Disaster

Participants

Recap

Raiden, with you my speed is lightning, my strength the thunder, and my movement the rain.

-Prayer of battle to Raiden, God of the storm

The cleric's reactions, as if guided by the god himself, allowed Zeek to lash out as the monstrosity attempted to stay out of reach. He took hold of a limb, sending up a pulse of necrotic energy, wracking the beast with pain, and nearly rendering the leg useless.

Seizing the opportunity, Arden steps in while chanting a spell and locking eyes with the creature. The creature, which they later determined was a drider, quickly began to choke on its own unnatural laughter. Even as it cackled, its eyes remained in a focused rage. As the fit continued, the seven remaining legs gave out, losing their grip and sending the massive writing form tumbling down.

Arden and Zeek only managed to shield themselves with their arms before the drider nearly crushed them under its weight. Their lungs barely able to fill with each breath, they called for the air of their companions, as the fire from the lower floor continued to rage, reaching ever closer.

Reacting quickly to the opportunity, Tingle sent a blast over towards the fray, missing his mark and scorching Zeek's pinned form in the process. Arden, finding a brief moment wherein the drider's convulsions eased it's weight from his pinned legs, managed to roll out from under the creature. In his scramble, the bard uttered a magic whisper, in Zeek's aid who was more injured than originally thought.

Not easy to break, the drider willed itself to control, and began to stand back up. In the process, she noticed Zeek groggily coming to his senses after Arden's help, and flicked out a bladed leg. Zeek's head snapped back, and he lost consciousness.

See his error and the following events, Tingle sprinted in, sliding over to his wounded companion and poured a potent healing draught into his mouth. Just as Zeek started to stir, those outside the room heard a noise from farther up the hallway. Behind a closed door, it seemed as if someone was attempting to get out.

Distracted by the overwhelming stimulus, Iria rushed lining up her shot, and the arrow finds Zeek's flank, and the troubled cleric begins to bleed profusely. Iria cursed under her breath, just as the wounded Zeek retaliated against the drider above him by unleashing a concentrated blast of thunder directly at it's head. The giant spider-body reared in anguish, as the dark-elven face wore a look of fury and hatred.

Arden focused intently on the drider's weapon, determined to make this monstrosity less lethal than it already was. Through his fierce gaze, the bard uttered the words and the drider's longsword began to grow red-hot, scalding it's hand, as the partially melted weapon dropped from it's grasp. The she-spider hissed in rage.

The smoke was now thick, and the flames had consumed the entirety of the lower floor, now advancing to the top of the stairs and beginning to catch the nearby walls quickly in the extreme heat. As the battle raged on, the chance to escape, or room for any error were quickly closing.

Arden now heard a voice calling from down the hall, behind the door. It was Nabomai, she was crying, pleading desperately for Zeek and for help. Quickly turning to Iria after concluding his spell, the bard charged the nimble drow with freeing her.

Seeing the potential to uncover more clues about this disaster from Obtu's corpse, the gnome cast a spell making his body light as a feather, and charged forward towards the large windows at the opposite end of the room in which the fray was unfolding. He was rewarded with several arrows from the drider's bow nearly ending his life. Zeek and Arden attempted to find their means of escape in the same direction, resulting in Zeek taking his hammer to the glass, as Arden called back to Iria as time was running out.

Unable to hear from the roar of the flames, Iria managed to break down the door, seeing a very distraught Nabomai inside, seemingly unable to walk on a shattered leg. Iria glanced over to her much larger dragonborn friend, and after mutual nods of understanding, she bolted back towards the windowed bedroom. As the fire was completely out of control on the second level, Kal gently collected the elderly brewer and looked back down the hall with a grim expression. An inferno lay between the two of them and any chance at escape.

Down the hall, Zeek and Tingle leapt through the shattered window, and onto a small concrete balcony. Stone and Metallic walls rose high on all sides around them. There would be no easy escape. Iria soon joined them, darting out of the bedroom as the flames began to enter. Her head darted around quickly, frowning at the realization of their new predicament.

Back up the hall, Kal's instincts kicked in. He ran into the bedroom, and gathered as many heavy blankets as possible, and tried to give himself and Nabomai precious seconds with the additional protection. With a deep breath, he covered the old elf's face and charged forth into the hellscape before him.

The heat was unbearable, and Kal's golden scales began to reach the limit their protection would offer. Nabomai coughed deeply, and cried out for breath. The searing air burned her throat and lungs, and Kal felt the seasoned brewer writhing in agony in his arms.

Just before Kal would reach the bedroom door, Arden moved to make his escape. The drider hissed in her foul language and Arden's muscles suddenly seized, locking him in place. His eyes looked down at his frozen body in horror as the clacking legs of the spider-body passed him and slipped out the small opening in the glass with unnerving ease.

