Ep 1206: Elle loses her lunch

At the end of last episode we had killed all but 1 cultist, and had a Quasit (a small evil fiend) poking it's head out of the bone devil. It turns out the bone devil was actually a construct controlled by the Quasit. We're still in the throne room with piles of burned cultists around here and it's rather quite smelly at this point.

So when we pick back up, Magnus reaches down and in a feat of speed that he's not known for, manages to snatch the Quasit right up in a gauntlet clad hand and lightly squeezes ... literally ... it for information. The more it obstructed or tried to deceive, the more he squeezed. Elle asked Magnus once he's done getting information can she have him to drain him of life force to heal herself.

The Quasit informed us that this floating island was actually some sort of motorized ship, and gave us details about which rooms had the treasure in it. And then Magnus squeezed it to death. Elle was displeased, she's not horribly hurt, she just wanted to top things off before we go off to fight other creatures. Magnus offered to heal her but she's trying to be more self sufficient and can heal herself ... as long as there's a creature near that she can drain life from. Elle's beginning to think this is offending him.

So off we went to the engine room to learn more. There we found something Elle abhors -- slaves. There were 4 cultist and several slaves in this room, the cultists were the overseers while the slaves were shoveling fuel into the furnace to keep the engines running. We all were preparing to wade in when Itanis goes and pulls one of his control stunts ... he uses Mass Suggestion to tell the cultists to fuel the furnaces for the next 24 hours. So they all fail their saving throw, so they take over the slaves' task.

The now freed up slaves turned to us for help so they can go home, and that's when we realized none of the slaves had faces either. This place is rather quite disgusting. So some investigation to the damage of the slaves' faces we realized that if we can find their faces we can heal the faces back onto the slaves. Yes, quite disgusting, but Elle was thinking we were going to have to "put them out of their misery" so this was a much better option. This meant we had to go find a room called "the leather works". In a place known for skinning living people, this is not a welcome thought.

We found the room ominously called "the leather works" to find 5 cultists around an "offering" screaming his head off on the work table, and then a 6th cultist delivering supplies. This room had tools of the leather working trade all over the place and skinned faces hung on the walls like trophies, plus a pile that was a possible humanoid over in the corner.

Leoven was the hero in this scene, he did this scattershot ranged bow attack that took out 4 of the worker cultists around the offering in one shot. Tsedek then took out the 5th worker cultist easily. The cultist delivering supplies goes to run out of the room, passing within 10' of Elle. Magnus walks* right up to the fleeing cultist and smashes him ... but in a rare moment of Magnus missed with one shot so the cultist wasn't dead. Elle flung a firebolt at the fleeing cultist and it goes down.

And then things got creepy. The skinned faces flew off of the wall and swarmed around Leoven like a flock of disturbing bats and biting on him. Itanis surrounds the whole mess with a globe of water, and then Magnus casts dispel magic on the whole mess. The water globe dissipates dumping everything on the ground in a wet pile. Leoven is covered in these now motionless faces, on his head, neck, body, just everywhere.

Elle, she is normally quite capable of keeping up with the guys and the hard life of an adventurer. But the reality is until a mere** 6 years ago she lived a privileged, sheltered life. At this point, she lost it. And by it, I mean her lunch. She wound up puking her way out to the hallway to slouch against the wall for a bit and catch her breath. Magnus held faces to the slaves and did a minor heal, and the creepy situation got creepier as each face magically restored to what the individual originally looked like. It turns out the possible humanoid in the corner was a set of Leather Golem Armor, so Tsedek stuffed that into a bag of holding.

That task dealt with, we were off to find the treasure room so we can find out where the item we need to retrieve was moved to. There we find 5 jars each with a brain in it. This delightful situation got even more fun when the 5 brains talk at once through a mechanical speaker. Magnus was like Elle, do you need to leave the room? She shook her head no, but is still rather green around the gills. The 5 brains control the bridge over to the treasury and had a series of challenges for us. Through a combination of Magnus, Tsedek, Elle and Itanis skills we were able to get through all of the challenges successfully.

And then the game session ended. We'll pick back up next week hopefully successfully crossing the bridge to the treasury. Then again with this place, who knows.

*Due to some game mechanics with our new level, Elle now stays within 10' and 30' of Magnus at all times, for her sake not necessarily his.

** Elle is 76 years old, a very young elf. For 70 years she lived a relatively sheltered, privileged life. She's been adventuring for a mere 6 years, so sometimes her earlier life takes over her chosen life.