Griffin O'Callahan (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
icastsword) wrote2025-05-31 06:30 pm
icastsword) wrote2025-05-31 06:30 pm
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Session 192: Moldbrain & Wriggler
We’re going to deploy the party’s three familiars to try to cover more ground more quickly. Nellie, Shane, and Serra roll Stealth and Perception. The lowest stealth roll is Seikilos’ 13, the highest is Nekonomicon’s 19. The lowest Perception is Seikilos’ 15, highest is Duke’s 23.
They spot the patrolling Oculorb, but it doesn’t spot the familiars. They carry on, and uncover one of the fog-of-war’d rooms. This room is lined with black and silvery strands. In the center, where there would be a pool of sewer water, the water stops, and Bethesda no-clipped into the pool is what appears to be a bottomless pit.
Strung up in the corner of this room is an Abhorrent Zealot. He appears to be unable to move.
Nellie and Shane inform the gang the Oculorb is around the corner about 115 feet away.
Jericho asks Tridon if he knows anything about a big eyeball creature. Tridon tells him calling it "big eyeball creature" does not give him enough information. Nellie is going to draw a picture of the Oculorb.
TRIDON: Ah. You mean the Eye-Pod.
Does Tridon know why it would be running away all the time, and not wanting to engage? Because they’re weak to melee combat. They prefer to let other creatures do the fighting.
Okay, cool. What would be the best way to fight one that’s alone? Fast and hard. Does he have to phrase it like that? Yes.
So if we go and confront it, it’s going to run away from us. So we need to corner it. That could be tricky, in this twisty sewer dungeon.
Jericho calls on Crimeny. We need to be sneaky. Jericho can cast Invisibility on people.
Can Jericho cast Polymorph on Griffin, turn him into something small, let Crimeny throw Griffin at the Oculorb, and then poof, big muscle tank in the oculorb’s business?
What about if we just Banish it? Griffin would prefer if we kill it and make sure it’s dead, rather than give it an opportunity to slip back into this realm from where it came from.
DO we know what it eats? Everyone roll Nature. Griffin rolls a 7. He’s got a good look at that thing - it’s all eyeballs, no mouth. As far as he knows, it doesn’t eat. Shane and Jericho also have no idea what it eats.
Serra, Nellie, and Crimeny all know that Oculorbs are a conglomeration of eyes that are dreamed into existence by Beholders. So if it eats anything, it’s probably magic. And it likely doesn’t "eat" in the regular sense of that word.
Is it drawn to anything that’s innately magical? We could experiment.
Nellie points out that we’re in the best spot to lure it and gang up on it, as we’re in a dead end currently.
Crimeny says they’re going to go shoot it. They leave. They roll Stealth: 24. The Oculorb does not see it. They roll to attack. They hit with a 28 and do 41 damage.
While the whole discussion about how we’re going to deal with the Oculorb is happening, Crimeny steps out and kills it. They walk up to the dead, deflated oculorb, and remove one of the eyes. They carve out a section of the eye to make it look like a bite has been taken out of it. Then they walk back to the group, holding the eye like they’re eating an apple.
They roll Intimidation: Nat 20, for a total of 21. They also smeared some eyeball goop on their faceplate.
CRIMENY: Juicy.
Joke complete, they dump their deflated eyeball into the sewer water.
Do we want to go check out the room with the bottomless pit? Not necessarily. That’s some other dimension’s problem.
The familiars move onward. We might be about to lose Seikilos - he only rolled an 11 Stealth. Actually we might lose all of the familiars, because they run into a Chuul, which rolls a 19 Perception and sees ALL. Nellie dismisses Seikilos. Serra also sends Duke back into his pocket dimension. Shane does not dismiss Nekonomicon. He directs Nekonomicon to run, and attempts to lead the Chuul on a chase. Nekonomicon rolls a 21 Athletics. If the Chuul rolls a 21, it’s going to catch Nekonomicon. But it only rolled a 20. It’s right on the cat’s ass, but can’t quite catch him. Yakkity Sax starts playing.
Nekonomicon leads the chuul into a dead-end room and runs around a couple of times. The chuul rolls an INT save to determine if it’s being played. It rolls a 0. Shane recalls Nekonomicon. He takes a point of Inspiration for cleverly evading the Chuul.
