Pick-up Game 40: Mass Seduction

General Summary

After the events of Pick-up Game 39: Fear the Future, the Lents Irregulars traveled to the Island Elf to determine their next steps in defeating the beholder, Chenoweth.
Upon reaching the Island Elf, they found Ma'am Peggy ushering them quickly inside to meet her sole current customer, Buster Unit 37. It appeared that the presence of Buster had driven her other patrons away.
After some awkward initial conversations, Buster was caught up to speed on what had been happening with the "Eyeball Creature" in the town of Lents. A conversation occurred about what to do with the statue of Fremont Lents, and without asking, Buster reduced the "statue" to a small enough size that Zabbas and Willamina were able to move Lents to a safer location. With that done, the Lents Irregulars, now including Buster, retired to the Leach House.
At the Leach House, Buster and Samel got to know each other better in the basement mortuary. Willamina warned Buster not to light the house on fire and retired early, getting cozy in preparation for whatever challenges the next day would bring. Tinga relaxed with some hopweed in the empty guest bedroom downstairs. Zabbas and Gabilan returned to the Island Elf for a while to have further drinks before Ma'am Peggy gently rejected Zabbas' advances. Returning to the Leach house, Zabbas made himself comfortable in the living room of the house in order to avoid the decreasing temperatures outisde. Gabilan and Pony Pony pitched a camp on the banks of Powell's Creek.
In the wee hours of the morning, Willamina woke from a pleasant dream and noticed two things simultaneously: lights were on in the upper floor of Wizard Steele's house, and someone was making noise in the hallway. Investigating the hallway noise, Willamina discovered that Murdina was up and wandering dangerously close to the stairs in a blissful dream-like slumber. Willamina woke Murdina, while around the same time, Zabbas awoke to hear people leaving the basement of the house. Zabbas followed the noise and found Buster and Samel walking in dream-like states towards the town center of Lents. He managed to wake them, while Willamina woke Murdina and sent her back to bed. Tinga was sleeping soundly through the events.
Quickly realizing that something was amiss, Zabbas found Gabilan and Pony Pony wandering in similar dream-like states. After they were aroused from this curious sleep-walking, the group convened and set out to see if any other members of town were being affected in similar ways.
In the challenge of pre-dawn light, the group discovered many other people in various states of shambling towards the center of town. It was quickly ascertained that people needed to be shaken awake, and that loud noises and environmental factors weren't enough to wake them up. Of the dozen or so people that the group woke up, Willamina was unable to rally them to wake up others, but Tinga succeeded inspiring many to take up the cause.
As the light grew, the scope of the problem became evident: it wasn't a handful, or a dozen, or scores of people that had fallen victim to this sleeping reverie, but a number at least over one hundred. Gabilan shifted into the form of an owl and scouted the town, and reported back that five- to six-hundred people were in thrall to whatever compulsion this was.
With physical shaking seeming to be the only way of rousing people, the group was quickly overcome by the numbers of sleepwalkers. Recruited people did what they could, and Willamina shifted into the shape of a cougar to rouse people faster, but the task quickly became overwhelming. Zabbas and Buster, both trying to determine ways to wake people in greater numbers, made possible plans while the rest of the team exhausted themselves in the process of physically waking people. By 11am, most of the people under this strange influence had been woken up and the threat seemed to have passed for the time being.
Willamina convened a meeting in the town center and urged the people to set watches in case the phenomenon occurred again. Ma'am Peggy, who had been under the effects of the reverie, encouraged the same thing.
The group retired to the Leach house in order to plan their next steps. The conversation stretched into creative directions and began to coalesce around creating a hot air balloon version of a beholder around the time a visitor arrived. A half-elf from the Mulino band stood outside the house and explained that many members of Mulino had wandered off during the morning hours. Although Alkikahkawa was not able to offer direct assistance, she provided rings of protection to all members of the group except for Samel, who was strangely excluded. The members of the group that had been gifted the rings put them on. The half-elf from Mulino also explained that their community was planning to sleep in shifts, which was quickly embraced by the Lents Irregulars.
Before hot air balloon planning could resume, a very young Woods Watcher arrived at the house to let the group know that Constable Pep had not been accounted for. The group noted this, and went back into Lents to encourage people to sleep in shifts. Returning to the Leach house, they decided to rest for the night, and set out early next morning for Bestest under the guise of sleepwalkers.
Arriving at Bestest the next morning, the group found that the gates of Bestest were open and an enchanted crowd was gathered around the strange presence of a big-town theatre right in the middle of primitive Bestest. Samel approached the edifice of the theatre and discovered that although it was real, it was poorly-crafted, or maybe more accurately: poorly-realized.

POST CREDITS

The team enters the theatre only to discover an empty, poorly crafted lobby. Passing beyond red velvet drapes that have the weight of cotton sheets, they enter an auditorium. A woman in the auditorium states "Isn't it lovely!? The show is about to start soon. My husband is enjoying a backstage tour."
Above the seats of the auditorium, but below the high ceiling, a black hazy mass exists. Tentacles extrude from the black spot, coiling around the woman's husband. He sighs pleasantly as spider-like jaws emerge from the black mass and bite deeply into his abdomen. He exhales a languid, happy smile as the bite pulls sections of his intestines away from his core.

Preceded by: Pick-up Game 39: Fear the Future
Followed by: Pick-up Game 41: Rattlesnake

Report Date

26 Sep 2022