Upon seeing Zeek once again the creature lashed out at him, sinking its fangs deep into his thick neck. Blood poured from the wound, and the already injured Zeek staggered and fell once again. As the cleric slowly lost consciousness, the drider glanced above it, catching a glimpse of Tingle rising into the air. Using the corpse of the deceased wizards as his means of escape, Tingle watched anxiously from above. The drider's legs gripped on to the sides of the walls, and the huge form crawled sideways, slowly at first then with surprising speed, up the nearly sheer face towards the gnome.

Desperate for some means to escape, Iria noticed a small pipe running up the side of the far wall. She began her ascent, keeping track of Tingle and the Drider above. Then, while looking up notices another figure at the top of the building ledge far above her. It appeared to be looking down and waving wildly.

Back in the house Kal trudged through the doorway, his strength fading, his movements slow and shaky. He grimaced at both the pain, and the feeling of Nabomai going limp within his grasp.

Outside, a pulse of energy from his pendant stopped Zeek's seemingly mortal wounds from claiming his life. His ragged breath steadies, and the bleeding stops.

As if sensing this magic from above, the drider stopped its pursuit of Tingle, and slowly turns its gaze back down towards the corner where Zeek was lying, the flames from the nearby window starting to lick at his boots. The drider screeches in an otherworldly pitch and drops from the wall abruptly, streaking through the rising smoke towards the student of Raiden. Iria watched in horror from her position on the pipe, not far above.

In the darkness of Zeek's unconscious mind, when the pendant stabilized him, it was like a streak of colored lightning lit up the darkness for a moment. Unable to move, unable to see, he did have some awareness of his surroundings. The heat of the fire was unmistakable, yet his perception of it seemed uneven, almost as if a dream that felt too real upon waking. More distinguishable was the taste of smoke in his throat, and beyond that what he was able to hear; the squealing metal and crackling of wood and interior of the nearby building, the roar of the flames, and the cries of his friends.

Then for the briefest of moments, his vision did return. A veritable light-show of color and bolts of electricity danced before his eyes. Streaking, flickering and flashing across his vision, the colors smeared and collided like a temporary painting before fading and replaced by a new display. It was as if Raiden himself lit up the night sky and it was the most beautiful and powerful thing Zeek had ever seen. Then the show stopped, and his canvass returned to black one last time.

A grin crept onto the mouth of the drider as it removed a spear-like appendage from Zeek's chest, dripping with blood. The pained cry from Iria above made the twisted creature's mouth widen into a smile. Tearing herself away from the awful scene below her, Iria began to scramble higher up the wall, tears still streaking down her face.

When the drider became distracted, Arden found himself released from her hold. With the fire nearly consuming him, and the heat unbearable, he cast himself through the window, and collapsed onto the ground. Not far behind, Kal aids his friend as he carries the limp body of Nabomai.

Tingle, seeing everything unfold below, jumped down to join the fray, magically slowing himself before reaching the balcony. A flurry of activity began with Tingle desperately fighting for his life as the drider turned her attention to him. With Arden and Kal trying to help, they manage to hurt the drider enough to buy time for Arden to begin a climb, and Kal to grab on to Zeek. Tingle was also able to concentrate enough to levitate Kal and his cargo upwards. As they began to ascend to safety, Arden ripped a patch from his coat, and hurled it below. The small, black bit of cloth contacted the concrete and immediately a large pit opened beneath the drider, and it tumbled in, shrieking.

As Iria, Arden, and Kal ascended they identify the figure above as Lief, who later explained he became concerned when they went missing for so long after the Goliath raid was over. Climbing over the top of the ledge to join their ally, Arden caught a glimpse of the long legs of the drider escaping the pit and crawling back into the window far below.

Immediately the group checks on Zeek, but his lifeless body responds to none of their efforts. Lief, trying to contain his emotion, fails spectacularly in a raw display of grief. His heaving sobs tearing away at the insides of his despondent companions, stoic in their disbelief. High above the danger, the group sits, sullen and silent.

Iria's eyes snapped open after allowing herself to rest for a few precious moments. Something had woken her, but she was unsure as to what. Rousing her companions, the group descends down onto the street below, where fires and decimation were still evident from the prior night's raid. Arden noticed something sticking to the shadows below, a Loxodon that seemed to be watching them from below.

Knowing that the honorable and rare species were very unlikely to be a threat, Arden makes no attempt at subterfuge, and began a dialogue. The loxodon ranger, named Elgon, explained he was tracking a drider, and it should be in this area. JKS fills the ranger in, and he looks at them grimly, noting the two bodies covered behind them. He offers to help them destroy this creature.

Before the two parties were able to get further acquainted, the group notices another guild traveling in a group up the street towards them, several of them carrying casks marked with the JKS signature ZZA for Zeek's brewery.

When the thugs refuse to back down from their obvious thievery, JKS dispatches several of them within seconds of hostilities breaking out, and the survivors drop the remaining kegs, breaking several, and ran.

As the thieves escaped down the road, JKS did not pursue, weary from their ordeal. As Kal sat and absorbed the magnitude of destruction around him, he recalled the technician at the hospital, who lamented a lack of a sample of the new disease appearing within the Rave. He immediately suggested that they somehow harvest some flesh from the nearby Goliath bodies.

