Session 166

General Summary

• The party dispatch the "moth-matician" that had hatched from the pile of papers, along with a second that joined the battle partway through.
• The vault door blocked passage to a room that was supposedly designed to meet the preferences of "Mr. Man", and it refused to open for anyone else.
• Dazki surmised that "Mr. Man" refers to Baxton Mandrim, so he used a combination of rude and needlessly verbose language. The door opened.
• The door led to a chamber filled with practical mountains of books strewn, with a clear path leading to a single desk.
• Dazki picked up the useful items from the desk, and they were going to leave, but Marvin had been cursed to want to stay longer.
• They tricked Marvin to get closer to the exit. Dwardazik shoved him the rest of the way out, then he threw a lit torch back into the room before shutting the door.
• They escaped back into the eyeball chamber and tried to sneak around. Marvin still got hit, so Dazki used his Driftglobe to blind it for a while so they could investigate.
• There was an illusory waterfall on the far west side of the room. Behind it was a chamber with some "Stigmatatism" creatures guarding another chain.
• The party dispatched the creatures, and Marvin managed to undo the chain after all the others had given it a try.
• The next room had tiles on the ground with various letters and numbers, as well as a rabbit and a crystal mutually dissolving one another.

Full Recap

By the Book

The moth-matician is aggressive.

Combat Summary

• The body of a moth-matician is perplexing to look at. For the most part, the party instinctively spend a majority of their time averting their gaze, though Marvin would ultimately force himself to look at one a few times in order to cast spells. He mostly kept his cool, but after one of his glances, he "literally could not even".
• A second moth-matician entered the combat not too long after the first (yelling out, "you will be subtracted from BOTH sides!" as it approached).
• The moth-maticians did not seem to have any plans, just attacking wildly at the nearest enemy, and Dazki wound up very quickly getting a killing blow on the first one.
• Marvin managed to catch one in a trap using his Vicious Mockery, shouting "This statement is false!". Theran was a bit more flustered, yelling out "Sorry, we just need to, uh... (blam!)... expand your terms, uh, ...(blam!)... now that you're... (whiff!)... simplified!"
• Through some more of the fight, Marvin also (Editor's note: correctly) yelled something about τ being superior to π, to which it responded "stop being so irrational!".
• Theran, still refusing to even so much as glance at a moth-matician, chose to make more "Shooty Blam-Blam" attacks, one of them again whiffing and almost blundering into Dazki who was standing right behind.
• Dwardazik knocked the last one down, to which it responded "why do you have to be so MEAN?!", and "you've been a CONSTANT pain in my side... it's all ADDING UP... I'm going to get to the ROOT of this problem!".
• Dazki unceremoniously made the killing blow on the second, choosing not to bother trying to formulate any sort of clever phrases and just move on.

 

It's Not MY Vault!

They circle back around to the large vault door with just the one large knocker. Dazki knocks on it. The door speaks, excited and nervous at the same time that hopefully "Mr. Man" will like the chamber that has been prepared for him. It also hopes that "Mr. Man" will "let the others know how inviting and friendly" it is, and Dazki asks to pass through, (Persuasion 16) though the door insists that it be given proof that this is, in fact, "Mr. Man". Dazki tries to politely reassure it, but this only serves to make the door more skeptical that this isn't actually "Mr. Man".   Theran tries to use "Play Pretend but More Real" to emulate "Jahdzan", which only seems to make matters worse. The door whines that "I've worked so hard for you" and that it "just wants 'us' all to get along". Frustrated, Dwardazik nonchalantly presents his war pick as another option, but Dazki stops him, having guessed what might going on. He steps forward and...

Door: I mean, I do think you should stay here? For maybe a few minutes, maybe forever... come on, I've given so much to you!   Dazki: For fuck's sake, you dumb door! Are you going to impede my ingression into the room?   Door: Um, well, I mean, I just... I wanted to make sure —   Dazki: Open. The fucking door. Now.

