The Man in Black

"The Man in Black" is episode 76 of SuperQuest Saga. The heavens above have cracked open and the party is running out of time...

## Synopsis

### Introduction

* William Stark shall be your faceless dungeon master for this evening.
* Josh Freeland is playing Sebastian Crenshaw, half-orc paladin.
* Your Special Guest Jake is playing Persephone Goldpetal the firbolg druid.
* Brian is a wizard from space that also rogues. And you can’t see him.

### Recap

Last time a lot of shit happened. *Victory’s Ascent* broke and they found themselves lost in a never ending forest. Eventually, the forest began to pick them off one by one and everyone got their own personal nightmare. Echo had a reunion with his old partner, Persephone had a reunion with her mom, and Sebastian had to deal with a bitchy Primina. Then they found the real Primina near the Emperor’s ship. The group found a crystal bridge leading to a far off shining city. They traveled over an hour on the bridge until they closed in on a mid-bridge plaza. The Guildmaster sent the group a hologram, he seemed very honored and excited to fight them. The party kicked his ass in a good fight. Gil gave them some parting information, decided not to blow himself up, and gave a final speech that totally wasn’t from Blade Runner\*. Echo put Gil’s body into his Secret Chest. Then the sky decided to crack open.

\*It totally was

### Unleaded

Starting from the portion of the sky above the distant nine pillars, the heavens begin to crack as if made of glass. Fissures miles long spread across the atmosphere leaving a window stained orange, red, blue, and purple. Between the colors, filling the void of the divisions, a darkness, a blackness, blacker than black, not emptiness, but a hungering nothingness. The ground beneath the party tremors for a moment before dissipating.

“Maybe that’s our cue to double-time it?” Percy suggests. The group quickly dashes up the glass bridge towards the city. As they draw closer, the bridge begins to ascend higher until they are level with some of the city’s tallest buildings. The path advances straight into the city from here amongst the skyscrapers towards the nine pillars at its center. Here the buildings are all made of crystal and they crowd around the bridge. As the party enters Kaddath, smaller glass bridges extend off the main one towards buildings all around. Each building has entrances and walkways that wrap around them at this altitude. Below the bridges they see more city and streets.

Echo, Persephone, and Sebastian look around. Everything is made of the crystal; fountains, trees, sculptures, benches, garden terraces, all made of the glass. Percy detects a life energy that is within that reminds her of Aetherium. Echo discerns this is a sort of proto-Aetherium. The city does not look lived in. They keep cautiously moving forward, deeper into the city on this roadway of bridges.

Every once in a while they encounter statues of tall humanoids, very out of place with the rest of the city’s decor. Each statue faces the same direction, towards the city center, and they all look different from each other. The first one is a tall human-looking man in hides with the antlers of a stag growing from his forehead. Echo takes a picture and labels it “Stag Man.” Next is a woman in furs and leather, covered in what appears to be frost. Echo takes a picture and titles it “Frosty Lady.” In the next plaza over is a statue of a female elf in a diaphanous gown with a bow on her back. Echo takes a picture and calls it “Felf.” The next one is a man with scaled skin, six arms, and the head of a serpent. Echo calls this photo “Snake Boy.” Next is a barrel chested, well muscled man wearing bracers and a leather skirt. Echo titles this photo “Kink Master.” The next one they find is an elderly man with a long beard in antique clothes with a gem topped staff. This photo is “Old Beard.”

Echo projects the six photos from his bracer jack so they can look at all of them. Percy observes that it looks like they were people who got frozen like the rest of this place. Sebastian takes special care to note the detail of the sculptures, they are immensely life-like, and this stirs some old knowledge. He does not recognize most of them but the details on the barrel-chested man stand out to him and he realizes this is a depiction of one of the Old Gods, Kord the Storm Lord. It is likely that the others are also Old World gods and Sebastian asks if Percy recognizes any of them as well. Percy was more into the earth and nature than organized religion, but she thinks that it’s cool to be in the presence of gods from their original world. As he inspects the statues Echo notices that they give off the same energy signature, just much larger than anything else around.

