A Vial Full of Basilisk Scales Report
General Summary
The next morning, as the Defiants eat breakfast, Dimitri receives a package from Cassidy. It is delivered under the name Basil Crowborn, which causes everyone to look at him suspiciously when accepts it. He quietly accepts the package, waiting for Cassidy to leave before telling the party that Basil is his birth name, but that he chose to go by Dimitri Markov when he left home.
Marianne stands and leaves the table abruptly. Rex looks at the others and follows her outside. In the early morning light and snow, Marianne admits that she is very angry at Dimitri for lying to them - especially after her recent distrust of Rickee when the faun convinced him to attack her. Rex tries to comfort her the best he can.
As they stand outside in the snow, Marianne notices a town job board, and specifically a notice from a person named Avoracious Pim, reading, "Stalwart Hunters and Collectors of Antiquities Requested." It goes on to describe bringing "items of interest" of a biological nature to a home in the Stone Quarter. the curious nature of this request leads Marianne to take the paper and bring it back to the table.
Meanwhile, Rickee has gone to the bar and flirted with Whiskey - or attempted to, anyway. He drops two silver on the counter, then runs for it. Whiskey bemusedly takes the coins and goes back to cleaning up a nearby table.
Marianne, noticing Rickee fleeing the scene, approaches Whiskey and calmly explains the true nature of the rats: that Celia wasn't lying, and that there was actually a wererat commanding the colony underneath the tavern. Whiskey looks surprised, but admits that he was wrong to not believe Celia and promises to apologize when she comes in for her shift that evening.
The shifter nods and takes her leave, joining back up with her friends at the table. They pore over the advertisement, which is odd and worrying, but also intriguing enough that they decide to traipse over to this Pim's home.
Arriving in the Stone Quarter, they find the home of Avoracious Pim: a stone cottage with a large addition on it made of bronze and gears and glass. Rex comments with surprise that the architecture of the addition reminds him of Northlandish architecture. As they approach and the door opens, they are met by a human. Or... a poor rendition of a human by someone who has never seen a human.
He has a patch of green scales on his neck, from his sternum to right below his chin, as well as a clawed hand like an eagle, and one normal human blue eye and one solid, glowing orange eye. Still, he is pleasant enough, and lets them into his home/laboratory. It is more a laboratory than a home - every surface is covered with biological samples and microscopes and vials waiting to be filled. There is also a painting over the fireplace of a (far more normal looking) Pim and a red headed halfling man.
As they look around, Avoracious explains that he is a biomancer and healer for the populace, working to create antivenoms and cures through science rather than through divine means. That he studies the best ways to help his community with the various creature parts and herbs of varying amounts of danger to not only work on solutions to their fatal elements (such as antivenom) but also to find ways to use them for the betterment of society. He even tells the skeptical Rishaa a story of giving a young human man that had lost his eyesight in a fire the eyes of a displacer beast to help him see again - and see better than he ever had before.
Marianne notices a bottle on one of his shelve labeled lycanthropy and grows upset, viewing her condition not as a curse but as a part of her. Pim explains (with a not-quite-patient tone) that not all lycanthropes have the control over their transformations - and therefore have an infectious disease that can spread like wildfire and lead to many deaths. Those people need a cure. Marianne doesn't seem happy about it, but she concedes the point and stands with her arms crossed, sulking quietly.
He is looking for adventurers to slay creatures that he would like parts from in order to study. Specifically, he gives them the locations of four creatures: a spectator, a
roper, a gloomstalker, and an umber hulk. After discussing it amongst themselves, the Defiants decide to take all four contracts. Grateful, Avoracious gifts them some tools to help them in their hunt: a bag of colding for the various creature bits, a cape of eels, two pairs of ear muffs, and two circlets of concentration. These are to be returned upon completion of the hunt, but he would prefer his hunters actually return. Rex takes the cape, Rickee and Dimitri the earmuffs, and the girls each take a circlet.
The party decides to start their hunt with the umber hulk, traveling just across the border into Adura to a cave within the Viridi Mountains.
As they slink into the cave, they soon find their quarry: a large monstrous creature with arms like a gorilla, but chitinous and with a head like a beetle the size of a horse. Marianne immediately springs into a rage, and attacks with her newly outfitted axe. One strike sparks against the creature's thick hide, but the second is even worse. She strikes hard and it bounces right off the umber hulk, throwing her off balance as the umber hulk's mandibles grab onto her arm, piercing through her flesh. Rickee tries to confuse it with a silvery barbs, but unfortunately the momentary distraction is not enough - Marianne howls as blood begins to drip down her arm.
The umber hulk, angry that it has been assaulted, screeches out a piercing call as it attempts to scare away its attackers. It's claws strike into Marianne's right leg - she stumbles to left, right into its other clawed hand. It's mandibles grab hold of her shoulder. Marianne screams. Her body looks more like a poorly cut steak than anything else. Thank god she's a barbarian and can take such punishment.