This convinces the door to open itself, and the party force it to stay open. Dazki believes that "Mr. Man" actually refers to Baxton Mandrim, in part because the door keeps referring to how much "Mr. Man" loves the ladies.   Inside the room is a preposterous amount of books, stacked up in heaps, with a path carved through them to a solitary desk in the middle that contains an uninteresting book on it, but an interesting-looking quill atop it along with a few interesting spell scrolls stashed within, all of which Dazki takes. Several bookworms and pupal pupils are scattered throughout the room. (Wisdom Save 4) Marvin, in particular, finds it hard to stay focused on the task at hand and seems intent on staying in this chamber. His attention is drawn towards books such as "Fifty Shades of Grey's Anatomy", as well as one book simply titled "Turtle Anatomy" that depicts anthropomorphic turtles in highly suggestive positions.   It's clear that Marvin is going to be a problem; when the rest start trying to force him along, he casts Fly on himself and tries to float away, but Dazki stabs his cloak with his rapier, and Dwardazik jumps on him to try to hold onto the turtle book as well. Marvin makes a quip about Dazki's mom, and Dwardazik + Dazki roll with it to get Marvin to try to show Dazki the picture he's thinking of, Dazki leading him towards the exit. Marvin stops shy of exiting the room, but Dwardazik pushes him the rest of the way out, which seems to break the curse.   The door complains as it tries and fails to close itself, and Dwardazik attacks the door several times. Dwardazik then has the idea to burn the room full of books. He gets a torch from the Bag of Holding, Theran lights it, and Dwardazik throws it into the room. He then tries to unstick the dagger that holds the door open, but it holds fast. He smashes it instead, allowing the door to slam shut as the fire grows within the room.

Back in Sight, Back in Mind

They head back up the other way, finding another unlocked door. Behind it, there are two moth-maticians sitting around a table. They shut the door quickly and escape — doubling back only to grab the corpse of a moth-matician, as the portal demands authorized personnel before permitting a return trip.   As soon as they teleport through, they all immediately drop to the ground, successfully hiding from the eyeball in the room. They proceed further west, but they are not trying to be stealthy, and it blasts Marvin with a lightning ray, stunning him for a short time. Dwardazik grabs him and shoves him into a blind spot for the eye, as Theran (Stealth 6) tries to sneak around. Dazki activates his Driftglobe's once-a-day cast of Daylight, temporarily blinding the eye and preventing it from directly making any further beam attacks for a while.   They investigate what appears to be a large red waterfall. Dwardazik throws a nearby box through it, hearing it land on the other side. He walks through it, finding it to be illusory as he passes. He takes note of what he sees and walks back. He reports what he saw to the group, and they decide to jump in together — all but Marvin, who stays behind to recover a bit first and keep the Driftglobe blinding the large eye.   On the other side are three "Stigmatatism" creatures — one on the far side of the room and the other two entirely focused on a glowing pile that another one of the chains seems to disappear into. They make a surprise attack, dealing heavy damage to the first one, as combat ensues. Dazki finishes the first one off, as Dwardazik calls Marvin in and bashes the other one. Every time a melee attack hits one, some electrified blood splashes out, damaging the attacker. When Theran changes his starry form, he emits a bright light that attracts the second "Stigmatatism" to him, which makes some hard hits on him, almost knocking him down. Dazki responds by using the special ability of his Bloodspine bow to do tremendous damage to it, taking some damage himself, and Dwardazik drives it home with three hard hits, killing it.   The combat took a lot out of them, and Tequila (the worm on Marvin's shoulder) suggests that they take a breather in her tavern (which she calls "The Digest Inn"), but they focus on the chain. Written on it, in dwarven runes, is the word "WISDOM". In trying to unravel it, they try a couple of things, but with no success. A deep whispering comes from within the chamber, "fascia, rawhide, meat. it's all meat! a wounded animal. torn ligaments, ruptured tendons. infected, tired". Marvin ultimately pulls out a torch to burn away spots holding the chain in place, (Survival 22) which is enough.   Dazki then sets his Driftglobe on the other side of the room, which attracts the third "Stigmatatism" away from their path, and they proceed down the stairs to the side of the room.

A Luigi Board?!