COS II Session 7

ERA001 assigned they/them at thumbnail

## Starring...

* Barovian Freedom Fighters
	+ Red, briefly about to stab a party member, what was up with that?
	+ Xadriel Maverran, countercharmer extraordinaire
	+ Tokili, soup delver
	+ Galia Trey, shot through the chest (she got better)
	+ Stone, down a glove
* ERA001, the only social interaction on the continent
* A friendly elemental who only wants to heal you :)

Notable absentees: Max von Austrahlung, +2 shortsword, Twiggy

## New Friends(?), Old Enemies

During the party's short rest, some strange activities are afoot. First of which: there is a large, unnatural, rocky hill in the dead center of the oasis. The strange hill is filled with delicious Monster Energy™. Some dinosaurs seemed to enjoy Doing the Dew®, as they never seemed to stop drinking from the hill.

The other, more important and cool development comes with the introduction of a new NPC: ERA001, a staff-wielding robot in a different style than both Birdwatcher and MRVN, with a digital alarm clock-like head. She is spotted by the many-eyed Red while attempting to skulk around invisibly. Unfortunately, she is not modelled after one of those fancy alarm clock radios that has a speaker (convoluted way of saying ERA is mute). Numerous attempts are made to communicate with ERA, with the only successful attempt being offering her a pen and paper, on which she scribbles a crude drawing of her staff interacting with the Kool-Aid© mountain. Before the party has a chance to interpret the drawing, ERA climbs up the hill and dives into the Fanta™ Green Apple, which she is ejected from immediately by an arcane blast. Time to roll initiative!

As it turns out, the party has in fact have been japed—that's no hill at all, but some godless amalgamation of a water and rock elemental that begins to float through the air (at least according to the token, which has been described as "not correct at all"). ERA, who landed in the water, turns invisible right as combat begins. Tokili decides to spend ~~most of~~ the whole battle enclosed in a *bead of force* under the NyQuil™, in which he sees a dead aboleth and a powerful magic jawbreaker. He keeps getting harmlessly bounced up and down in the drink by powerful blasts of arcane energy fired by the magic orb near the bottom. Meanwhile, everyone else takes damage from the more conventional aspects of a gargantuan mass of rock and slime, such as "being pummelled" and "getting mauled by the aforementioned Dew-drunk dinosaurs". ERA, after receiving her fair share of the latter, joins Tokili inside the elemental.

Outside of the beverage beast, Red, Stone, Galia, and Xadriel engage in more traditional combat with the elemental. Xadriel finds his healing upstaged as the elemental, strangely enough, begins healing friend and foe alike. It attempts to take control of overhealed targets via charm, because any kindness is a front for evil intent in a Curse of Strahd campaign, or something. Anyhow, Xadriel uses his newfound free time to engage in non-healing support. Galia spends multiple turns being attacked by dinosaurs and, despite the elemental's best efforts, ends up at single-digit HP before deciding to ask for additional healing. Red and Stone make up the offensive front, both conjuring *spiritual weapon*s. Red gets in a few good hits before succumbing to the charm (he later tries to attack Galia, but is instantly cured of his charm by her holy aura). To avoid being charmed, Stone sticks her hand in her own *blade barrier.* Galia, HP still in the single digits, decides to reposition to inside the Hi-C® Ecto Cooler™.

This is widely regarded as a mistake.

She apparently forgot that the reason Tokili wasn't taking damage from the arcane blasts was because it was impossible for him to be damaged through the *bead of force*, meaning he was only affected by the blasts' ejection effect. Galia receives the full power of a blast, taking 105 psychic damage and being ejected from the limenade. Soon after that, ERA pulls the magic ball out of the elemental, causing it to lose its form and ending the battle.

Galia is healed and the bigass orb is analyzed by Tokili. The highly-illegal performance enhancing drugs he injected during the battle help him determine that this is an ancient, much-larger ancestor of the Martikovs' winery gems. This reveal is a massive headache, as it means that this particularly powerful artifact has been powering magical creatures to annoy the party for millions of years.

ERA silently offers to teleport the party to a location—the fact she was going too means it's not an instant kill trap—so who are they to decline, off to wherever she sends them!

## Cave Dwelling

The teleportation leads to a cavern dwelling. Furniture there is nothing more than logs resting on the ground and also a dead brontosaurus. Scattered across the floor and strung up on the walls are notes. A collection of them are numbered, following the fearful writings of someone (presumably ERA) describing their experiences in a new time: excitement at a machine working, being chased out of a jungle by some sort of construct, then panickedly describing losing memories of different spells and pieces of languages, before finally dissolving into crude drawings. Stone tries casting *greater restoration* on ERA to no effect (a great use of *revivify* diamonds).

The party decides to introduce ERA to the wonders of modern technology by drawing the MMMMM on ERA's cave wall to rest for the night. She is invited in, and she brings a +1 (her dead brontosaurus).

Red and Galia beeline for their rooms and fall asleep instantly. Stone visits Xadriel to ask how darkvision works, with Xadriel explaining that while most creatures with natural darkvision see in shades of grey, he sees in reds. Tokili recovers another one of Birdwatcher's memories at the DM's suggestion. After the talking head's latest gossip concludes, Tokili does his world famous "entering Stone's room and coughing" bit before discussing some dumb stuff nobody cares about, then finally retreating to his room.

In the morning, ERA has done what the Martikovs couldn't and used the magic jawbreaker to power the brontosaurus back to life. The party rides out of the cave on its back, setting course for the jungle that separates them and the volcano that they know is important because it was the first thing described.

## Developments

* ERA001 has been introduced.
	+ The BFF and ERA are allies(?).
	+ ERA's brontosaurus has been introduced.
* The winery gem (singular) is in the party's possession.
	+ The Barovian Freedom Fighters now harbor more ill will toward the Martikovs.
* Birdwatcher Memory 3 has been recovered.
* Stone shared the burden of knowledge\* with Tokili.
* Twiggy, despite being absent, saw every dinosaur in this session. Did you hear that, Twiggy? You can leave them alone now. Twiggy, please, just follow the party.

## Trivia

* Tokili's recovery of Birdwatcher Memory 3 was technically illegal, as he had already recovered a memory earlier that day at the oasis.
* Tokili's insight check on Stone revealed that something is off about her story.