Session 146: The Fuck You Nellie Trifecta

[icastsword]

———
We’ve got Heroes’ Feast on board for the next 24 hours.
IMMUNE:
Poison
Frightened
WISDOM SAVES with ADVANTAGE
Griffin’s HP max is +17
——

ROUND 1

Jericho sees Griffin getting out his sword, he sees Shane panicking. He sighs, gets out his weapon, and walks forward. He SEES Star Spawn Mangler 1, and bonus-action Rages. He makes his three attacks with the Scimitar of the Mimic. All three of his attacks connect. He does 63 damage to this clown.

Star Spawn Mangler 1 is going to match Jericho’s flurry of strikes with a flurry of its own. It strikes at him six times and hits four, for a total of 47 Slashing damage halved to 24 because Jericho is raging.

So these things can go their full movement without provoking opportunity attacks. It moves away from Jericho, out into the main room, and makes a beeline towards Nellie.

The crew is tasked with rolling Perception. Everybody except Griffin hear a melodic whistling in their minds. They don’t know where it’s coming from, because it’s in their heads. Shane whistles back. Ant laughs maniacally.

Star Spawn Mangler 2 goes Tasmanian Devil on Crimeny. One of its six attacks is a crit, but only two of the six hit. Until Ant remembers that this Mangler is in darkness, which might help it with something. So this creature has Advantage when attacking in darkness. So Ant re-rolls some numbers. Two of his misses hit, and that brings his total hits up to four of six. Damage is 11, 12, 14, and 6 Slashing, and a total of 4 Psychic damage. Crimeny Uncanny Dodges the 14 and knocks it down to a 7. They take a total of 40 damage. Crimeny is at 54 HP.

It leaps to the ceiling and scurries deeper into the darkness.

Griffin sees this centipede-armed motherfucker sprinting for Nellie, and he goes after it. He ducks around in front of it, putting himself between it and his tiny friend.

Then he rolls to attack and hits with a dirty 20 and a 28. First hit does 13 Slashing and 7 Cold halved to 4. Second hit does 12 Slashing and 1 cold halved to 1. He does an even 30 damage with the Cold resistance factored in. It’s bloodied and snarling, and ready for more. Griffin tells Nellie to knock it out!

Pippinella rolls Arcana on this Aberration to know what its resistances are. It’s resistant to Cold, as she has just seen. Considering that it’s a gibbering Abomination, it’s probably either resistant to or immune to Psychic damage. Nellie rolls some Insight. 22. It’s almost like someone with a chip on their shoulder really wants Pippinella, specifically, to have a bad time. That hurts her feelings. Then it makes her angy.

Nellie charges up her Chromatic Orb spell, but it’s not Cold damage this time. It’s going to be Lightning. She rolls a dirty 20 to hit. This is a 3rd level spell slot, for 5d8 Lightning damage. She rolled a 2, 2, 2, 3, and 4. That is THIRTEEN DAMAGE from 5d8.

Good news, Pippinella. The Starspawn Mangler lets out a garbled, high-pitched shriek as lightning courses through it. Once the spell ends, its smoldering body wobbles. For a brief moment, she sees it sneer as it drops.

Jericho, Shane, Griffin, and Nellie have to roll Dex saves. Jericho rolled a 21, Nellie an 18, Griffin a 13, and Shane a 7. Nellie and Jericho save. Griffin and Shane fail. But this is Fire-based, so Griffin has Resistance. Only Shane takes full damage - 27. Half is 14.

The table, chairs, and carpet light up and are burned away.

Good news: This Mangler is dead. Bad News: We’ve completed the Fuck You Nellie Trifecta.

Nellie uses a free action to cry. Everything is currently fire. She books it out of the room.

Crimeny is tasked to roll Perception. They roll a dirty 20. They note that a bookshelf at the far end of the room has slid out into the center aisle.

