S07E11: The Gang Proves They're Not Murder Hobos

== Aside ==
Kanye is not present today, but we anticipate some amount of combat, so we’re deciding what we want to do without the frontliner. We’ve decided Kanye is parking his power armor next to the guardian at the front gate, and we’ll summon it via Epona’s song if we need any magic missiles or auto-pilot grappling action.
== Previously on MCVFD ==
Last time we arrived at the monitoring station in front of the Slaad Spawning stone, where we found a bunch of dead Gith Zorai and Slaad bodies in the courtyard. We killed 2 remaining Slaads and explored a bit - we found the front door was locked, a dead scientist had a key, and there was a journal entry from a Gith Zorai kid that we’ve since named Will Robinson.
We found the torn out first page containing the details about him coming to work on the research station, to work with Fresenius Research, which was the company we previously ran into poisoning a river and selling the cure. The front of the page just had a bit about how excited he was to start his new job as a research assistant, the back had a hastily scrawled note that said, help we’re trapped on level 4.
We now have a keycard and a way to get in. Um had peered into the windows on the 3rd and 4th floor, where he saw the interiors were in disarray. The windows were barred unfortunately, since the tower was built to withstand Slaad attacks, so we can’t enter through them.
== Session ==
Averlyth hands the keycard to Nissa, who boops it. We hear the door unlock. Sorith goes in first.Nissa: Oh, this means I’m going to be walking, gross.We’re deciding real quick if Nissa is driving the power armor with a joystick or not. Maybe not… for now.
Sorith peeks into the facility.The first floor is an open plan lab, with the only other exits on the other end displaying a keycard reader with a yellow circle. The entire area appears devoted to scientific research on Slaads. There’s all sorts of equipment, drawings, etc. Along one wall are a series of cages, all easily large enough to hold a full grown Slaad.
They’re all open and empty.
Scattered around the floor are a lot of bodies, in various states of dismemberment. Also in here are 3 Red and 2 Blue Slaad. They have not yet noticed Sorith. Sorith: … so you guys want me to go in and start punching things?Nissa casts Slow first, affecting their AC before we get into combat. Then she gives Averlyth a bardic inspiration.
Sorith runs up to Red Slaad A, the closest Slaad, and starts hitting it. He easily smashes it twice, then goes for a stunning strike - the Slaad wins the tie as a defender, so he punches him again as a bonus. He goes for one more stunning strike, and this time successfully stuns Red Slaad A until the end of Sorith’s next turn.DM: Your team members have gone into the building, and the ceiling looks unoccupied. Um, what would you like to do?Um: Well, you pre-empted my question.Um positions himself on the ceiling and then fires a crossbolt at Red Slaad A, bloodying it. Um ducks upside down to be closer to the ceiling.
Averlyth summons a Celestial Spirit (Avenger) in the open office floor plan. The Avenger appears like it was plucked out of Elden Ring and shoots a radiant blast at Red Slaad A, but then misses the second attack. Red Slaad A is starting to feel a little picked on.
Nissa terrifies Blue Slaad Alpha with psychic damage, causing him to retreat to the furthest corner of the room, near the cages. Then she uses her bonus action to give a bardic inspiration to Um.
Sorith finishes the job on Red Slaad A.DM: See, this is what I expected when I heard a monk was joining the group.Um fires an inspired shot at Blue Slaad Alpha, and then continues not hiding anywhere on the ceiling.
Two slowed Red Slaad rush towards Sorith, readying claw attacks. Sorith is slashed, and WOULD  be infected with the Chaos Phage, except it turns out he’s immune to diseases since level 10.
Averlyth misses a guiding bolt at one of the Red Slaads, but misses both of them.
The Avenger shoots Red Slaad Beta twice; the Red Slaad Beta still looks totally fine.
Red Slaad Charlie is no longer slowed, but Red Slaad Beta is still slowed.