As they discuss the importance of the statues there is another blinding flash from above the pillars. The cracks in the sky spread and further fracture the heavens. Sebastian has a bad feeling and thinks they should stop looking at these statues and keep moving. Primina mentions that the statues creep her out, she feels like they are staring at her. “Ever since we entered the city I actually feel like we’re being watched.” She looks around the empty windows of the buildings. Now that she’s mentioned it, the others feel uneasy as well; though there is clearly no one in the windows it feels like there are eyes in the emptiness. Sebastian suggests they take a roundabout way to the pillars and they continue forward.

As the pillars grow close it becomes apparent that they are not actually pillars at all, they are statues of humanoids in a circle all facing each other. These statues are thousands of feet tall. They pass plaza after plaza and intersection after intersection on their journey through the city and then suddenly the city itself comes to an end. Stretching out before the party is a great abyssal emptiness and in the distance the nine statues stand on a floating island of Aetherium stone. The black void is filled with a thin, iridescent mist floating and reflecting the light of the shining city. Floating motes of jagged crystal meander in orbit around the central island. The glass bridge plunges into the void but rather than lead straight across it meanders and winds around great floating geodes and into the thick roiling mist.

Echo checks for traps and sees none. They quickly move out into the void. Looking over the edge of the bridge is disconcerting because it is a dark, empty nothingness. To fall here is to fall eternally. The party ventures into the mist, around and under stones miles tall, and the shining city behind them becomes obscured by the mist and stones. After about fifteen minutes the bridge begins to shake more violently than it did before. The vibration seems to disturb the mist and the geodes; the mist crackles with energy and the geodes fall from their orbits. Echo, Primina, and Sebastian are hit by the hailstorm of geodes. One of the larger geodes hits the bridge behind the party, shattering it and creating a 500-ft hole that blocks the way back.

### Exquisite

Percy checks to see if everyone else is okay and urges everyone on. After fifteen more minutes of travel the party makes it to the island. At the foot of a great hill made of Aetherium, the glass bridge widens to a 100-ft wide semicircle embedded into the stone of the island itself. A body can be seen lying on the platform in a pool of dark liquid. A human male hacks and coughs in what seems to be agony. Weak, pale, sweaty, and obviously dying a slow and painful death, Carter Huttenburg looks up as the group approaches.

Carter looks up and sees his former adventuring party. He gives them a half smile and coughs, then says “Wazzuuuuuuuuuuuup?” In the middle of his last word, Carter begins to retch violently, black liquid spewing from his mouth. When the vomit stops it is replaced by a black needle-like excrescence about a foot long that bends out of his mouth and around his skull. One after another until there are eight spider-like claws choking out of Carter’s mouth and gripping his head. Then Carter begins to tear. Slowly at first, his bones and muscles groaning against the expanding pressure, then there is a sickening snap as his jaw breaks, followed by a louder one as his skull splits apart. With a wet and grotesque sound too horrible to describe in words, Carter’s body bisects from head down, blood and viscera hurling in all directions, bones splintering and clattering to the ground.

Emerging from Carter’s ruinous remains is a loathsome, black monster made of fibrous leathery flesh with three arms ending in tentacles dripping in ichor, two muscular elephantine legs, and eight spider-like appendages protruding from its back. Where its head would be is a fourth tentacle, longer than the ones on the ends of its arms, with a mouth filled with needle sharp teeth and turned sideways in a twisted mockery of what a mouth should be. The creature stands roughly 10-ft tall but then it begins to grow. In the blink of an eye the blasphemous abomination before the party stands 30-ft tall. “Mmm. Exquisite. The sweetest of symphonies.”

The monster turns to the party. “My condolences on your friend’s… demise. I know how sentimental you corporal reality based primitives can be.” Echo looks at his friends and immediately casts Fireball in Nyarlathotep’s face. The fire burns some of the flesh on his face away but it immediately begins to heal.

