A detour on the way to hell

The party is travelling through Bluetspur to assault Mt Makab when Vilgax informs us that we forgot to do something.

In order to get into Mt Makab, we need to use a teleportation circle, but we do not have all the resources we need. But - I know a guy. We will travel to see my friend.

OK then. We change direction, and are rewarded by an environmental hazard which forces the party to make DEX saves. The Captain and Dennis are all “This is my JAM!”. Turns out it was the whole parties jam - the lowest roll was 23, and we waltzed through that weather like it was nothing!

Vilgax leads us into a cave that goes deeper, and deeper, etc. There are motes of light floating throughout the space - Rusty grabs one for copying, but can’t hold onto it as the gauntlet he was using un-smelts itself. The mote floats away, and the gauntlet slow re-smelts itself back to normal.

We round a bend to see a large number of floating things. A small table, complete with a teapot and cups and saucers. Chairs, surrounding the table. A large number of scrolls, around a disk with a rabbit on it. The rabbit is white, wears a t-shirt with a bow tie (weird - where does the tie go? The t-shirt has no collar. Does he wear it like a male stripper?), a waistcoat, and has a number of pocket-watches.

From behind the rabbit, a Mind Flayer looms into view, tentacles reaching toward the rabbit’s head. The Mind Flayer in question must have been starving, because rabbit brains aren’t that big, and it’d have to deal with the furballs to get to it. It doesn’t get the chance, though, as its approach slows down the closer it gets - then black tentacles emerge from below, wrap around it, and squeeze until it pops in a shower of silver-white blood.

Vilgax appears unbothered by these goings on, and approaches the table. We can now see that on the table is a small white duck, also wearing a bow tie.

Impressive as always, Horus. I’ve brought some friends to see you. They managed to extract themselves from the Simulation. How is your research going?

It turns out that “Horus” is the rabbit, not the duck, because it is the rabbit that answers. “The research, the research, yes, yes, yes. The abyssal ichor of a Sibriex can be used to penetrate the security protections used with teleportation circles. The chaotic essence makes it particularly useful for overcoming complex magical wards.”

This is good. There is a magical research site to the east that will have what we need.

Vilgax asks if the party can take time for a short rest. Dennis concurs. While they rest, the others talk. The Captain asks Horus’ duck where it got its bow tie. The duck does not answer, but Horus tells us that the ducks name is Gary. We proceed to introduce all our familiar-adjacent creatures to each other, and Gary is introduced to Minion the Homonculous (assistant to Rusty), Oriana the Carionette (friend to The Captain), and Raymond the baby Colossal Frog (and steed to Louie). That took about an hour, and then everyone was ready to go!

Marching to Victory

We leave the cave. Louie steals Horus’ table to give to Raymond. The party travels 2-3 minutes through the tunnels before Rusty notices a faint red glow coming from the darkness. Dennis approaches it - it is the glowing nose of a Revallian’s corpse. The body is almost completely intact - it is only missing the upper back part of its skull, and the brain that was once, presumably, inside. Floating beside the corpse is an obscure mechanical device, covered in a sticky goo. On closer investigation, the goo turns out to be Mind Flayer spit, and the device is a cephalometer, used to measure the volume of a persons head, and it also somehow measures their innate psychic potential. And their brains nutritional value. Dennis takes the device to give to Rusty.

Soon the party exits the tunnels, and emerges to the “daytime” of Bluetspur. There is no sun, instead there is a dying red orb hanging in the sky. There was some discussion between Horus and Rusty as to what the orb actually was, and the final decision was that they would agree to disagree. But Rusty knew he was right.

After an hour of traveling through the acrid air, across the spongy ground, we spy a massive bloated form, covered in eyes, chains and enormous metal hooks. Near it stands a demon (a Slaughter Demon). Chained to a slab below the monster are five Revallians, the tentacles of the monster trailing across their bodies. The party waited for Ethan to get any Hentai fantasies out of his system, but after a short period of heroic struggle, he managed to restrain himself.