"Hold on, Marianne!" Rickee yells, giving her a bit of healing (healing word). He attempts as well to distract the creature, but his vicious mockery means nothing to the umber hulk.
Rex takes a small box of metal out of his back and tosses it out, where it unfolds into a turret with a series of clicks and whirs. In the meantime, he uses his wrist-mounted gun to fire a series of blasts of scorching ray at the umber hulk. One ray hits, but the two others score off the armor harmlessly.
Rishaa shoves her sword into Dimitri's hands and takes a running start. She goes down on her knees and slides right through Marianne's shaking legs before popping up between her friend and the umber hulk. She spins and delivers a roundhouse kick right to the hulk's head - and her metallic leg explodes with light as it impacts. The umber hulk bellows, blinded by Rishaa's leg. In its confused stumbling, Rishaa's first punch sails right past its shoulder. But the second one connects solidly, shattering the armor on its shoulder (critical hit). Her fourth strike follows the third and further breaks down the protection of the umber hulk.
Dimitri puts out a hand, and a stream of snow and ice flow out - a breeze that when it hits Rishaa both chills and energizes her until she's practically vibrating with speed (haste). Dimitri retreats, yelling at Rishaa to hit it again. Harder.
Marianne recenters herself and shifts to her wolven form, and begins to strike at the umber hulk again and again. It's a series of reckless, furious attacks, and yet, all but one of her attacks misses the blinded creature.
Angered, blinded, and a bit fearful, the umber hulk slowly gets up from where Rishaa's blows had thrown it to the ground. It claws blindly at her twice, but Dimitri's vision comes true: the first claw is a complete miss, and it so badly unbalances the creature that Marianne and Rishaa both see an opening to attack it once again. Rishaa hits, pummeling the beetle a bit more. Dimitri's vision is not done, and its second claw attack also goes wide on the monk. It attempts to use its mandibles to bite down on Marianne, but being blinded the barbarian easily sidesteps.
Realizing that it will die if it stays, the umber hulk turns to run, exposing itself to the two women - who take the opportunity to attack again. Marianne leaps forward and gets her large clawed hands around it, pinning it to the ground as Rishaa completes the deathblow. The umber hulk goes still, dead.
It is as they begin to collect the materials requested by Avoracious that Rishaa jokingly grapples Dimitri to keep him from going after the umber hulk's brains that Dimitri suddenly feels a sharp pain in his chest. He looks down to see that he has become a pincushion for four poorly made, crude arrows. They look up to see a group of goblins climbing out of the dark, intent on taking the carcass of the umber hulk for themselves.
Rickee strums a blasting wave of cacophonous noise, so loud and discordant that it straight up kills four of the goblins (shatter). Rex queues up his turret to try and hit the last one - the leader of the party - but the turret stutters with a painful grinding sound. It's jammed (critical failure). Instead, he fires with his arm cannon again, and the scorching ray's beams streak out, two hitting the goblin in the chest, one searing the wall.
Dimitri's pincushioned condition has cost him concentration on his spell keep Rishaa moving at double the speed that any person should, and as she comes back in line with the normal timeline, she nearly vomits. She can't even move, let alone attack, so she clutches his shoulder as she tries to recover.
The party looks around, ready for another attack, and are rewarded for their caution as a second part of goblins scrambles into the light. Dimitri is fast on the draw, suggesting to the goblin party captain that he should turn against the other goblins. Unfortunately for the other goblins, their leader is weak willed, and he turns his blade upon them. One goblin is immediately bisected by his leader. The second runs for it. The last two stand their ground, recognizing that this is magic and not their captain losing his mind. They pull back on their bows, and let their arrows fly at Rickee. One clatters against the stone, but the other strikes him in his belly. He stumbles backwards, and as he does he cries out. A blast of bluish fire descends upon the goblin: a hellish rebuke for harming the tiefling. Suddenly, Rickee's shirt rips apart as a pair of gigantic blue bat wings erupt from his back. They're so large that they strike against the sides of the cave, the rough wall scraping them and causing them to bleed.
Marianne doesn't have time to think, descending into a second rage and swinging wildly at the goblins. She manages to kill one and mortally wound the second. It gives Rickee the moment he needs to call down faerie fire on the two still living goblins: the captain manages to dodge the softly falling spectral flames, but the mortally wounded one does not.
Rex finishes fixing his turret, and presses the button on his wrist. The turret fires, and the captain collapses with several large bullet holes in his chest. He aims his wrist cannon and fires a fire bolt at the last goblin, incinerating it where it lay.
Marianne, breathing heavily, begins to feel light headed - raging within minutes of one another is simply too taxing for even such a hearty individual as herself. Her eyes roll back up into her head and she passes out. Everyone freaks out, gathering around her quickly. Dimitri, panicking, asks someone to hit him. At first no one is willing to, but Rex finally agrees, and uses his turret to take aim and fire into Dimitri's chest. Dimitri uses silvery barbs to bend luck against Rex and towards Marianne - and a good thing he did, too, because Rex's turret would have hit something quite vital if he hadn't acted. Dimitri slumps to the floor, ribs cracked apart from the close proximity of Rex's weapon.
