Remove ads by subscribing to Kanka or enabling premium features for the campaign.

  1. Journals

Lackadaisical Liberation

Claw Recap
2021-05-08

Lesotruth 13th, 989 IaC

  • The party continued onwards in the Splintering Halls, following the sounds of scraping metal
  • The group mucked around in a room with a pipe, but were unable to break into it and soon lost interest
  • They discovered the Iron chained up in a nearby cell, where strange magic circles were pulling metal from his body, which he seemed to naturally generate
    • Steve disabled the circles and Merja broke his chains with her big demon arm
    • The Iron's suit of armor quickly regenerated and he pulled off a chunk of it, fashioning it into a crude hammer
  • The group headed down the corridor, checking each of the side rooms out
    • The party found a room with a locked door, but had no lockpicks, so Merja began to use her Iron Commander to shape some from metal supplied by the Iron
    • Ilryn found a room with 2 chimeras and quickly closed it
    • In another side room, Lambchop was trapped in a game of wits against a ghost-like specter that sapped his lifeforce
      • Lambchop couldn't leave the game, and was unable to hear the advice of his compatriots on strategy
      • Lambchop ended the game by banging the pieces together like a child, causing the ghost to flee
      • He took the board with him afterwards
    • Continuing down the corridor, the party encountered a dark room with an ominous metal container, feeling an intense fear as they looked upon it
      • Caedali approached it as other members of the party fled, opening it to find only a desiccated corpse
      • The feeling of fear and discomfort subsided as Caedali saw the corpse, but immediately began against when she turned around, causing her to flee the room
      • Those who also witnessed the corpse began to flee when they took their eyes off it, but felt as if they should have closed the container first
      • When the group had all turned to run, Caedali felt a breath upon her neck, and turned to find that the corpse had somehow exited the dark room and followed her, lying on the floor
      • Looking at it again, the fear disappeared, and Caedali was able to strike the corpse with Zevian's Nail to pull out its curse
    • The party found a room containing a bathtub, and the water moved to pull Ilryn under
      • The group tried numerous things to free Ilryn, resulting in Lambchop getting pulled in and eventually Caedali as well
      • With the help of the Iron and Kel, Merja was able to tip the tub over, spilling out the water and freeing the trapped individuals
      • Steve and Noesis just watched
    • Caedali opened a door into a room containing a smiley face in blood, which Lambchop noticed was dripping from the ceiling
      • A strange laughing voice was heard escaping from the room and the group decided it was best to just leave all of that alone
  • Finishing up the lockpicks, Merja handed them over to Caedali and Lambchop to try and open the prior locked door, which contained Eliza Millheart
    • Their attempts failed, gumming up the lock with broken picks
    • Lambchop resorted to using his Dustmaker to take a chunk out of the wall
    • Caedali helped to free the trapped Eliza as Lambchop looted Unknown
    • Eliza remarked upon the unfortunate hand she'd been dealt regarding the curse of her brother Anathen
    • Lambchop loaned the dripping greatsword to the somewhat frail-looking Eliza for the time being
  • Ilryn led the ground down the hall again, running face-first into a gelatinous cube, one of the "cleaners"
    • Despite some of the party members getting stuck in the cube a few times, the group managed to take care of it eventually
  • At the end of the hall, the party found a room full of weapons and gear, stocking up on equipment, armor, ammo, and recovering some of their stolen goods
    • Lambchop found a peculiar cloak with many pockets in it
  • Led by Noesis, the party decided to head towards the Ossuate's office in search of their belongings and answers
    • The group found a room with treasures that was obviously trapped, electing to circle back later if they had time in order to avoid unnecessary damage
    • The group peeked into a room that contained a large organ, which Ilryn felt compelled to play, despite a foreboding note left by the Ossuate
      • Ilryn started off with a rocky performance, noticing her hands were bleeding with small lacerations
      • She quickly turned her performance around, playing a haunting melody that the piano seemed to enjoy
      • An image appeared behind Ilryn of her harp and its location, as it was something she desired
  • The party made their way into a laboratory room, where two Dark Embers were hard at work reconstituting the man that was hunting Lambchop for his sword