Blue Slaad Alpha is running straight up to Nissa, slashing her with his claws. She does not catch the Chaos Phage, and manages to maintain her concentration too. She uses her reaction to cast “No Touchy” (Hellish Rebuke) - he immediately takes a huge amount of damage.
Blue Slaad Beta makes a biting attack on the Avenger, who takes some damage. Blue Slaad Alpha is also now no longer slowed.
Nissa casts Dissonant Whispers on Blue Slaad Alpha - the same Slaad that she whispered at before - and gets an attack of opportunity as it runs away again. It’s just shy of bloodied now.
Sorith hits and stuns Red Slaad Beta with his fancy staff, then tries to hit and stun Red Slaad Charlie while he’s at it. Now both of the remaining Red Slaads are incapacitated until the end of Sorith’s next turn. He runs for the Blue Slaad Beta hitting the Avenger, leaving the Red Slaads behind.
Um fires a crossbolt at Red Slaad Beta solidly bloodying him. Red Slaad Beta fails to shake off the Slowness too.
Averlyth casts Mirror Image and then Sanctuary on Nissa. The Avenger rises 5 ft into the air and shoots Blue Slaad Beta twice.
Blue Slaad Alpha runs for Nissa to make another attempt, but then fails the Sanctuary wisdom roll - he basically thinks better of it.
Blue Slaad Beta tries to swipe at the Avenger in the air, then goes for Sorith instead, who is no longer protected by Sanctuary because he attacked the Slaads. Nissa tries to help out, but he gets slashed after all.
Nissa casts Bear’s Endurance on Sorith, healing and buffing him but dropping the Slow concentration on the Slaads.
Sorith hits Blue Slaad Beta in front of him, then successfully stuns him. He spends a Qi point to have a patient defense, noticing that the Red Slaads are no longer stunned.
The group spends time brainstorming what it might look like for Um to drop out of the ceiling and dual-wield to double stab the Blue Slaad in front of Nissa. The conclusion eventually is that it wasn’t currently worth the math, but that we should find other options for him to do non-crossbolt-y things in combat. He shoots Blue Slaad Beta instead.
Red Slaad Beta is very nearly dead but has a very strong work ethic, so he sprints full tilt at Sorith. He swings wildly, angrily, and foams at the mouth in fury when he misses 3 hits in a row. 
Red Slaad Charlie looks around the room and seems to read the situation, decides he doesn’t need this, and goes to run out the front door. His path out takes him past Nissa. She misses and he shoves past her - we hear unhappy Slaad noises when he runs into both Kanye’s power armor and Averlyth’s parked Guardian from earlier. Red Slaad Charlie is no more.
Averlyth tries to shoot Red Slaad Beta but misses, and then casts Sanctuary on Nissa again since her attack of opportunity removed the previous one. The Avenger finishes the job on Red Slaad Beta after 2 shots.
The Blue Slaads decide this is not a good affair and try to bolt. Sorith hits one of the Blue Slaads on the way out, and then both of them meet their doom outside at the gate anyways.
The floor is now clear, and we have a moment to catch our breath.
Looking around, there’s a lot of medical research, paperwork, things like that. Nissa starts digging around in the research papers. There’s a lot of information, but surprisingly little new info - this floor appears to be dedicated to research that was confirming, or broadening the understanding about the Slaad’s reproduction cycles. There’s a few new notes about the gestation cycles of Slaad tadpoles. Mostly what she sees is a lot of evidence that they captured a Slaad, and then they take samples here, which are then all sent to the second floor.
As Nissa wanders around, she notices Daal starts growling. She’s already done some work out in the courtyard showing him the bodies there - he didn’t react to any of them there, but his hackles are up when she walks next to one of the bodies of the scientists. She investigates the body with Daal.
Nissa is a little distracted, but she doesn’t fail to notice that the body is coughing, which is unusual for a corpse. The body has a lot of wounds but the man is technically alive which is different from everyone else in the room.
