Kay's Journal - 8/5 - Reaper Errant

Kay’s Journal, 8/5

There’s a portal to another plane filling the doorway in front of us. It smells like flowers. Pujol sniffs hard, trying to identify them, and it is flower-scents he remembers from his childhood that remind him of home and good times.

We go through the porta and end up in a long, prismatic passageway. We walk what feels like a long way, during which the smells of home and comfort get stronger for us all. Eventually, a godly voice speaks to us, requesting help. Some of its people, a group of pixies, needs help. We agree to help, and the presence says it will send us to ‘Chrysanthemum’. 

We appear in front of a very vibrant glade with lots of plants, a flower throne, a plate with coins, a glowing tree stump, and a small winged woman in a cage. This is Chrysanthemum. She asks if we are here to help, and when we say yes, she says ‘Piggy’ will be back soon. 

The gold in the tray is a random pile, not neat stacks.

Chrysanthemum thinks using magic to open the cage would be bad. She says her people are in the tree stump; she’s more worried about them than herself. Her suggestion for how to resolve the situation is to kill Piggy or otherwise force her to release the pixies.

We ask about ‘Piggy’. Her full name is Iggly Piggly Wardleglade, and she’s been taking over territory in this realm. She has a lot of magic, and goes away from here every day to do…something, then returns at sunset. She looks like an elf.

CornCob feels confident that Chrysanthemum is telling us the truth. She says all of her people, aside from herself, are in the stump – hundreds of pixies. They’ve all been imprisoned for about a month. She tells us that Piggy talks about an ancient god returned, and she’s on a mission for them. When Piggy returns, she seems to teleport in. When she initially came here, she had creatures with her. They were winged, with red scales and tails, kinda like Gooseneck. Chrysanthemum says that Piggy casts spells very quickly.

We consider plans, and decide to go with ‘ambush’. Abran and Fathom move behind the stump; Pujol is near there as well. I climb up into the ruins. CornCob places a guardian of faith half way between the throne and the stump. 

Piggy shows up, appearing on the throne in a sitting pose. She’s a dark-skinned elvish woman. She squeals as she hits the wall of thorns we’d cast upon it. Chrysanthemum says she did it, and laughs. Piggy stares at her. The rest of our group attacks – Fathom casts a spell, CornCob throw his Robe of Entangelment at her, Abran shoots her, and Pujol tries to hedgehog her. The results are, at best, mixed. She takes limited damage from the attacks, but mostly shakes everything off. I aim my bow at her and tell her to free the pixies and leave, or we’ll really start attacking. It’s a bluff, and has no effect. She teleports up to where I am.

Gooseneck goes over to try to free Chrysanthemum from the cage. As soon as he touches the cage, he turns into a pink bunny with a single horn. 

Piggy casts a spell at Abran and Fathom. They take some damage and are also stricken with fear. They hit back at her, with Fathom casting a spell and Abran shooting at her. The attacks damage her, but it’s still not slowing her down any.

Piggy casts another spell. A rift opens up under Fathom and Abran; Fathom, Abran, and Pujol fall in. Fathom goes down.

Three winged creatures emerge from the rift and then it closes. Abran, Fathom, and Pujol get spit out. Pujol turns invisible and moves away. CornCob casts a spell at Piggy and then calls up his magic weapon.

I try to knock Piggy off the wall, but fail. Gooseneck tries to use his horn to open the cage, but has no effect. Abran shoots one of the demon insect creatures, then backs away. Fathom regains consciousness, then casts invisibility on herself and moves away.

Piggy casts a spell and CornCob and I. We’re both damaged…and charmed. Pujol does what he can to help everyone resist her spells. One of the demons approaches CornCob, but the guardian intercepts it and hits it.

Bunny Gooseneck tries to stab the demon with his horn, and misses. Abran swings at a demon near him, hits, then runs away and heals himself. Fathom casts a fireball at Piggy, which hurts her some. Then Fathom hides behind Abran. Piggy moves down off the wall and tries to polymorph Fathom, but fails. Pujol moves closer to Abran and cheers him on.

CornCob casts a spell on one of the demons, and does some damage. He moves behind the stump; the two demons that had been attacking Abran move toward him. The demon that Gooseneck attacked comes at me, but attacks Gooseneck – it bites and claws at him, which breaks the spell and turns him back to himself. He swings at it, hits.

Abran shoots Piggy and does a bunch of damage. She’s finally starting to look hurt. Fathom tries to cast a spell at her, but she counters it.

Piggy casts a spell at Abran, banishing him to a plane with lots of hedges. CornCob casts a bolt at her, but misses. 

One of the demons hits Fathom; she’s just barely still up. One tries to bite CornCob, but misses. Another attacks Gooseneck, but misses him. Gooseneck hits it with his axe. Abran escapes the hedge maze and returns. Fathom casts Darkness on Piggy’s necklace, then moves into the darkness…but gets clawed on the way. She goes down again, and the darkness disappears.

Piggy casts the charm spell at Abran; he takes some lightning damage and is charmed. She orders him to attack CornCob. Pujol moves toward Fathom. CornCob summons the water elemental and has it attack one of the demons. The demons attack the elemental, Fathom, and Gooseneck. I shoot at one, and it goes down.

Gooseneck attacks Piggy, hits. She’s pretty hurt now. ABran swings at CornCob, misses. Piggy flies back up into the ruins and casts her charm at Gooseneck, tells him to attack me. Pujol heals Fathom. CornCob and the water elemental attack one of the demons.

I fly upwards to avoid Gooseneck, and he climbs the ruins and ends up next to Piggy. Abran shoots her once more, and then she falls down, dead. When she falls, the cage disappears and the stump releases all the pixies. They swarm the demons and shred them. 