The Sibriex speaks: “Ah, fresh subjects for my farts (sic). Come closer my little ones, and I will show you the true meaning of beauty.” We never found out what he wanted to do with his farts, but didn’t feel too bad at not gaining that knowledge.

Initiative! The Captain - 28! Horus - 25! Louie - 24! Dennis and Rusty both got 18. Rusty chose to go after Dennis. The Sibriex’s roll wasn’t revealed to us, but he came after Rusty. The Slaughter Demon inserted itself in the initiative order between The Captain and Horus.

Round 1

The Captain opens proceedings by shooting the Sibriex. He hits it, for some damage, but has to make a WIS save just for looking at it. He fails, and his WIS reduced by 1d4. That was unpleasant, so for his second attack, he shoots the Slaughter Demon, and then attempts to hide behind Horus, who is even smaller than he is.

The Slaughter Demon shoots The Captain with a Critical Hit! Or would have - Horus cast Silvery Barbs, and the second roll is a critical miss. It shoots itself in the foot. Then it shoots Horus.

With the first of a startlingly large number of legendary/lair actions, the Sibriex transforms one of the Revallians into another Slaughter Demon (SD2).

Horus Magic Missiles SD1.

The Sibriex uses a legendary/lair action to create another Slaughter Demon (SD3).

SD2 hits Dennis with a critical hit - Rusty cast silvery barbs, and it misses. Then it hits Louie, then Raymond, then has a go at Rusty but misses.

Louie mounts Raymond and then shoots the Sibriex with his bow. He also took WIS damage for his temerity.

The Sibriex uses a legendary/lair action to create another Slaughter Demon (SD4).

SD3 hits Horus with a critical hit - no! Horus has already had his turn, so gets his reaction back. Silvery Barbs! Miss! In disgust, SD3 hits The Captain instead - successfully - and manages to poison him.

Raymond closes into melee with the Sibriex, and it uses its reaction to vomit black tar all over him, which does so much poison damage GODDAMN IT! Of course, Louie and Raymond are immune to poison.

The Sibriex uses a legendary/lair action to create another Slaughter Demon (SD5). It is finally out of Revallians to convert.

Dennis uses his Astral Cord whip to wail on one of the Slaughter Demons, and he hits it 4 times, but doesn’t get any critical hits. It was very depressing.

The Sibriex uses another legendary/lair action to paralyze Louie and Raymond.

SD5 attacks Louie and does a pile of damage.

Rusty shoots SD1 and it explodes. First blood!

The Sibriex says “Leave the amphibians and you may all go free.” The party is disinclined to acquiesce to his request. He attacks the heretics ringleaders: Dennis. Miss! Rusty: Miss! Horace: Hit. Damn. So Much Damage. Then he auto hits Louie - enough damage to drop him. Then he also does enough damage to Raymond to drop him. The Sibriex says “I am not fucking around! I already have 2 new fart displays!” He then has another shot and hitting Dennis and Rusty, but keeps missing.

Gary waits.

Vilgax spins out a drop of psychic energy, casting Mass Heal and bringing the entire party back to full health.

Round 2

The Captain shoots SD5, and moves to hide behind Rusty, who is bigger.

Horus casts a spell on Gary, who starts to fly (not from the spell - he could fly already. No idea yet what the spell was).

SD2 hits Dennis and does a critical hit, except Rusty casts Silvery Barbs again and it misses. It hits Dennis on the second and third goes, though, but no more crits.

Louie starts his turn restrained, but rolls a 20 on his strength check to escape and runs away blowing his own horn. His Horn of Invisibility. That makes him invisible - but only while playing the horn. In my head cannon it is a vuvuzela, that sounds about right for Louie.

SD3 swings wildly trying in vain to hit Louie.

SD4 throws 4 javelins at Rusty, but only hits with one of them.