The familiars are re-deployed and return to where the chuul appeared, and then continue on. Nekonomicon is going to try to open one of the three doors the familiars have found. Nekonomicon peeks under the door with a Nat 20+3. He sees shuffling feet of a single person/creature. Shane rolls a 21 Nature. Those are humanoid feet.
The other door is peeped under, and three sets of feet are spotted.
The final door is peeped under. Nekonomicon and Duke can’t see anything under this door. But they hear what sounds like two high-pitched voices - they sound like Minecraft villagers. They appear to be having a conversation with one another in a language they can’t understand.
Shane shares what he’s learned from peeping through Nekonomicon’s eyes. Nellie’s still got Comprehend Languages up, if she gets close enough with her gnome ears, she could understand. So we pick up our meat bodies and follow the paths of our familiars.
Shane, Nellie and Crimeny approach the door where speaking was heard. Griffin, Jericho, and Serra remain further back to babysit Bulk and Skull.
The conversation Nellie peeps is in stilted speech. It sounds similar to Goblin in terms of the language. It’s goblin-esque. It is goblin-adjacent. They are having a conversation - they don’t know how they got here, but this is a good den that is easily defensible.
Nellie sends a Message cantrip to Jericho. Well, we don’t really want to bust these guys’ asses, but we also can’t just leave them here. Jericho shares that information with the guys near him.
Well, we could try diplomacy? And if things go badly, Shane can Banish them. Scott suggests we dress two of us up with a white button-ups and black ties.
Wait, Shane has the spell Seeming. He can make everyone in the group appear to be Tormons or Abhorrent Zealots.
SHANE: Alright. I’ve got a cunning plan. I’m going to cast a spell. Don’t resist.
Shane and Jericho look like the most clean-shaven, virgin good-boy Tormon missionaries. Shane is Elder Bishop. Jericho is Elder Geuse. Jericho looks so well-kempt and virginal. He looks like he’s never done a sin.
JERICHO: You know, I don’t know a goddamn thing about the tenants of Torm.
SHANE: I don’t either.
Shane and Jericho approach the door. Shane knocks. The door opens.
Standing there, at about waist-height, is a goblinoid who has orangey, mottled skin.
RYO: No, Hobo, you can’t play all fuckin’ day! I’m proselytizing!
Behind the goblinoid are two aberrant zealots that turn and look at them curiously. The goblin says, "Yeah? Whaddya want?"
SHANE: Have you heard the good word of Torm?
This goblin doesn’t like good. He likes killing. Shane says sometimes killing can be good! The goblin asks their names. Jericho is Elder Juice and Shane is Elder Bitch.
The goblinoid introduces himself as Moldbrain. He’s gonna take these two to talk to Wriggler. He holds out his hand. It’s moist. Shane takes one for the team. He shakes Moldbrain’s hand.
These goblins have missed either six or sixteen meals.
The aberrant zealots weren’t here when the goblins got here, they came here with the goblins.
Jericho asks Wriggler if the zealots have teeth. Yeah, they’re bite-y.
SHANE: I bet if they didn’t have teeth, they wouldn’t be so bitey.
Moldbrain likes words. Wriggler doesn’t like words.
Crimeny sneaks up to Shane and sleight-of-hands a tooth into Shane’s hand.
Moldbrain takes the tooth and puts it in his bag with a satisfying clack. Wriggler looks a little offended. Why didn’t Wriggler get anything? Crimeny hands Shane a shaken-up can of Mr. Pibb.
He hands it to Wriggler. Wriggler bites into it. It explodes in his face. Shane says he was trying to warn him, but he was very fast! Shane rolls an Unnatural 20 persuasion. Wriggler wants something different!
Crimeny hands Shane a longsword they stole from an Infernal guard. Shane looks at Crimeny like, "Are you fucking serious?" But he turns around and presents it to Wriggler. Wriggler takes it and immediately swings it around in a wide arc with both hands, and hits one of the aberrant zealots. He does 12 damage. The zealot stumbles back and shrieks.
Moldbrain cheers Wriggler on, and Wriggler straight up kills the zealot. The other zealot looks Concerned. So what’s the deal with these Zealots? Are they undead, or...? Shane and Jericho can now see that the zealots don’t look "all there". When they’re not attacking, they are a thousand miles away.