    • Despite the mages politely asking the group to leave the room, they rummaged around for a while, discovering some books and experiment logs
    • The group toyed with the idea of attacking the mages, but ultimately chose to move on
  • As the party moved down the hall, they came face to face with another 'cleaner', and prepare for battle
    • As the first cube took damage, Kel noticed another one coming down the hall from the back just a a third one revealed itself behind the first
    • The party backed up into the organ room and the laboratory
    • The mages angrily asked Lambchop to leave, and when he instead approached them, they turned hostile
    • As the group hammered on the cubes and were swallowed up here and there, Lambchop exited the lab frothing at the mouth under the influence of a dark spell
    • Lambchop attacked Ilryn, but came to his senses soon after
    • The mages locked the door behind Lambchop as he left, and the group decided they were more trouble than they were worth
  • The party managed to finish up the battle with minor scuffs and bruises, moving on to the Ossuate's office
    • Lambchop deftly unlocked the door, revealing a strange, massive, stitched up corpse standing at its center
    • Ilryn peeked in and spotted her harp, so she moved in to grab it, and was immediately attacked by the flesh golem
    • The party fought the construct, finding that much of their magic was ineffective against it
    • As the group hammered it it eventually flew into a rage, though it began to fall apart quickly when it was burned
    • The golem was eventually finished off after a meaty series of crits from Ilryn
  • The party began to peel apart the office, finding a few of their own things and some notes that the Ossuate was keeping on everyone
    • Lambchop found that the Ossuate didn't really care for him, and replaced his stomach with the soul orb simply to torture him
      • Her notes indicated that the package he had received was full of drugs and had a code woven into it by the Unknown asking for aid in Atherdale due to the increasingly likely war of secession looming in the future
      • Lambchop decided that he would deliver this message himself
      • Lambchop took a bottle containing a speck of floating darkness from the Ossuate's desk, referred to as a 'burning shadow'
    • Caedali was a passing interest to the Ossuate; she had been interested in claiming the power of Zevian's Nail, but due to the fact she had difficulty in separating it from her, she settled for making Caedali a "cursed vessel"
      • The Ossuate speculated on the nature of the original curse that afflicted Caedali, attributing it fondly to the witch Soulstitcher
      • Caedali's curse functioned as a snowballing avalanche of misery that would continue to pull in more souls and detach them from their bodies as they were killed
      • The Ossuate was impressed with Caedali's ability to keep herself together, stating that most would have been torn into a mindless puppet of impulse by this point and attributing her mindfulness to her elven heritage
      • The Ossuate had gone through Caedali's diary and mockingly annotated it, and Eliza read this aloud to Caedali as she attempted to comfort her
    • Ilryn was originally not interesting to the Ossuate, and she began with simply harvesting the Mask of Fear and using the Unknown on her
      • She accidentally discovered that certain temporal magic did not effect an area around Ilryn after a beast of sand invaded her dungeon to attack the warlock
      • The Ossuate deduced that this was due to a "shard of time" that was embedded in Ilryn's shoulder, and was planning a surgery to extract it
      • She wished to use this crystal to ward against her attempts at manipulating time, as she did not wish to draw the attention of someone named Unknown or Merrick the Mad
      • She also remarked on Ilryn's harp, stating that it was temporally unlocked, and time did not seem to pass for it
      • Ilryn collected her harp from the office
    • Merja was the subject of much of the Ossuate's unbridled hatred, and her current form was the Ossuate's attempt at levying as much despair and suffering upon the sorcerer as possible
      • The Ossuate had history with Merja's teacher Pelema, as she had apparently betrayed a witch's coven and killed its leader, Dreadwitch Enama
      • The Ossuate was uncharacteristically driven by petty motives of revenge and fury against Pelema and by extension Merja, as she used her teacher's special brand of magic
      • Merja discovered her eye in a jar in the office, as well as her tongue and lungs being used by the flesh golem
    • Kel had proved particularly useful to the Ossuate, and the witch seemed to harbor a twisted attachment towards the cleric