Dennis gives up on his whip, and goes back to the tried and true approach of punching his problems away. He punches SD2 and kills it. So he moves on to punching SD3, but doesn’t finish the job this round.

Rusty grabs the chain restraining Horus and uses his All Purpose Tool to sever it. Holding on to the end that is still connected to the Sibriex, he discharges his lightning launchers directly into the chains. The nice, conductive chains. Which allows him to strike the Sibriex, at range, without having to roll to attack or even look at it. The Sibriex screams, and severs the chain himself at his end. Cut your own arm off, fothermucker!

The Sibriex then shoots Dennis and drops him. It shoots Louie and does damage. It misses Rusty, Vilgax and The Captain. It hits Horus for major damage. Then it decides to use its remaining 2 attacks on The Captain, hitting twice but rolling so badly that the combined damage was less than it did to Horus with one hit.

Gary, finally, reaches where the Sibriex is, but 50 feet up. The Sibriex’s location will, from now on, be referred to as ground zero. Vilgax once again shows proper sensibilities and obtains consent before once again shoving his filthy psionic energy right into Gary. Gary opens his mouth with a shocked Quack! and drops the fireball onto ground zero. The fireball now absolutely loaded with Vilgax’s emanations, and behaving as if it were cast using a 9th level slot.

Once the mushroom cloud rises far enough that we can see under it, we observe that the Sibriex and all the remaining Slaughter Demons are dead.

Rusty brings Dennis back to life. Dennis extracts some ichor from the Sibriex’s corpse. Horus casts Tiny Hut. Inside that, Rusty casts Magnificent Mansion. Everyone has a long rest.

Dreams of wonder and horror

While we all sleep, everyone details their dreams:

• The Captain dreams of the high seas, swashing his buckle, and drinking beer.
• Rusty has a nightmare about losing memories.
• Louie dreams about the semi-visible people he used to see when he was still in the Simulation.
• Horus dreams of his workshop, and all the cool stuff in it.
• Raymond dreams of ponds.
• Gary dreams of swimming on a lake on a fine summers day, accompanied by his wife and two children.
• Dennis dreams dreams of blood, of massacring Mind Flayers until there are none left.

The party wakes, and looks around to find their dreams have solidified into reality. The Captain has a mug of ale in one hand, and a sword in the other. There is a small pond of water next to Raymond. There are 3 more ducks around Gary. There is a workshop desk in the corner. Rusty is feebleminded. Louie is surrounded by Mind Flayers, about to kill him, until they are shredded by a half-awake Dennis.

Vilgax is the first to notice that Rusty is having mental issues, and Dennis recognises the symptoms of feeblemind from personal, recent experience. Nobody here can cast Greater Restoration. Of course. Dennis has the idea to try and restore Rusty’s mind using the backup we made, so we give it a go. There is some grinding and churning noises, but it does eventually work.

While this is going on, Gary’s child finds something cool on the body parts Dennis left lying around, and starts playing with it. The resulting blast misses Horace - just - and the chase is on to retrieve the device from the duckling before anyone gets hurt. Horace misses their chance, but The Captain never misses! He is now the proud owner of a Mind Flayer Psionic Blaster.

Horace tries to send Gary’s wife and children back to their home plane, and it is determined that they do, in fact, operate as if they are Horace’s familiars. Nice.

The party decides that sleep is for the weak, and they will never do it again.

Finally, to Mt Makab!

The party now heads toward Mt Makab, or at least where the teleportation circle to enter Mt Makab is. After several hours of travel, we all start to experience increasing headaches, intrusive thoughts, and waking nightmares. Horace believes that Mt Makab is emanating psychic power, and it will only get worse as we get closer. Rusty makes some notes and mutters something about inverse square laws, and wonders if it would be possible to triangulate the source, if only we had a device capable of measuring the amplitude of the power. Maybe the cephalometer he picked up earlier could be adapted?

