Location: Whorlstone Tunnels
Party finishes their short rest
- Zaz wakes up from a nightmare that Sarith experiences over the telepathic link, but Sarith keeps it to himself
as a result of spending too much time in the faerzress, several people succumb to madness
- Zaz is paralyzed, Eldeth becomes scared of everyone, and Skjorn hallucinates that the walls are chocolate (among other things)
hesitantly continuing their journey, Party comes across a pool of water with a vortex in the center
- Skjorn tries to drink from it but Mylz and Zaz hold him back
- the water weird living in the pool notices them and attacks Skjorn before they flee into a tunnel
Party finds a cave blocked by an iron gate; by the time Zaz gets his thieves' tools out, Mylz has already broken the lock with sheer force
- the derro inside attack and release cave bears to help them fight
- Party feeds the bears pygmyworts to make them small before scaring them off
- Party force-feeds a derro a tongue of madness and questions him, learning about the cult ritual in the next cave over
Party walks in on ritual where cultists are chanting to Demogorgon
- they are cursing stone giants in the city to grow second heads, purely for the purpose of wreaking havoc
- Mylz yells in Infernal, effectively intimidating the cultists and interrupting the ritual
- Dibrael comes to terms with the fact that these people must be killed for the greater good and kills the leader; he's never killed before and it's hard to cope
- Zaz forms a telepathic link with Dibrael and distracts him from the gruesome task of Mylz beheading the rest of the cultists
- they gather evidence of the cult's activities
Party ventures deeper into the tunnels in search of the dragon egg
- they find a pit filled with chopped up bodies arranged in a spiral pattern
Party finds the last tunnel blocked by a heavy door, which Mylz and Skjorn push open
- Buppido is in the final cave, which contains the dragon egg and a strange obelisk
- Buppido is revealed to be a serial killer who believes he is the god Diinkarazan (he is not), and he has been waiting for the party to find him so he can sacrifice them
Mylz loses her shit and her disguise burns off, revealing that she's a famous aasimar hero, and she promptly breaks Buppido's nose
- Party does a ton of damage; Dibrael in particular does 36 in one attack!
- Mylz obliterates Buppido in a burst of flames, and stabs her sword through him even after he's dead
strangely, the skeletons Buppido summoned are still moving
- Buppido rises again as a bodak, what's left of a humanoid that has been destroyed by the touch of pure evil
- Skjorn casts Tasha's hideous laughter, buying them some time before the bodak does major damage to everybody
- Zaz, who had been protecting the dragon egg during the fight, tucks it safely in his bag when it's all over
Mylz is shutting down, unable to communicate and unable to control her ability that hurts everyone around her
- Zaz telepathically links with her; she's afraid they'll have to kill her to make it stop
- Zaz opts to just knock her out, and Dibrael revives her so she can at least walk out with the rest of them
Location: Gracklstugh
Finale!
(BG Music | Script)
Summary:
- Party exits the tunnels worse for wear, only to find duergar waiting for them
- they are arrested and escorted out of the slums, which are eerily empty
- the derro are rioting; after the duergar sent foreigners into their territory, knocking citizens unconscious and forcing their way into the derro's secret tunnels, they'd had enough
- Gartokkar is beheaded by the Stone Guard in the town square
- Party is brought before the Deepking and told they have one chance to defend themselves before being sentenced to execution
update quest: Destination: Gracklstugh