### So Anyway, I Started Blasting

Echo looks around and asks, “Who wants a tasty Haste? It’s up for grabs, first come first served.” Nyarlathotep responds, “Well if you’re offering…” Echo casts Haste on Primina instead and starts strafing to the right, away from the party, and activates his Bladesong. Nyarlathotep says, “Your usefulness has reached its conclusion, I’m afraid. I do commend your efforts though. I would not have been displeased at your success but you are too late, and I will not allow you to interrupt His Majesty’s well earned annihilation. All will be unmade; the stars, the planets, the children, all of your loved ones, the very void itself will be as nothing. Myself included, of course.” As he speaks a pool of darkness begins to extend around him in a 30-ft radius and from this darkness every once in a while a black ichor that sometimes looks like a tentacle and sometimes looks like a screaming face breaks the surface briefly before dipping back down. He moves forward, the darkness creeping forward with him, until Primina, Percy, and Sebastian are all standing in the darkness. Nyarlathotep points at Sebastian, “Come and bear witness for I am Nyarlathotep, The Crawling Chaos, and where I walk is wrent with the scream of nightmares!” A face rises up and screams at Sebastian while tentacled arms reach up and grip at him, dealing damage. While Percy is not paying attention a tentacle reaches out from the darkness and grapples her. The aura of darkness hurts Sebastian as he stands in it. Sebastian strikes Nyarlathotep twice with his sword and adds a 4th level Smite to his damage. His shining sword seems to do some amazing damage and Nyarlathotep reels back and hisses with pain as the screams from the burbling darkness around become more numerous and louder. Persephone is grappled in the tendrils and takes damage from the darkness aura, but she holds her staff and casts Sunburst in the air above Nyarlathotep’s head and blasts him with radiant damage. A psionic link is made between Persephone and The Crawling Chaos through the tentacle that’s grappling her and her mind is rended as she loses concentration and takes psychic damage. Primina takes damage from starting in the darkness aura and transforms into a dragon. She rears up, takes flight, and swoops down with a fire breath attack at Nyarlathotep’s head. He avoids some of the damage.

Echo fires a ranged attack at Nyarlathotep dealing both cold and force damage then follows this up with a Firebolt, using his suit to swap the damage to force. He keeps his distance but flies 20-ft into the air. Nyarlathotep reaches out with his tentacled arms to hit Sebastian and Persephone as he says, “Azathoth will suffer nothing but the oneness of itself.” Seb and Percy both take necrotic damage and Persephone is unable to withstand the force of his attack so her maximum health is decreased by 33. Nyarlethotep remains in place and with his third tentacled arm he makes an attack against Primina, grappling her in mid-air and dealing psychic damage. Sebastian takes more damage from standing in the dark aura. Sebastian uses his bracer jack to turn on Haste and swings at Nyarlathotep. His first two swings connect and he imbues both with Divine Smite for extra damage. He lands a critical hit with the third attack and adds a 4th level Divine Smite to deal massive damage. Persephone takes more damage from being inside the dark aura. She looks at Sebastian being the badass motherfucker that he is and says, “It’s up to you, Seb.” and she casts Heal on him at 7th level, restoring 80 hp. Then her body is engulfed in darkness, but that darkness becomes peppered with starlight as she Wild Shapes into the Galactic Elemental. In this form she cannot be grappled so she flies out of Nyarlathotep’s grasp. Nyarlathotep reaches out with a tentacle from the pool of blackness on his feet to grab at Sebastian, but Sebastian avoids it. Primina claws and bites at the tentacle around her as she attempts to escape the grapple. She is unsuccessful but she strikes out with one of her claws to deal damage.

Echo swoops down to and casts Faithful Hound at Nyarlathotep’s feet and disengages as he backs away. Nyarlathotep uses his Shatter Concentration ability on Primina and deals psychic damage to her. He points his Finger of Doom at Sebastian again and Sebastian is able to resist some of the effects. Nyarlathotep reaches out with a tentacle and grapples Sebastian, holding him aloft. Sebastian takes damage from being in the dark aura and he successfully escapes the tentacle’s grasp. As he’s falling Sebastian swings his sword and stabs Nyarlathotep, tearing his way down, adding a 3rd level Smite to the damage.

Black ichor spills out of Nyarlathotep’s eviscerated body and his size begins to shrink and his aura begins to recede. Prim’s dragon form is released from the tentacle and Nyarlathotep melts down into the pool of darkness. “I will give you courtesy, I will end your meager excuse for an existence before you would face your failure!” Nyarlathotep disappears into the pool of darkness which begins to contract until it is 15-ft across. One after another, Nyarlathotep’s spider legs emerge from the pool and following them is the body of a twisted nightmare version of a spider.