According to Horace, we can imbue ourselves with protection by implanting a psychic tattoo. The only creature we know about that is able to do such a thing is Mirg, a Grimlock that Horace and Vilgax know. It lives in a village in the tunnels beneath Bluetspur.

No! To somewhere else!

Vilgax says:

I believe that if we enter any cavern or cave, we will be able to tunnel to the Grimlocks subterranean village.

This sparks a tunnelling competition. The Captain is going old school with a shovel. No idea where he got one of those. Horace does some deep thought, and decides to re-summon Gary as a creature with a tunnelling speed. He does it as a ceremony to save a spell slot, though, so it takes him 70 minutes. In that time, Rusty has dug a tunnel, 5’x5’ and 3500 feet long, using the Mold Earth cantrip. He put in steps so we could easily climb down.

Astonishingly, that wasn’t enough. We fall into the tunnels under Bluetspur after 5000’ of tunnelling. As soon as we arrive, a voice behind us says “Hi there. I’d like to offer my smelling services to you. Is there any smelling that you need performed?” We peer about to see a Svirfneblin, with a characteristically large nose. The party politely declines, and heads off.

After some walking, we reach a door. Standing in front of the door is another Svirfneblin, who proclaims that he will allow us through his door if we pay him with gems. The Captain does a pretty fine job of persuading him of the existence of highly valuable, invisible, weightless, odorless and in fact intangible gems. In the end it doesn’t work, but we had him going for a while. Another deep gnome wanders up with payment to pass through the door, and in the meantime, we tunnel around it into the next passage. This sparks a debate as to whether we are allowed to do that, and the door-gnome produces a deed that proclaims him the sole proprietor of this area. In a freak accident, it weirdly caught fire as soon as he brought it out. As it was the only copy, we determined that any legal force it may have held was nullified.

Just past the now defunct door, we come across a Myconid that says “If you are heading that way toward the Grimlock villages, you will need to be careful. There are dangerous areas. If you give me a magic item, I’ll give you what you need to pass safely.” Honestly, this entire tunnel complex is just packed with grifters. Rusty gives him a boombox (a magical tinker - it’s technically magical!). The Captain gives his his Mind Carapace armour. In return, the Myconid pulls some sprouts from his arms and hands them to us. They are his Myconid babies. If we eat them, they will prevent our presence from causing the spores in the next chamber from exploding.

Louie now had a major crisis of conscience. The party unanimously chose the role of the devil on the shoulder - nobody thought acting as heaven’s advocate was of any value whatsoever. Despite this, it was an uphill battle. At this point, The Captain eats his Myconid baby and gets the Nature proficiency. This changes everything! The Captain attempts to pickpocket more babies off the Myconid. He kind of succeeds? When the Myconid departs, we are left with 4 babies (including the one The Captain ate). At that point we realize that the party is actually 1 member larger than we are accustomed to, and we needed 6. There is some significant confusion, until Rusty hands Dennis the Ship in a Bottle, and disappears. We can see a tiny Rusty waving to us from the deck. Vilgax doesn’t have one either, but doesn’t seem concerned and none of us care about him.

Even after all that, it still took some time to get Louie to eat his Myconid baby. The big baby.

At this point a gnome pushing a wheelbarrow walks past, pulls out his Myconid baby, and pulls a tiny piece off to eat before putting the baby back in his pocket. He then walks through the next room without incident.

What the hell. We start walking through too. Vilgax casts Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere around himself, and The Captain pushes him through. The passage opens into a large garden, there are myriad variations of mushrooms and fungi everywhere. Spores fill the air until it almost looks foggy. We walk through. Nothing happens.

Exiting that chamber, the passage way opens up again to a massive underground cavern. Dennis waves to Rusty, who comes back out of the ship. Before us is a whole town. In the center is a large stone building with a tentacle coming out of the ceiling. The streets are filled with Mind Flayers, laying about themselves with whips, driving their Grimlock slaves on.

What will our intrepid heroes do?

Whatever it is, it will be next week.