Cronenberg It Up

*In-game Date*: July 23, 6804

*Participating Members*: Dhalia, Ray, Roz, Marwyn, Valter, & Pieter

*Base Status*: Living Quarters + Secure Base + Storm Shelter + Hidden Base + Informant Network + District Tier Upgrade

*Mission*: Kill the undead grey merchant cronenberg monster.

*Mission Result*: Monster is fully dead, reputation improved.

*Achievements*: 5433xp (per player)

## The Story

The gang are in their new *new* hideout in Old Town and discuss what to do with Fela now that Rosie is dead. Dhalia suggests leaving Fela with Denna Beacner so she stays out of harm's way, but everyone thought that was a dumb idea and vetoed it. The consensus was that Fela will be babysat by Roz and the Stormguard interns when Roz is on missions. Roz seems to be particularly attached to kids, so this seems like a good plan. The crew is about to head out when they notice Pieter Taarudesh, a half-elf swashbuckler rogue that has joined The Stormguard during the chaos that happened a week ago. Marwyn smartly asks around to figure out where the undead grey merchant blob (from here on out referred to as "the cronenberg") and learns there have been sightings around the canals and sewers of the Inner South Docks, Wright Yard, and The Drips. The most recent suspicious activity reported was Rickard, the half-elf gondolier went missing and they found his gondola smashed up in the north part of the Wright Yard canal.

The party makes their way to the Stormwarden Belltower in the Inner South Docks where they last encountered the Grey Merchants (see C2Ep20). Pieter notices a war ship in the bay called The Empyrian; it is both a sea ship and airship. He wants to steal it, but Marwyn is able to talk him into staying back on task. The party make their way back down toward the experimental chamber where they fought the undead and Valter does his ranger thing and is able to track down where the cronenberg went after forming. They destroy the metal cocoon robot before following the trail of black sludge down into the sewers. Marwyn and Ray notice a possibly-alive dwarf stuck to the ceiling by black goo. Marwyn hops on Ray's shoulders and uses her dagger to cut away at the goo and the party helps get the dwarf's body to the ground. It looks like he's breathing, so Dhalia was going to give him a health potion, but Marwyn opens his mouth first to check his breathing and the death beetles (black beetles with white skull markings on their back) fly out. Marwyn voices her plan to cut the dead dwarf's head off, but Dhalia has reservations. While they discuss, Pieter hacks off the dwarf's legs with his sword, then Marwyn starts to cut of the arm but stops halfway through. Dhalia and Ray turn around, too disturbed by the sight, and they share a look. They continue, following Valter's lead. They notice some more bodies on the ceilings but don't mess with them. At one point Marwyn and Ray notice a dark humanoid shape dart away from their sight down the hallway. The group takes a moment to discuss if they should head back or not, but decide to continue forward to follow the creature.

Valter halts the group when he notices a turn in the path and can just make out a large, dark, non-humanoid shape in a large chamber filled with corpse piles and some zombies. He casts pass without trace and the group moves forward in preparation for a surprise round. Valter gets closer to use his Hunter's Sense to deduce the cronenberg and a zombie's strengths and weaknesses; he finds that the cronenberg is resistant to poison and necrotic damage and non-magical weapons, but is probably vulnerable to fire. The zombie is definitely vulnerable to fire. He relays the information to the rest of the party, then Marwyn rushes the monster. She does a great deal of damage (nat 20!) to the cronenberg with her moon-touched rapier. The cronenberg radiates some black dusts 20 feet from it and poisons Marwyn, but strangely she does not seem *damaged* by the poison although she is afflicted by it. Roz comes charging in after and also does some insane amount of damage to the monster. She is afflicted by the poison despite her monkish resilience. Pieter hits the cronenberg with a flaming sword, then backs away, but he is still poisoned due to the black dust's range. Ray comes in with a fireball and the huge monster falls apart into a eight medium-sized zombies with the undead thri-kreen leader in the middle. Dhalia casts storm sphere while the zombies get their bearing and does some extra lightning damage to the thri-kreen. During the fight, many of the party becomes paralyzed or afraid of the zombies due to their dreadful glare ability. Marwyn and Roz are blinded. The zombies manage to curse half the party with mummy rot, preventing those affected from being healed (and their hit points will decrease by 10 after 24hrs, and another 10 every 24hrs after that). Luckily Ray and Dhalia were not paralyzed or feared or blinded - although Dhalia *was* cursed - and they managed to kill most of the zombies with their spells destructive wave and lightning bolt, respectively. Valter almost dies, but he is able to survive thanks to his half-orc relentless endurance. Ray uses his scourge aasimar ability to deal radiant damage to the remaining two zombies; unfortunately Dhalia, Marwyn, and himself also get hurt by it. Dhalia then willingly takes a hit in order to get the perfect shot at the zombies with another lightning bolt. With the last zombies destroyed, Ray starts to loot the bodies, finding 724 gold pieces and divvies it up evenly among the party. Dhalia grabs the brass teardrop amulet from the thri-kreen's body that controlled the metal cocoon robot. Pieter starts to light all the corps piles on fire with his sword and more death beetles come swarming out of the bodies. Dhalia feels this is the time to nope out of there and the party makes a hasty retreat. She grabs a few scrap pieces from the metal robot that had runes on it on the way out. The Stormguard makes their way back to their new base in Old Town and pay Oli for his greater restoration abilities in order to be uncursed. Also thanks to Oli's magic, Marwyn becomes unafflicted by whatever strange affect The Writhing Philosopher put on her at the Masquerade Ball (see C2Ep22).