Jericho rolls a 19 Medicine to eyeball how sturdy these little gobbos are. Ant misunderstood and shared that it’s the Zealots who look a little weaker than Griffin. They’re constitute. They’re just dumb as hell. Later OOC this was cleared up and it turns out the little gobbos aren’t particularly sturdy.
While Wriggler murders the zealot, Shane turns to Moldbrain and asks a question. He asks if the door behind him opens. It does. What’s through there? Friends! Is it more of these guys? The zealots? Yeah. How many more? Two.
There’s also Strangegob. What’s a strange gob? Strangegob is like Moldbrain! That’s his name! Also there’s an eye blob! It’s got a lot of eyes. Moldbrain opens the door and goes walking in. See! Eyeballs!
There’s another Oculorb in there. The Oculorb sees Shane because he only rolled a 13 stealth.
WAIT. Ryo has four points of Inspiration. SHe’s going to spend one to reroll her stealth!
Now instead of a 13 it’s a 14! The Oculorb sees him.
Moldbrain is just closing the door as the Oculorb fires an eyebeam, which explodes the door behind Moldbrain.
SHANE: He wants your teeth! You’d better fight back! Wriggler! He’s coming for your sword! He’s attacked your friend and he’s coming for your sword! I can’t believe it!
Shane rolls a 27 Persuasion.
While all this nonsense is happening, Crimeny sneaks into the room with an unnatural 30 stealth. They steal back the sword, just like in Skyrim - they open up Wriggler’s pants, reach into his inventory, and removes the sword. They roll a 26 Sleight of Hand.
Wriggler did not notice Crimeny take the sword right out of his hand.
Crimeny whispers, "The orb stole the sword!" To Shane as they pass by him and leave.
Jericho casts Invisibility on the table. He rolls a 29 Persuasion on Wriggler. "The orb stole your table!"
Wriggler is so angry he’s non-verbal. He RUSHES down the hallway, and he and Moldbrain attack the Occulorb. They’re just screaming hate. He gets Strangegob to help - "HELP! HE’S TRYING TO TAKE MY TEETH!"
The aborrent zealot looks at the goblin run off, then looks at Jericho and Shane.
SHANE: We need to go. It was nice meeting you, sir.
He closes the door gently behind him.
JERICHO: Hey Shane? Do you think we’re bad people?
SHANE: Torm would be so ashamed of us.
JERICHO: I don’t care what Torm thinks.
They spot the patrolling Oculorb, but it doesn’t spot the familiars. They carry on, and uncover one of the fog-of-war’d rooms. This room is lined with black and silvery strands. In the center, where there would be a pool of sewer water, the water stops, and Bethesda no-clipped into the pool is what appears to be a bottomless pit.
Strung up in the corner of this room is an Abhorrent Zealot. He appears to be unable to move.
Nellie and Shane inform the gang the Oculorb is around the corner about 115 feet away.
Jericho asks Tridon if he knows anything about a big eyeball creature. Tridon tells him calling it "big eyeball creature" does not give him enough information. Nellie is going to draw a picture of the Oculorb.
TRIDON: Ah. You mean the Eye-Pod.
Does Tridon know why it would be running away all the time, and not wanting to engage? Because they’re weak to melee combat. They prefer to let other creatures do the fighting.
Okay, cool. What would be the best way to fight one that’s alone? Fast and hard. Does he have to phrase it like that? Yes.
So if we go and confront it, it’s going to run away from us. So we need to corner it. That could be tricky, in this twisty sewer dungeon.
Jericho calls on Crimeny. We need to be sneaky. Jericho can cast Invisibility on people.
Can Jericho cast Polymorph on Griffin, turn him into something small, let Crimeny throw Griffin at the Oculorb, and then poof, big muscle tank in the oculorb’s business?
What about if we just Banish it? Griffin would prefer if we kill it and make sure it’s dead, rather than give it an opportunity to slip back into this realm from where it came from.
DO we know what it eats? Everyone roll Nature. Griffin rolls a 7. He’s got a good look at that thing - it’s all eyeballs, no mouth. As far as he knows, it doesn’t eat. Shane and Jericho also have no idea what it eats.
Serra, Nellie, and Crimeny all know that Oculorbs are a conglomeration of eyes that are dreamed into existence by Beholders. So if it eats anything, it’s probably magic. And it likely doesn’t "eat" in the regular sense of that word.