With his hearty loxodon immunity, Elgon proved his worth immediately, by harvesting several samples at risk to no one. Making note of the tribal tattoos on the body as "Goreflesh" he'd at least know one tribe for sure was infected.

With little else to do here, the guild and their new ally slowly stagger down the ruined street.

Live Notes

• Zeek is all what the fuck what hit me. Immediately inflicts wounds for a critical fuck-ton of damage
• Arden tries to incapacitate the thing with laughter. He succeeds, but the large creature crashes down onto him and Zeek, causing a bit of a hit
• Tingle lays some heat rays into the thing, but knocks Zeek out in the process
• Arden gets out from under and throws Zeek a little pep
• The spider thing comes to its senses and lays waste to Zeek, knocking him out again
• Tingle slides in with the save and potions Zeek back up
• We hear some sounds down the hall of someone trying to get out of a room
• Iria takes a shot at spidey, but misses and hits Zeek for an uncomfortable amount
• Zeek air-shatters around the thing's head
• Arden heats up the spider's sword and makes it drop, calling for Iria to save Nabomai
• The flames continue to encroach
• Tingle heaves Obtu's corpse towards the windowed wall
• Iria breaks the door in down the hall
• Zeek and Arden fumble their way towards the window. Zeek smashes it open while Arden calls to Iria.
• Iria and Kal bust Nabomai out of her room
• The Monstrosity hucks a bunch of arrows hitting Tingle within an inch of his life
• Iria and Kal grab Nabomai. Iria hurls through some fire, taking some singe
• Zeek and Tingle hop through the window to the adjacent ledge
• Kal bolts back in to grab the above-average quality blankets from the chest. Throws one over Nabomai and one over himself
• Arden seizes up, paralyzed, as the fire encroaches
• The Monstrosity hops to the adjacent building after Tingle and Zeek
• Iria picks up Nabomai and makes a run for it in a real Backdraft kind of moment
• Zeek takes a hard hit from the thing, goes down again
• Nabomai is struggling to survive in Kal's arms as the flames rage in
• Tingle starts to taunt the spidermonster as he floats higher
• Iria notices a pipe leading up, which causes him to notice a humanoid figurine above, near where Tingle is heading, with reddish skin
• Kal trudges through the room
• The Monstrosity lays hits into Zeek, crunching its hideous limbs into him as the life saps from his body

☠️ Zeek the Zapper☠️

• Iria climbs up the wall
• Arden makes the jump out the window, but collapses
• Kal feels Nabomai go limp, makes the jump and sees Arden in tough shape, pours him a potion of healing like a fucking boss, and gains some for himself
• Tingle tangles in flight, and goes down
• Arden restores some pep in Tingle, and starts to hoof it up the wall
• Kal breathes some heat at the bad thing, and it is not looking happy
• Bad guy heaves into Tingle, who goes back down
• Arden throws some healing at Tingle and scrambles up the wall
• The evil swings a bunch at Tingle, but Tingle shields and deflects
• Tingle starts to levitate himself as well as Kal holding Nabomai
• Arden scrambles up the wall, shouting encouraging words to Tingle
• Iria recognizes the figure on the tower as Lief
• Arden throws a patch on the ground which turns into a pit and the thing falls in. Tingle's levitation and Arden's climbing move the group further up
• The thing climbs out the pit and skitters back into the house

Combat over

• Tingle and Kal try to check on Zeek, but he's lifeless
• Iria and Lief have a good cry
• The survivors of JKS venture out into the sector, razed with damage
• Tingle finds an interesting cloak with magical aura, not sure whats up with it
• JKS takes a break on the rooftop

Short Rest

• While resting, the group caught the attention of a loxodon scout that had been tracking the drider
• Upon waking, the group looks around, Arden's keen eye spots the lox
• Arden strikes up conversation with the loxodon
• In the background, Tingle launches a fire bolt at the Goliath corpse
• Elgon agrees to join the JKS group
• The group spots people carrying ZZA down the street, which they should have no business posessing

Initiative!

• Tingle advances and strikes at the the lead looter
• Elgon unsuccessfully takes his first shot
• Tingle heaps a Mage Armor onto Elgon, urging him to prove his worth to JKS
• The scout of the crowd gets trigger happy and launches some arrows at Elgon
• Arden tries to suggest to the priestly lookin leader they are better off letting
• Kal stepped in beheading the priest, followed by the girl next to him
• The rest ran away, dropping the kegs
• As they ran away, Elgon overheard something about not being able to get a sample
• Kal thought of the hospital where they needed the sample, thinking the people were also after that sample. So we should get samples from the slain Goliath
• Elgon is immune to disease, so offers to collect the samples for us
• We direct him to harvest a bit of the damaged flesh, and Tingle inspects it thoroughly
• Elgon inspects the body for guild markings, and finds a Goreflesh tattoo. Elgon hacks off the tattooed part of the skin, gives it to Tingle who stashes it in a jar

JKS staggers off to see the Autorus

That's it for tonight

Loot