      • The Ossuate had further plans to break Kel's mind by forcing her to take on the memories and feelings of a group of savage and sadistic constructs she had prepared with complete loyalty to herself
      • The Ossuate made remarks regarding the motives Patalir had for allowing one of her clerics to act in such a way, questioning the relevance of the Bag of Teeth, which she stated was created by an adherent of Cavaesi, the goddess of arousal and teeth
      • The Ossuate stored the bag in a room in the dungeon that contained the Unknown, a potent artifact with reality-warping properties that the Ossuate had simply been using to regrow teeth when she lost her own
    • The Ossuate had taken a grave interest in Steve, and was terribly fearful of him, often referring to him as the "dark one"
      • The Ossuate had become fearful after witnessing the effects that Black Book's magic had had on him
      • She had been formulating a curse that would effectively trap Steve within his own mind in an attempt to avoid a "terrible future", though she was dubious that it would work
      • She had toyed with the idea of trapping him within a "time loop", but feared the gaze of Elleryndel and/or Merrick
      • Steve took back the Black Book and pilfered a number of books and notes from the Ossuate's office regarding time magic and the work of Unknown
      • Steve's old Inkwell Ring was located here as well
    • In addition, multiple symbols of the Thousand King could be witnessed throughout the office
      • Opening up a diary, the group managed to discover the Ossuate's plans, which simply put were:
        • Reach the bottom of the Tower of Startha and retrieve the 'mending artifact'
        • Use the 'mending artifact' on the Great Colossus and pull it from the ground
        • Use the Great Colossus to cross the Sea of Ash and break open the Prison of the Chained Flame to free the Thousand King
        • Reap the suffering caused by the Thousand King to grow in power
        • Attack the Kalhastian Empire, bring it to ruin, and make the world fall to chaos
      • The group also found that Anise was an unwitting puppet that had had her mind warped by the Ossuate, who carved the symbol of the Thousand King on her back and turned her into his servant
      • Located beneath the Splintering Halls was the Great Colossus, a massive construct capable of great devastation, but currently broken beyond mundane repair
    • Finally, the group was able to find the layout plans for the dungeon
      • The party learned of six teleportation circles in the dungeon that required a 'key' to activate each of them
      • The deck of the Deardamned, floating at the mouth of the Gullmouth Gulf in the Sea of Ash
        • Requires a bit of seawater to teleport
      • The Hands of Love brothel in Adalhast
        • Requires a bit of silk to teleport
      • The Singing Bloodkeep in the Hecarate Homelands
        • The Singing Steel is one of the substances that can harm the Ossuate
        • Blood must be spilled to activate the teleporter
      • The Poison Pits of Levilthan in the Endraen Coast
        • Former home of Enama’s Coven before Pelema’s betrayal
        • Requires a vial of Levil Poison, the weakness of the Ossuate to teleport
        • The Ossuate is known to keep a vial of the substance on her person
      • The Unknown in the valley of Raav within the Free Lands
        • Used by the Ossuate to pillage powerful items from the Covetous Beasts
        • Requires a piece of burning shadow to teleport
      • The Icespire Arena in the Frostwilds, home of the Giants of Kant, the Ossuate’s home tribe
        • Requires a piece of ice to teleport
  • Surviving the massive info dump, the group exited the office and headed back to the treasure room, using their knowledge of the glyphs to disarm the magic circle
    • The group looted a strange-looking ring, a corroded scimitar, and a stony flail from the chests
  • The party began systematically making their way around the remaining rooms of the dungeon, using the Ossuate's notes to avoid traps and keeping out of the way of the Cleaners and Dark Embers
    • The group discovered a room full of their old magical items, which they gleefully looted
    • They attempted to wrangle a belligerent magic carpet but made the mistake of releasing it
    • They found a perpetually waving silken flag that they decided to use to travel to the Hands of Love
    • The group found a room that functioned as a locus of the Ossuate's power, but chose to leave it alone as messing up in disarming it could result in the destruction of all of Bucktuck City, if not more
  • The group finally made their way to the teleporters with a few of their stragglers and teleported to the Hands of Love in Adalhast
    • The party appeared in the middle of an opulent bathhouse surrounded by naked old men