Chrysanthemum goes over to Piggy’s body, and says she has a couple magic items if we want them: an Amulet of the Planes, and a Robe of the Archmagi. We take them. She offers us each a gift, opening a sack and telling us to reach in.

• I get a paper wasp nest in a jar

• Gooseneck gets a bar of soap that smells like home

• Abran gets a silver fork with the tines bent sideways

• Fathom gets a large iron fingernail

• Pujol gets a pendant showing the phases of the moon

• CornCob gets a tinted glass monocle (Green)

• The water elemental gets a delicate silver cameo with pictures of twin children

Chrysanthemum says we can use the amulet to get back where we came from.

Kay's Journal - 7/22 - Reaper Errant

Kay’s Journal, 7/22

After getting past the gargoyles, we rest briefly in the corridor before continuing on. As we go down the corridor, the air gets warmer and more humid. It’s very hot by the time we see an orange glow in front of us. Fire is next, apparently.

We hear a bubbling sound up ahead, and smell sulfur. Fathom takes the lead since she’s comfortable with heat.

The hallway opens up into a room. Yup…it’s lava. There’s a big pool of it, mostly filling the room. There’s a solid island in the middle of the big pool of lava, which is piled with coins, gems, swords, shields, chests…all kinds of treasure. There’s a narrow pathway around the edge of the room; on one end of the room it’s broken by the river of lava running through. On the other end of the room there’s a bridge over the lava river. There’s a door on the far side of the room, opposite from where we entered.

I see some fiends on the far side, in front of the door, though they look like they are trying to hide. Fathom greets them, taking them by surprise since they thought they were hiding successfully (that’s so cute). She tells them we have the key and would like to pass through. She’s speaking to them in Infernal. The lead fiend, a female who is directly in front of the door, says that they are observers, and it’s not for them to let us through or not. Fathom asks who we need to talk to, then. She thinks they might be trying to trick us, but the fiend says it’s the watcher in the center that we have to talk to, of course. She also notes that people travelling through here usually know what they are doing.

I look at the island and the pile of treasure with the goggles. There’s definitely magic there – looks like it might be some kind of alarm, maybe. Also, it looks like the bridge over the lava at the end of the room will collapse if we try to cross it.

We debate. What if the pile of treasure is previous offerings, and this is a ‘bribe the guards’ type of situation? We try offering 10gp each. Pujol summons an Unseen Servant and has it carry the 60gp over to the island. I see the magic on the island coalesce a little. Fathom watches the fiends; one of them is smiling a big stupid happy grin. Otherwise, they don’t react.

The coins start to shake as if the platform is vibrating. Fathom asks the fiends if that was a sufficient offering. The female fiend continues to be vague about it, but they do step back. That seems like a bad sign.

Screw it, we jump across the lava to the island. We feel the tremor…and the coins rise up into a vaguely humanoid-shaped golem. Great. It points at Pujol and says something in Ignan. Does anybody speak the elemental language of fire? No, of course not. Fathom casts Tongues on herself and asks the golem to repeat what it said, pretty please. It’s asking for the words of passage, and asking this of Pujol.

We debate on the words. We know, thanks to Pujol’s friend the gargoyle, that the first word is ‘obsidian’. What could the second be? Obsidian is earth that came from fire…a mix of the element of the last section and the element of the next section on the map. Maybe this would be something similar. We check the map…the next section is Air. So, what’s fire + air? Pujol follows ‘obsidian’ with ‘smoke’.

That seems to be it. Yay! We do not die. The golem reaches into a chest and pulls out a gem and offers it to Pujol. It’s a big gem, a good 4” across. Pujol takes the gem, and the golem dissipates. The fiends draw their weapons.

I am an arrow at the lead fiend and tell her to cut the crap; we satisfied the guardian. She says that now that we have recovered the jewel, she can take it from us. So, I shoot her in the face.

The other fiends turn into misty liquid and flow around her, giving her more armor. Abran shoots her twice. She flies across to the island and attacks Abran. She hits him once, and it turns out her sword is poison. Great! The poison is way worse than the sword wound itself.

CornCob tries to banish her, but fails. Gooseneck attacks her, hits once. She’s clearly a highly skilled fighter. Pujol tucks the gem into his shirt and books it back to the entrance; then casts an illusory duplicate of the key, sets it on the ground, and runs. The fiend smiles at him knowingly – I think she’s not buying it. Fathom casts a bolt at her, hits her, and asks why she needs the key. The fiend says it’s a gift.

Abran swings at her, but she parries. He hits her with his second swing, then he backs up. She follows him, giving Gooseneck an opportunity to hit her while she’s moving, but he misses. She swings at Abran and hits him three times. He goes down.

CornCob casts a spell at her and Gooseneck attacks her again. Pujol runs back into the room and turns invisible. Fathom casts a psychic lance at her, and that does it. As she fades out, she telepathically tells us all that we won’t succeed, others worse than her search for the keys. Gooseneck grabs her bow as she dissipates.

As he hands the bow to Abran, Gooseneck feels a twinge of regret at giving it up. The twinge is mildly unnatural. Fathom identifies the bow – it’s a +2 bow that does 3d8 poison damage. Abran thinks the bow is almost alive, but he attunes with it anyway. It tells him they will do wonderful things together. He asks its name, and it tells him it is called Ahtar Paire. This is fine. It’s totally fine.

We rest on the island. CornCob heals Abran.

The key gem is probably worth 500gp, just as a gem. It’s a sapphire. We stick it in the door; the door glows along the seams. The doorway is extra-planar. We are going somewhere else. The doorway is a permanent gate to a different plane.