Crimeny has just taken a massive beating from the Mangler. They have decided, "I do not want to deal with this." Crimeny turns around, and slowly starts limping. They raise their bow to attack the Mangler that was in this room. The explosion goes off right in their face. Crimeny lowers the bow, turns around, and walks back into the dark room.

Crimeny requires a Deception check from the book case that moved. It rolls a 5. Crimeny now has its number. Seeing as the Starspawn Mangler isn’t visible right now, Crimeny shoots the bookshelf instead. They roll a 26 to hit, and because they studied it, they get their Sneak Attack dice. They do 35 damage total to the bookshelf.

The arrow strikes the seemingly innocuous bookshelf, and it erupts into angry tentacles. Crimeny nods. Turns around, and walks back out. They duck around the corner.

Serra moves into the room and casts Mass Healing Word on everyone as a Bonus Action. Everyone recovers 13HP.

It’s time for Shane Bishop! To lean into the room and peek. It’s dark as balls in there. He’s Shane Bishop, he can’t see!

Shane Bishop casts Death Stranding in the center of that room. Ryo hand-draws a circle in the middle of the room instead of using the circle tool. It’s weirdly appropriate.

ROUND 2

There’s not a lot Jericho can do right now. Shane doesn’t advise going into that room. Jericho smacks Shane to maintain his Rage. Shane says that whatever’s going on in the Fap Zone is funny. Griffin speaks up and says that he can see everything that’s going on in there and would like to assure everyone that it is NOT funny.

Griffin rolls a 17 Perception to peek into the room. He only sees the Mimic, surrounded by slurping, milky-white tentacles. He looks up to the ceiling. He does not see the other Mangler.

Jericho rolls 19 Arcana. If these things can go invisible, they might have done that already. If they could teleport, they would’ve likely done that by now, too. So far they’ve run screaming at us, slapped our shit, and kept on going. But the Fireball feature seems new.

Jericho drinks a potion to get some FUCKIN’ health back. Then he moves forward into the room. Can he see anything besides the edge of the Fap Zone? Jericho rolls a Nat 1 Perception. He is entirely too distracted by the sound of slurping milky tentacles. The mimic is making a weird sound, too.

Griffin rolls an 18 Nature to see if the Mimic is into whatever is happening to it. The Mimic has a lot of tentacles, there are so many tentacles. He informs the crew that the Mimic looks like it’s having a good time. Like, a REALLY good time. Griffin is kind of uncomfortable.

Jericho is just distracted and distressed by the wet slurping noises. He readies an Action to STAB.

Shane rolls a 14 Perception. Griffin and Shane have to roll Wisdom Saves. They have Advantage because of Heroes’ Feast. Shane rolls TWIN 1s. Griffin rolls an 18.

Ant rolls some dice before he tells us what happens. He rolls a LOT of dice.

As Shane is walking back to where he was, he sees something with his 14 Perception. He sees a disembodied horror face sticking out of the wall. It lets out a piercing whistle. Griffin also hears this whistle, but is unaffected. Shane takes 42 Psychic damage, and is Frightened of the Whistler for 1 minute. BUT WAIT: Heroes’ Feast grants immunity to the Fear condition. So Shane takes a buttload of damage, but at least he’s not frightened!

Jericho makes another Perception roll. He rolls a 5. He hears something clatter behind him and to the right. He can’t see shit from where he’s at. He’s also heard the bullshit Shane is dealing with. But he doesn’t see anything.

Griffin rolls a 14 and hears the clatter, but he can see even less than Jericho because he’s not even in that room currently.

That doesn’t matter, though, becaues Griffin has a new target. He runs up to the Whistler that is menacing Shane, and attacks. He has Disadvantage because of the Whistler’s Blurry Form, but still rolls a 24 and an 18 to hit. Both his strikes connect. His first hit does 16 Slashing and 1 cold (17), second hit does 15 Slashing and 5 Cold (20). He does a total of 37 damage to the Whistler.

