Ep 1217: What is Mary's story?

Let's see, we left off with Itanis starting to wonder about our temporary team mate Mary the Warlock. He had discovered magic around both her and her familiar and used Message to tell us all. Magnus is being remarkably patient about not wading in and finding out the information in his directly blunt sort of way. We also had a mechanical vat that looks like a lobster but the size of a small short bus to figure out. Here, have a picture of it.

Yeah, not keen on whatever sort of torture device this thing is but we need it to get to where we need to go.

So Tsedek, Elle, and Itanis start rummaging through the piles of documents and such to get an idea of what is going on with this mechanical lobster. We're able to scrounge up enough information to start formulating a plan.

Then Tsedek decides to take a page from Magnus' book and go direct. "I wasn't here when you joined us but if I understand correctly we're trying to help you find your traveling companion. And that your companion might be a vampire?"

Mary got highly uncomfortable at this point and started trying to deny this of course. Well, at this point Magnus saw she wasn't being truthful, lost his patience, and cast Dispel Magic on Mary. Successfully. And she melted into a pile of slush. Leaving all of us on alert and her familiar - a cat - covered in slushy water looking quite pissed off.

He then turns and throws Dispel Magic on Mary's familiar, successfully again, and Mary reappeared. Turns out Mary had used the spell Simulacrum to make her twin, then shape-shifted herself into a cat familiar, for protection while she's travelling solo looking for her companion. She starts in on Magnus, demanding to know why he dispelled such an expensive spell that she was using for protection.

His response? "When a paladin asks you a question, you better answer it truthfully."

Some more convincing from Tsedek and we get the story out of her. Yes, her companion is a Vampire, and she's basically in love with him. Her companion was snatched up and locked in the coffin that matches the one that controls the steam punk style engine in this room, and she's been looking for her companion ever since.

Magnus, naturally, asked the party if we were really going to help her find a vampire. He clearly was not interested in doing so. Tsedek, however, used slight of hand to slip a note into her pocket, essentially with his "contact information" and that he'd be willing to help her.

About that time Mary realized we were no longer interested in helping her, so she tossed "darkness" out and takes off running. Magnus he throws daylight, negating her darkness, and we all see her running off.

Elle raises her hands like she's going to throw one of her fire spells, tilts her head, pauses, and then lowers them and returns to pawing through the information for the mechanical lobster.

With Tsedek's love of tinkering/skill with hands plus Itanis' and Elle's intelligence ... and Magnus using his daylight basically as a shop light where we point ... we're able to do the repairs and greasing to the mechanical lobster and figure out how to drive it in like 1/4 of the time estimate we had originally put together. The lobster is immune to poison and acid, which is helpful (the ooze does acid damage), and frightening that someone thought this through enough to come up with a mechanical lobster that's immune to the beast blanketing the town.

Elle then goes over to the spare parts and starts digging about in them, and comes back with a bucket like item. Tsedek was like "Elle, you better not being upchucking on the leather, just had it cleaned". Elle's response? "I guess it depends on if its human leather or not"

And that's where today ended. We'll resume next week in this contraption.

Today we started a new tradition of opening the session with sharing a "fun fact" about our characters. These folks are living together 24/7 so it's things we've either shared or picked up on over time.

Magnus shared how he got the name Thundermaul from his Paladin order. He was good with the two handed hammer/maul style weapons and was great at making a lot of noise on the front line with thunderous smite an the like.

Tsedek shared that he viewed religion as a cult due to his earlier life, until he got to know Magnus.

Leoven shared that part of his early training included dance training

Elle shared that at one point in her life she was willing to do her parent's bidding and fell in love with a young elf. The relationship was forbidden though.

Itanis shared that we picked up on the fact that Itanis doesn't touch things, and when he does he then washes his hands ... part of his love of control stems from the fact that he's basically a germaphobe.

* I can not translate Tsedek's accent, he's doing this gravelly sort of Australian thing. Also, if we're going to do more role-playing sessions I really need to start writing down our dialogues.