Sorith restocks some of his alchemist’s supplies (chemical reagents) while he’s there. Averlyth gets confused by some of the math. Um sensibly checks some pockets of the dead bodies and manages to find a yellow keycard in one of the lab coats.
Sorith finds a journal entry; Nissa takes it and reads it. It’s the next journal entry from our boy.
Journal Entry: Day 17: It’s only been three weeks, but I’m already so glad I came! I’m learning so much (and the waffle bar is delicious!). The scientists here genuinely seem to like me. They do appear to find the idea of a Githzerai scientist unusual, but in a charming way, and seem to have largely adopted me as a sort of lab mascot. They delight in calling me over to show off what they’re doing, and tell me how our (our!) research into the Slaad lifecycle is going to save lives. While they can be a bit patronizing, they obviously mean well. I even met the head researcher! He’s a charming man with an infectious laugh who came down from the fourth floor specifically to meet me. He asked me a lot of questions and then spoke to the floor director privately. Later, I was told that he’d taken a personal interest in me, and instructed the floor director to promote me to level two! I can’t believe it, but I start tomorrow!
Averlyth casts Lesser Restoration and Healing Word on the scientist to cure him of the Slaad eggs. Daal stops growling, and now there’s a beat-up, terrified looking scientist on the floor.Scientist: Am I alive?? Who are you guys??Nissa: You know what’s hilarious? The only person that cares about introducing himself is not here.Nissa billows her cape and says we are the Mulmaster County Volunteer Fire Department - she has to introduce us so infrequently she stumbles over the words a little bit. The scientist asks what happened to the Slaad. He looks extremely disoriented, and ends up saying the last thing he knew was all of the cages opened, that he thought he was dead.
He says his access only covered level one, and that he was told they were working towards a cure. He hasn’t seen any evidence of progress for the year he’s been there, but that he’s “pretty low on the totem pole”.
Nissa asks what happened with the cages, usually there would be failsafes? The scientist says even if the power cut, the cages would’ve stayed closed - only way would’ve been if someone did it on purpose, but who would do that?
Nissa asks about Will Robinson. The scientist said Will was promoted to the second floor after a few weeks. Nissa asks how he felt about Will, if the promotion felt warranted. The scientist misinterprets the question as an implication that he was being racist, and says the workplace is equal opportunity.
Nissa asks about the keycard access in the building. The scientist says that the floor manager would’ve had it, then trails off as he realizes the floor manager is dead on the floor. Um remains quiet to avoid disclosing he now has the keycard.
Nissa asks if anything was weird recently; apparently they ran out of whipped cream at the waffle bar, but otherwise everything seemed to be normal. She recommends that he goes and sticks by Woodhouse outside.
After a quick debate about whether or not we need to take a rest, the group decides to press on. Nissa uses the gold keycard, and the door opens to a stairwell.Nissa: I hate stairs, using my stupid tiny little legs.Um: Does this building not have elevators?DM: Apparently that’s where I drew the lineThe group heads up to the second floor. There are double doors similar to the ones we came through on the first floor. Someone cracks the doors and peeks in; the large open layout is similar to the first floor, with the open workstations and lots of research going on. But it’s clear that the research on this floor were being done on human test subjects. There’s an orange keycard on the back, and it looks like some of the room is researching the effects of Slaad eggs and Chaos Phage on the human system.
There are charts, whiteboard covered in notes, papers everywhere. Downstairs there were cages along one wall clearly used to hold Slaads; here, the cages all have a gurney with heavy-duty straps. Every one appears to have a dead body dressed in a prison jumpsuit in them, with a chest wound indicating tadpoles emerged from them.
There are many dead bodies here that were gathered into a corner, where bodies are being fed to the tadpoles by several Slaads. The Slaads here look younger and leaner, and are wearing human clothes. Guarding the next is a Red Slaad wearing a prison jumpsuit and a Blue Slaad wearing a lab coat.Nissa: Fresenius man, they’re doing some shady stuff. That’s like two strikes now?Averlyth: We’re only on the second floor?????