Rumble in the Junkyard

When we left our heroes last session, a huge pile of junk had resolved itself into the Cadaver Collector, and combat was about to start.

Initiative! Rusty rolled a natural 20, which allowed him to pip Horus who managed to wrangle an adjusted 31 without rolling a 20. After them, it was Louie, Cleetus, then the Cadaver Collector.

Round 1

Rusty flies up and shoots CC with an Eldritch Blast. He only hits with one bolt - this things AC is insane. Wit also flies up, and tries Id Insinuation, but it’s immune to Psychic damage. He relays this useful tidbit to the party.

Horus decides to avoid pesky AC and saves, and hits it with Magic Missile. It’s super effective!

Louie and Raymond jump up on top of a pile of rubbish (brave), and his passive perception manages to pick up some noise coming from the south - but no time for that! He shoots the CC with an arrow doing 12 damage.

Cleetus starts running around the north side of the trash to get to the CC, but at the end of his dash he stumbles across Norbert sitting in a lawn chair. Norbert was as surprised as Cleetus, but Cleetus is not one to pass up unexpected opportunity, so - Action Surge! Cleetus jumps on top of Norbert and starts smashing all the potions flasks he has attached to bandoliers. By the time Cleetus was finished, Norbert was covered in reacting potions, covered in chemical burns (giving him vulnerability to fire), permanently glued to his chair, and has arthritis and partial paralysis.

Finally CC gets a go and foolishly thinks to beat Cleetus off Norbert. Three swings, all misses. You fool! You can’t hit Cleetus!

During these shenanigans, Olga’s ghost has been gesticulating in various directions, and Horus and Louie (being the only two that can see her) have been relaying this information to the party. One of the directions turned out to be where Norbert was, so we’re anticipating incoming from those directions.

Round 2

Rusty takes a moment to look around, and spies Sigmund coming from the west. He shoots Sigmund with Eldritch Blast, but Sigmund deflects it back at Rusty. Rusty saves. Nobody took damage. Wit, having wasted one turn doing a damage type the CC was immune to, decides to try his luck again and casts Heat Metal on the CC. Astonishingly, it is not immune to fire, and takes damage. Turns out it is vulnerable, and it takes double damage. Cool!

Horus Eldritch Blasts Sigmund, and does a little bit of damage.

Sigmund pulls a Legendary Action and has some personal time with various items of scrap that he picks up from the yard. He then goes invisible, probably because we are all so horrified and disgusted by his behavior that we refuse to look at him.

Louie tries looking to the south-west, but can’t spot the person we’re certain is there. So he runs over to Sigmund and hits him. He does significant damage, but has to save vs blindness from the light shining off his teeth. Pretty impressive, given that he’s invisible. We all have visions of the Cheshire Cat.

Sigmund punches Louie, applies Quivering Palm, then activates it. Louie saves, but that hurt. 67 necrotic damage.

Norbert breaks out a potion, and glues Cleetus to him. Why? Then he gives Cleetus arthritis, which makes it hard for him to make attacks.

This does not slow Cleetus down at all. He stands up, bringing Norbert with him, then presses Norbert up against the Cadaver Collector. That is currently under the effect of Heat Metal. Then he backs up, and does it again. And again. Norbert’s screaming is almost musical. He manages to scream a command to the scrap workers to help him. A heap of them appear.

From the south-west, Ulrich stomps into view and mutters something. We didn’t get it yet. He throws a Command Ally at Sigmund, and gets him to punch Raymond and apply Quivering Palm. Then he fires a spread of nails at Horus, Raymond and Louie.

The Cadaver Collector hits Cleetus.

Round 3

Rusty has finally got into melee range with the Cadaver Collector and tries to hit him with his hammer, but consistently misses. Wit uses his bonus action to reactivate Heat Metal on the CC, and fires Synaptic Static at the scrap workers. They instantly died (except for the 2 outside the AoE). Oops.

Horus closes to melee range with Sigmund and Shocking Grasps him, which works very well.

Louie smites Sigmund twice for a total of 62 damage. Raymond joined in for another 33.

Sigmund activates the Quivering Palm on Raymond, which he saves against but still takes 47 damage. Then he punches Raymond and applies it again.

Cleetus keeps bouncing Norbert’s face off CC and he dies. Cleetus then disengages from the CC and runs over toward Sigmund.

Ulrich gibbers again: “Off the stormy coast, a massive sea mammal surfaced beside the ship and a loud cry rose from the haunted lighthouse.” Louie says “Whale?” back at him, which causes him to misfire. He still fires, but his damage is halved.

The Cadaver Collector release petrification gas all over Louie, and his legs go all stiff - but he’s riding Raymond, so his mobility is not yet affected.

Round 4

Rusty misses the CC again. Wit decides to stop pissing around and upcasts Heat Metal on the CC at 7th level, now doing 7d8 damage per round, doubled.

Horus shocking grasps Sigmund again.

Ulrich gibbers some more: “In the enchanted forest, a wild male pig burst from the brush when the dwarf’s tool started drilling a hole in the ancient door.” Rusty has figured it out by now and yells “BOAR!” (or “BORE!”, they’re homonyms) at him and he straight up explodes! Rusty wasn’t expecting that, but awesome.

Sigmund tries to stop the fight, saying he’ll kill the frog if we don’t let him go.

We all look at Louie, given that a) it’s his turn, and b) it’s his frog. He says “Fuck you old man” and SMITES the crap out of him, killing him before he can get his Quivering Palm off.

Rusty talks the Cadaver Collector down and manages to get it to agree to accept Rusty as it’s new master. Another pet for the menagerie! Minion is just a little jealous.

End Combat

We mosey down the hill to the river, where Clara and her boyfriend are waiting in his boat. Gertrude, Ludmilla, Olga’s ghost and Olga’s body are already aboard. Rusty has CC dip his feet in the river so he doesn’t set the boat on fire, and checks with the skipper to make sure the boat is rated for this amount of cargo. He says it’s fine. We all climb aboard and set out for Whale End.

Whale End

Clara, Ludmilla and Gertrude cremate Olga’s body and put Olga to rest.

Ludmilla forges a shitload of writs for the party.

Clara and her man get married (she’s pregnant - called it!)

We ask around for the guy we’re supposed to be delivering the poison to. His name is John Smith, and he is apparently out on the island. Clara’s man is too busy consummating their relationship to sail us out there, but the locals say we can borrow any boat tied to the pier. We do so, and fumble our way across the channel to the island.

The Stinky Island

Ethan went hard on the atmospheric description. The island is awful. It is stinky, everything is black and leaks tar, and squelches. Eventually we find John, but - nobody saw this coming - he’s dead. The island is gradually absorbing his body.

Then there is an earthquake, and we find that the island is anything but - it’s an undead dragon turtle!

Ohhh, so that’s what the poison was for.