Is it drawn to anything that’s innately magical? We could experiment.
Nellie points out that we’re in the best spot to lure it and gang up on it, as we’re in a dead end currently.
Crimeny says they’re going to go shoot it. They leave. They roll Stealth: 24. The Oculorb does not see it. They roll to attack. They hit with a 28 and do 41 damage.
While the whole discussion about how we’re going to deal with the Oculorb is happening, Crimeny steps out and kills it. They walk up to the dead, deflated oculorb, and remove one of the eyes. They carve out a section of the eye to make it look like a bite has been taken out of it. Then they walk back to the group, holding the eye like they’re eating an apple.
They roll Intimidation: Nat 20, for a total of 21. They also smeared some eyeball goop on their faceplate.
CRIMENY: Juicy.
Joke complete, they dump their deflated eyeball into the sewer water.
Do we want to go check out the room with the bottomless pit? Not necessarily. That’s some other dimension’s problem.
The familiars move onward. We might be about to lose Seikilos - he only rolled an 11 Stealth. Actually we might lose all of the familiars, because they run into a Chuul, which rolls a 19 Perception and sees ALL. Nellie dismisses Seikilos. Serra also sends Duke back into his pocket dimension. Shane does not dismiss Nekonomicon. He directs Nekonomicon to run, and attempts to lead the Chuul on a chase. Nekonomicon rolls a 21 Athletics. If the Chuul rolls a 21, it’s going to catch Nekonomicon. But it only rolled a 20. It’s right on the cat’s ass, but can’t quite catch him. Yakkity Sax starts playing.
Nekonomicon leads the chuul into a dead-end room and runs around a couple of times. The chuul rolls an INT save to determine if it’s being played. It rolls a 0. Shane recalls Nekonomicon. He takes a point of Inspiration for cleverly evading the Chuul.
The familiars are re-deployed and return to where the chuul appeared, and then continue on. Nekonomicon is going to try to open one of the three doors the familiars have found. Nekonomicon peeks under the door with a Nat 20+3. He sees shuffling feet of a single person/creature. Shane rolls a 21 Nature. Those are humanoid feet.
The other door is peeped under, and three sets of feet are spotted.
The final door is peeped under. Nekonomicon and Duke can’t see anything under this door. But they hear what sounds like two high-pitched voices - they sound like Minecraft villagers. They appear to be having a conversation with one another in a language they can’t understand.
Shane shares what he’s learned from peeping through Nekonomicon’s eyes. Nellie’s still got Comprehend Languages up, if she gets close enough with her gnome ears, she could understand. So we pick up our meat bodies and follow the paths of our familiars.
Shane, Nellie and Crimeny approach the door where speaking was heard. Griffin, Jericho, and Serra remain further back to babysit Bulk and Skull.
The conversation Nellie peeps is in stilted speech. It sounds similar to Goblin in terms of the language. It’s goblin-esque. It is goblin-adjacent. They are having a conversation - they don’t know how they got here, but this is a good den that is easily defensible.
Nellie sends a Message cantrip to Jericho. Well, we don’t really want to bust these guys’ asses, but we also can’t just leave them here. Jericho shares that information with the guys near him.
Well, we could try diplomacy? And if things go badly, Shane can Banish them. Scott suggests we dress two of us up with a white button-ups and black ties.
Wait, Shane has the spell Seeming. He can make everyone in the group appear to be Tormons or Abhorrent Zealots.
SHANE: Alright. I’ve got a cunning plan. I’m going to cast a spell. Don’t resist.
Shane and Jericho look like the most clean-shaven, virgin good-boy Tormon missionaries. Shane is Elder Bishop. Jericho is Elder Geuse. Jericho looks so well-kempt and virginal. He looks like he’s never done a sin.
JERICHO: You know, I don’t know a goddamn thing about the tenants of Torm.
SHANE: I don’t either.
Shane and Jericho approach the door. Shane knocks. The door opens.
Standing there, at about waist-height, is a goblinoid who has orangey, mottled skin.
RYO: No, Hobo, you can’t play all fuckin’ day! I’m proselytizing!
Behind the goblinoid are two aberrant zealots that turn and look at them curiously. The goblin says, "Yeah? Whaddya want?"