Marianne does, eventually, regain consciousness - as does Dimitri. Once they are sure that she is safe, Rex turns to study Rickee, who has been quietly freaking out about his new appendages. He considers for a while what they could mean: a sign of the contract between Asmodeus and Rickee? A tiefling adaptation? The latter sounds more likely - wings do sometimes get passed down from parent to child in the tiefling lineage... or from their fiendish parent. Rex asks slowly and with much trepidation: "Rickee... did you know your father?"
Rickee confirms that no, he did not. Rex explains that he thinks Rickee may have had a fiend for a father, and not just one of a long line of tieflings. As they sit there, contemplating, Dimitri feels the pressure on himself to speak for his own parentage. He finally admits that he truly is named Basil, and that he doesn't use his family name because he doesn't wish for people to know who he is - or how far his family has fallen.
In the midst of this soul baring, Marianne also speaks up. She tells the Defiants about Callie's father. That it wasn't just some random boyfriend her mother ate, but a nearby lord who had kidnapped her and tried to force her to be his bride. She had played along, and eventually killed him and escaped... but not before she lay with him, and eventually bore his child.
Rex, unfortunately, doesn't quite understand Marianne's plight. Coming from a wealthy family himself (nobles, in fact), he thinks that she should have been honored that her child would have such money and success. Marianne disagrees: her happiness and freedom were worth more than any gold or titles the lord could have offered. A lengthy conversation about bloodlines ensues: Rickee is not a fan of dynasties, while Dimitri seems rather uncomfortable with the conversation as a whole and refuses to participate (Marianne picks up on this). Rex is 100% in favor for them, so when Marianne says that she doesn't care one fig how blue her baby daddy's blood was, Rex still seems confused, but he drops the subject.
The Defiants leave the cave and find a place to set up camp. As they do, Dimitri asks Marianne to come with him - he has something to tell her, but doesn't want everyone to hear what he has to say. At the same time, Rex and Rickee talk by the campfire.
Rex admits to Rickee that his book has an unsigned contract from Asmodeus in it, which he has not written in since he first spoke to the god. Rickee freaks out: the Defiants might believe that their new friend was always meaning to betray them to the god of fire if they find out about this contract, signed or not. He makes Rex promise not to tell the others, though Rex agrees only with confusion, not understanding why they wouldn't.
Meanwhile, in the boys' tent, Dimitri closes the tent flaps before turning to Marianne. His words come spilling out, one after the next: he admits that he may have a child: a child born to his brother's wife. Strangely, Marianne doesn't judge him for it. She instead listens to him, and then pulls him to a tight, sympathetic hug. Dimitri, desperate for such kindness, crumbles apart and begins to sob. When he finally pulls himself together and asks Marianne why she doesn't care, she scoffs. Why should she? Dimitri's brother sounds like a dick anyways.
She then admits that seeing Dimitri with her own daughter and in her home made her feel like he was.... meant to be there. In her home. With her and her child. Marianne then asks Dimitri if he's ever been in love. The wizard thinks for a moment, before saying that he isn't sure. When he asks her the same question, Marianne defensively denies it. She stands abruptly, leaving the tent just as Rickee arrives.
Defeated, Rickee and Dimitri snuggle up together. The last thing Dimitri says before drifting off to sleep is, "Feelings are hard."
Character(s) interacted with
- Cassidy
- Whiskey
- Avoracious Pim
Related Reports
Rishaa Parbat
None Wood Half-Elf (Monastic Learning)
Monk 6
Monk 6
51 / 51 HP
STR
8
8
DEX
20
20
CON
16
16
INT
12
12
WIS
16
16
CHA
13
13
Rickee Trail
None Tiefling (Urchin)
Bard 5
Warlock 1
Bard 5
Warlock 1
33 / 33 HP
STR
9
9
DEX
16
16
CON
10
10
INT
12
12
WIS
15
15
CHA
18
18
Dimitri Markov
Zombie (Acolyte)
Wizard 5
Wizard 5
28 / 28 HP
STR
11
11
DEX
14
14
CON
15
15
INT
18
18
WIS
12
12
CHA
11
11
Rex Dynamio Xenetar
Chaotic Neutral Rock Gnome (Sage & Noble)
Artificer 6
Artificer 6
35 / 35 HP
STR
8
8
DEX
11
11
CON
16
16
INT
20
20
WIS
11
11
CHA
10
10
Marianne Snowden
Lawful Good Shifter (Sage)
Barbarian 6
Barbarian 6
71 / 71 HP
STR
19
19
DEX
18
18
CON
19
19
INT
18
18
WIS
16
16
CHA
9
9
Report Date
18 Nov 2022
Primary Location
Secondary Location
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