Zombies begin to appear and attack
• JKS hits a few good crunches
• Without much undue fuss, JKS takes them to task

Victory!🎉

• Tingle spends a few minutes to build a scout spider, but it doesn't get far
• So the team just decides its simpler to barrel on in
• Coming around the corner, we find some more zombies

Initiative!

• First zombie lunges forward and slams into Damek
• A few hits are traded
• Arden steps around the corner and sinks a hard arrow into zombie face
• Tingle follows up with a dark light saber hit, and that's it
• Another zombie appears! Charges Tingle but misses
• Damek sinks a few
• Iria nails its face to the wall with an arrow

Victory!🎉

• We want to move into the next room, but Tingle is frozen in the corner with fear
• Zeek picks him up to carry him. A discussion is had and Zeek puts Tingle down
• We head into the next room. As the lever pulls, a pit in the floor opens as if by design.
• Tingle tries to get close to send the spider down for a scout, but slips and falls in
• Zeek dives in after Tingle
• They find themselves in the heart chamber

We call it for tonight

Loot