SHANE: Have you heard the good word of Torm?
This goblin doesn’t like good. He likes killing. Shane says sometimes killing can be good! The goblin asks their names. Jericho is Elder Juice and Shane is Elder Bitch.
The goblinoid introduces himself as Moldbrain. He’s gonna take these two to talk to Wriggler. He holds out his hand. It’s moist. Shane takes one for the team. He shakes Moldbrain’s hand.
These goblins have missed either six or sixteen meals.
The aberrant zealots weren’t here when the goblins got here, they came here with the goblins.
Jericho asks Wriggler if the zealots have teeth. Yeah, they’re bite-y.
SHANE: I bet if they didn’t have teeth, they wouldn’t be so bitey.
Moldbrain likes words. Wriggler doesn’t like words.
Crimeny sneaks up to Shane and sleight-of-hands a tooth into Shane’s hand.
Moldbrain takes the tooth and puts it in his bag with a satisfying clack. Wriggler looks a little offended. Why didn’t Wriggler get anything? Crimeny hands Shane a shaken-up can of Mr. Pibb.
He hands it to Wriggler. Wriggler bites into it. It explodes in his face. Shane says he was trying to warn him, but he was very fast! Shane rolls an Unnatural 20 persuasion. Wriggler wants something different!
Crimeny hands Shane a longsword they stole from an Infernal guard. Shane looks at Crimeny like, "Are you fucking serious?" But he turns around and presents it to Wriggler. Wriggler takes it and immediately swings it around in a wide arc with both hands, and hits one of the aberrant zealots. He does 12 damage. The zealot stumbles back and shrieks.
Moldbrain cheers Wriggler on, and Wriggler straight up kills the zealot. The other zealot looks Concerned. So what’s the deal with these Zealots? Are they undead, or...? Shane and Jericho can now see that the zealots don’t look "all there". When they’re not attacking, they are a thousand miles away.
Jericho rolls a 19 Medicine to eyeball how sturdy these little gobbos are. Ant misunderstood and shared that it’s the Zealots who look a little weaker than Griffin. They’re constitute. They’re just dumb as hell. Later OOC this was cleared up and it turns out the little gobbos aren’t particularly sturdy.
While Wriggler murders the zealot, Shane turns to Moldbrain and asks a question. He asks if the door behind him opens. It does. What’s through there? Friends! Is it more of these guys? The zealots? Yeah. How many more? Two.
There’s also Strangegob. What’s a strange gob? Strangegob is like Moldbrain! That’s his name! Also there’s an eye blob! It’s got a lot of eyes. Moldbrain opens the door and goes walking in. See! Eyeballs!
There’s another Oculorb in there. The Oculorb sees Shane because he only rolled a 13 stealth.
WAIT. Ryo has four points of Inspiration. SHe’s going to spend one to reroll her stealth!
Now instead of a 13 it’s a 14! The Oculorb sees him.
Moldbrain is just closing the door as the Oculorb fires an eyebeam, which explodes the door behind Moldbrain.
SHANE: He wants your teeth! You’d better fight back! Wriggler! He’s coming for your sword! He’s attacked your friend and he’s coming for your sword! I can’t believe it!
Shane rolls a 27 Persuasion.
While all this nonsense is happening, Crimeny sneaks into the room with an unnatural 30 stealth. They steal back the sword, just like in Skyrim - they open up Wriggler’s pants, reach into his inventory, and removes the sword. They roll a 26 Sleight of Hand.
Wriggler did not notice Crimeny take the sword right out of his hand.
Crimeny whispers, "The orb stole the sword!" To Shane as they pass by him and leave.
Jericho casts Invisibility on the table. He rolls a 29 Persuasion on Wriggler. "The orb stole your table!"
Wriggler is so angry he’s non-verbal. He RUSHES down the hallway, and he and Moldbrain attack the Occulorb. They’re just screaming hate. He gets Strangegob to help - "HELP! HE’S TRYING TO TAKE MY TEETH!"
The aborrent zealot looks at the goblin run off, then looks at Jericho and Shane.
SHANE: We need to go. It was nice meeting you, sir.
He closes the door gently behind him.
JERICHO: Hey Shane? Do you think we’re bad people?
SHANE: Torm would be so ashamed of us.
JERICHO: I don’t care what Torm thinks.