Pippinella comes back into the room. She casts a 2nd Level Chromatic Orb at the Whistler and hits with a 22. She does 19 Electric damage. The Whistler whistles in pain.

NELLIE: Take that!

She ducks back into the hallway.

The Mimic takes Cold damage. It can move 5 feet in this difficult terrain. It has to roll a Dex save because it’s ending its turn in the Fap Zone. It somehow rolls a Nat 20. It does a sick flip and takes half damage. It takes 10 Necrotic damage halved from 20. Its weird psuedopods high five the milky tentacles as it spins on one of its corners.

Crimeny peeks around the corner. They can use a Bonus Action to try to find a hidden person or object - Eye for Detail. They’re looking for the other Mangler. They roll a 24 Perception to LOOK. They can hear rattling in the ceiling, as if something is moving through the vents. It’s difficult to pinpoint.

How high is the ceiling? About 15 feet. Scott looks through Crimeny’s Crime Bag. Crimeny rolls Arcana: How do these things feel about Fear? Unnatural 20. They missed it before they started attacking, but they suddenly remember that both Manglers wore T-shirts that said, "No Fear," which they then ripped off in the ensuing fight, Yakuza-style.
Crimeny attacks the Ceiling with disadvantage. They roll a 15, which does not do it. Their arrow spikes into the ceiling, and nothing happens. The movement they heard does stop, though. Crimeny tells Jericho there’s something up there.

CRIMENY: There’s something up there.
JERICHO: What do you mean, "up there?"
CRIMENY: Have you seen Die Hard?

Serra moves next to Shane to cast Cure Dumbass. He recovers 15HP. She yeets her mace at the Whistler but misses with a 10.

Shane wonders if the Whistler seems particularly Charismatic. He rolls Arcana: 26. Its whistle is really nice. Or it would be if it didn’t hurt Shane’s skull so much. The Whistler has a pretty high Performance. Okay. How Intelligent does this guy look? It looks decently intelligent? Did it graduate high school? Listen, it knew to attack Shane.

Shane requires a Con save. It fails with a 15. Shane casts Blight on the Whistler. It takes 8d8 Necrotic damage. It takes 46 damage. It didn’t like that. It’s not as moist anymore. It’s pretty dry - it needs some coco butter. Its skin is all chapped, it’s irritated, and it’s not in a good mood.

SHANE: I’ll do it again if you don’t go away!

Ryo realizes Shane casts all his spells at 5th level, and rolls another d8, adding 6 to his damage total for 52.

ROUND 3

Jericho rolls an unnatural 20 Perception. He scans the walls and ceiling of this room, and sees a number of vents big enough for the Wranglers to wiggle into. He doesn’t know where it went, though. Crimeny could give him a vague idea, but he doesn’t know where it’s going. Is there a vent visible in the ceiling?

Crimeny rolls Perception: 23. It sounds like it’s getting further away, as if it were heading deeper into the complex. It actually sounds like it might have gone down and is under the floor.

Jericho steps back into the southern room. He sees the blurry skinwalker. It’s very clear that Shane has antagonized it.

Jericho walks back into the Fap Zone room. He asks Crimeny if HE has to take care of that? There’s a lot of them there, and they’ve got Griff! Griff can handle this! Jericho delays his turn.

Whistler makes some attacks on Shane. Griffin uses his Reaction to impose Disadvantage with his Protection Fighter feature. It rolls a 24, a 19, and a 26, all with Disadvantage. All of those attacks hit. :’)

Shane takes 41 Psychic damage. HE HAS 1 HP. Shane reacts to this barrage with Misty Escape. The Whistler looks very pleased with itself. It thinks it broke Shane’s brain so hard it unmade him. Shane teleports to behind Pippinella.

NELLIE: You’ve got a really bad nosebleed, are you alright?
SHANE: I’m dying, Pip!

Griffin rolls to attack the Whistler. He beefs it with a 14 and hits with a 26. He does 11 Slashing and 4 cold damage for a total of 15 damage.