Persephone swoops over to Echo and together they fly towards the new form of Nyarlathotep. She opens her beak and fires a radiant beam attack, but the spider skitters out of the way and avoids some damage. She positions herself in the air above him. Primina, still under the effects of Haste, moves in to deal two bites, a claw and a tail attack but only one bite lands doing minimal damage.

Echo’s Faithful Hound attacks and deals a critical hit to Nyarlathotep. Echo stays on Percy’s back and fires a ranged attack followed up with a Fire Bolt modified for force damage, and hits with both. Nyarlathotep strafes towards Percy and Echo and, maneuvering in a way that no natural creature should, faces its belly upwards so that the entire party can see it. At the center of the belly is the horrible sideways mouth with needle-like teeth, surrounded by countless amounts of eyes. They all feel a creeping, paralytic horror crawling over them but are able to resist it. Sebastian looks up and says, “Oh, come on man!” He jumps up and uses Lay on Hands to heal himself a bit, then runs up to attack with his sword, adding a Smite to the damage. Nyarlathotep bites Sebastian with his horrible mouth and deals some piercing damage. Persephone flies by and uses her radiant beam attack again but Nyarlathotep avoids the worst of the damage. She remains 50-ft up in the air to avoid him. Primina closes in and does a quadruple attack; her bites miss but she hits with her claws and tail.

Echo makes a ranged attack and shoots a Fire Bolt again, both attacks hit. Nyarlathotep bites Sebastian again, but Sebastian uses Shield to keep the needle-like teeth away. Nyarlathotep attempts to paralyze them again, but is unsuccessful. He turns to Primina to attack with a bite and claws; one claw misses but he hits with the other and deals a critical hit with his bite, bloodying Prim. Nyarlathotep attacks her again with another bite and successfully hits. Sebastian’s Shield drops and he moves in, hitting Nyarlathotep with his three attacks and adding his Divine Smites to the damage. Nyarlathotep focuses on Prim and lands another blow, bringing her health very low. Persephone flies closer and uses her radiant beam attack, and this time Nyarlathotep takes the full damage, then flies higher into the sky. They notice Nyarlathotep’s movements become more erratic, his spider legs jerking around as if involuntarily. Primina attacks again; her bites miss but she hits with her claws and tail, ripping off two of Nyarlathotep’s arms.

### The Void

In a last ditch effort to take everyone down, Nyarlathotep bears his horrifying visage at them again, but they all remain unaffected. His form begins to melt away into the pool of darkness and his body begins to disintegrate before the party’s eyes. They hear Nyarlathotep’s voice. “Fools. You will all be unmade and naught will remain but the audient void.” The pool shrinks and evaporates as it disappears.

Echo and Sebastian drop their Haste spells. Primina is bleeding and is not in good shape. The party finds themselves alone on the platform and as everyone takes a minute to absorb what just happened, there is an ear shattering sound as the sky above the pillars breaks, revealing a great, empty, hungering void.

## Characters

### The Party

* Sebastian Crenshaw: a half-orc paladin. Does a scary amount of damage.
* Persephone Goldpetal: an albino firbolg druid. Glad to finally be done with Carter's bullshit.
* Codename: Echo: an elf wizard/rogue. Shoot first ask questions later.

### NPCs

* Primina: a genetically engineered young woman. The MacGuffin. Celestial Dragon.
* Carter Huttenburg: a human deathlock. Formerly a member of the party, now just goop on the floor. His patron is finally named.
* Nyarlathotep: The Crawling Chaos. Emissary of Azathoth. He did exactly what he said he'd do.

## Trivia

### Dice Breakdown

#### Nat 20's (5 total)

* Special Guest Jake (Investigation)
* Brian (Initiative)
* Freeland (Attack)
* Brian (Attack as Faithful Hound)
* William (Bite as Nyarlathotep)

#### Nat 1's (3 total)

* Brian (Investigation)
* William (Initiative as Primina)
* William (Bite as Primina)