So he Action Surges and hits it again. HE ROLLS ANOTHER 14. His second attack hits with a 19. His second attack does 13 Slashing and 6 Cold for a total of 19 damage.

Pippinella has one Superior Healing Potion. She uses a bonus action to bring Shane back from 1 goddamn HP. He recovers 25 HP.

Nellie uses her Action to fire off another electric Chromatic Orb. She hits the Whistler with an 18, and does 27 Lightning damage. It lets out a powerful, piercing whistle as it’s electrocuted.

NELLIE: Alright guys, you’ve got this!

The Mimic is still in the Death Stranding. It takes 16 Cold damage. It inches forward another 5 feet and makes its Dex Save. It somehow rolls an 18 and saves to only take half damage. It takes 15 damage halved from 30. That’s actually enough to kill it. The milky tentacles rip it apart.

Crimeny can’t find the Mangler. They peek back into the Whistler room. They see Shane is conspicuously absent, and Griffin looks very grim. They roll a 21 to hit with Disadvantage, and do 42 Sneak attack damage.

Crimeny puts an arrow right in the Whistler’s mouthless face, and the whistling ceases. Crimeny whistles the victory theme.

For all intents and purposes, we are out of combat.

——

We approach the kitchen and roll Perception. Griffin rolls a 4. He sees the kitchen! :D He remembers the last time we were here, we made popcorn. Nellie rolled an 8. She’s pretty rattled. Griffin is walking close to Nellie to offer moral support. ;w;

Jericho rolled a 13. He doesn’t really hear anything. He just hears the normal creaking of a building. Nothing that sounds star spawn manglery.

Serra, Crimeny, and Shane notice a weird undernote to the general "building settling" noises. Now that we’ve peered behind the veil, they note a weird dull thrumming underneath all of the general, ambient building noises. Now that they’re aware of it, they can’t NOT be aware of it.

Aside from that, this seems like a perfectly ordinary kitchen, despite the fact that, per the Roll 20 Map we might have stepped through the warp pipe to Giant Land.

Shane is an absolute idiot. Serra is convinced to roll Medicine on him: 23. He’s not concussed, but he’s exhibiting the signs of a concussion.

Shane is trying to pick a fight with the furniture. Griffin tries to calm him down but only partially succeeds.

As we pass through the kitchen, nothing attacks us, because sometimes a room is just a room.

Everyone remembers the next room - this is the tank room where we met the Slaads. Now we roll Perception. Last time, the tanks lining both walls was filled with water. This time, it looks like inky black tar, but it has a prismatic quality depending on how the light hits it, and it is roiling like it is bubbling and boiling.

Crimeny Investigates the goo with Advantage: 31. There’s no heat coming off the boiling goo. Crimeny doesn’t have tongs, but they do have a candelabra. They’re going to use one of the candle cups to scoop some of the goo up.

The goo is viscous. The cup on the candelabra gets static-y. Like chaos static-y. They roll a 13 Arcana. Crimeny has a sinking suspicion that the tanks beneath us are full of pure, concentrated Sea of Chaos.

Crimeny has a thermos. They collect some chaos. How? Griffin goes back into the kitchen to look for a ladle. He finds one, and hands it to Crimeny. Crimeny ladles the Chaos into the thermos like soup.

As Crimeny is ladling the thick, soupy mixture into the thermos, the ladle and the thermos kind of glitch out a bit.

Without warning, several arms erupt from this roiling chaos and grab Crimeny. Griffin grabs Crimeny, too! Time for some opposing strength. Griffin only rolls a 22 versus a 28. What starts off as two arms becomes four, and then six. And both Griffin and Crimeny are yanked into the tank.

SPLOOSH!

At the same moment, all along the walkway, more chaos-covered hands slap onto the tile as not one, not two, but six Starspawn Manglers climb out of the tanks. These Manglers are a little undercooked, but that’s still a lot of them.

Good luck, everybody else!