Session 47 & 48: The Gang Kills a God

Nan summons a crown of stars around her head. She launches one at the aboleth and strikes it right in the face, making it reel. The aboleth quickly dispels her remains stars. She tries to counterspell its dispel, but it counterspells her counterspell. The long-limbed monster then opens its mouth unnaturally wide and the group feels their magic being suppressed by an antimagic cone. Arran starts shooting arrows at the monster, but it barely reacts as they stick into its flesh. Cho jumps to the ground and runs at the vivisector. The monster swoops down to meet him and slashes at him, but is deflected by his shell. Cho grabs it and starts chopping at it with his glaive. Grombrin, Nan, and Vojta scramble out of the watchtower to get away from the antimagic cone.

As Nan flies over the water, another vivisector bursts out and stabs her with its stinger. Its poison paralyses her and she plummets down into the water. A third vivisector bursts out and stings Vojta, but Grombrin suppresses the poison with his divine aura. Both vivisectors then turn invisible. Cho impales the first vivisector, but the aboleth shoots psychic bolts at him from its tentacles, inflicting stinging pain on his mind. The grey monster walks towards them over the water while Arran shoots it several more times. Grombrin and Vojta hide behind the watchtower to escape the antimagic cone. Vojta tries to summon Trojka to protect Nan, but the aboleth counterspells it. The two of them are then suddenly encased in domes of stone. They try to feel their way out but fail to realise that the domes are illusions.

One of the vivisectors reappears and slashes the defenceless Vojta with its blade arms. The other vivisector attacks Cho, who struggles to fight back as he is bombarded with more psychic bolts from the aboleth. Arran shoots the grey monster several more times, until a final shot into its open mouth causes it to collapse and shrivel into a blackened lump. The domes of stone disappear as the water animates into tentacles. Cho resists being grabbed, but the paralysed Nan is pulled into the deep water. Arran gives covering fire on the vivisector as Vojta dives into the water and turns into a water elemental. He tries to pull Nan to safety, but the water still holds her in place. Grombrin casts a sanctuary spell on Nan in an attempt to keep her safe.

One of the vivisectors charges Arran, but is deflected by his arcane shield. The other vivisector dives into the water to attack the paralysed Nan. It thrashes her unconscious but when it goes for a mortal strike, it is halted at the last moment by Grombrin’s sanctuary. As the grasp of the animated water loosens, Vojta pushes her onto shore and then engulfs the vivisector into his watery form. Cho goes wide-eyed as the aboleth dominates his mind, then suddenly charges Grombrin and slashes him with his glaive. Vojta’s mind is also pierced by the aboleth, and he experiences a vision of the Lunar Man telling him to kill Arran. He lets the vivisector escape as he glides onto land and slams Arran with his watery body.

Grombrin casts a calming spell that suppresses the aboleth’s charm on Cho and Vojta. Cho tackles one of the vivisectors and holds it to the ground, allowing Arran to cut off its head. Vojta turns back into human form, hides behind the watchtower so that the aboleth can’t counterspell him, then uses a powerful surge of healing on Nan, bringing her back to consciousness. The aboleth shoots psychic bolts at Grombrin, making him stagger in pain, but he maintains concentration on the calming spell. Grombrin tries to cast a protective spell, but the aboleth counterspells it. It then dives into the deep water where it is harder to target. Nan can still see it thanks to her devil’s sight, so she flies to the shore and shoots it with her eldritch blast. Arran uses the ring of spell storing to bring down a volley of conjured rapiers on the deep water, and perceives a psychic grunt as the aboleth is injured.

The aboleth once again animates watery tentacles and pulls Grombrin, Nan, and Vojta into the water. Nan becomes paralysed again as the poison still courses through her veins. The aboleth then shoots psychic bolts at the defenceless Grombrin, knocking him unconscious. With Grombrin’s charming spell gone, the aboleth regains control of Cho and Vojta. Cho charges the unconscious Grombrin and impales him with his glaive, extinguishing his fire. The charmed Vojta crawls out of the water and drains Arran’s vitality with a blight spell, while the final vivisector further injures him with its arm blades. Arran slashes Vojta with his rapier, and the pain snaps him out of the aboleth’s control.

As Cho stands idle, having received no new command, the aboleth psychically drains him, harming his mind to heal its own wounds. It shoots psychic bolts at the injured Arran, trying to finish him off, but he resists the effect due to an intellect fortress spell. Vojta hides from the aboleth behind the watchtower and heals some of Arran’s injuries. Receiving a new psychic command from the aboleth, Cho charges Arran, but Arran launches him back with his repulsion shield. Meanwhile, Vojta is attacked by the final vivisector, but its attacks are thrown off as Cho flies past them.

Underwater, the aboleth approaches Nan, preparing to eat her. She shakes off the paralysis and drains some of its vital fluids with a blight spell. She then flies out of the water to escape, but the aboleth animates watery tentacles to immediately pull her back in, along with Arran and Vojta. It then drains Cho again, healing more of its injuries. As Cho comes close to passing out from the mental pain, it finally breaks him out of the possession. He runs to the shore and throws axes at the floating aboleth, slashing its hide. The vivisector moves to attack the restrained Vojta, but from the water he uses a blight spell to burst it into a shower of insect parts.

Arran teleports out of the water, but the aboleth psychically dominates him. He calmly walks up to Cho and impales him from behind with his rapier, knocking him out. Vojta crawls out of the water and heals the collapsed Cho back to consciousness. Cho scrambles closer to the aboleth and throws javelins into its scaled hide. The aboleth psychically leeches Arran, undoing the damage of Cho’s attacks, but due to the pain Arran manages to break free from its charm. Meanwhile, Nan flies out of the water and shoots the aboleth with thunderous blasts, ripping holes in its hide.

Noticeably panicked, the aboleth scrambles away from the shore. It constricts Vojta with watery tentacles and shoots Nan out of the air with its psychic bolts, but Arran shoots an arrow into one of its eyes while Cho leaps into the water to attack with his glaive. It tries to paralyse him with a psychic attack, but Cho shakes it off out of pure frustration. As the aboleth is preoccupied with Cho’s attacks, Arran teleports onto the shore next to it. He chops off one of its tentacles, then stabs his rapier deep into its head, splattering alien brain matter into the water. As it thrashes and releases a psychic scream, Cho furiously chops its body into many pieces, turning the surrounding water red with its blood.

As the watery tentacles disappear, Vojta rushes out of the water, then dives back in on the other side. He swims down to Grombrin’s sinking body deep below and manages to grab his arm. Seconds away from being too late, he casts revivify, rekindling Grombrin’s fire in a burst of scalding bubbles. As he struggles to pull Grombrin back up, Arran swims down and magically freezes the water below them, creating an iceberg that pushes the three of them up to the surface. As they crawl onto the shore, they see Cho walking onto shore as well, dragging the aboleth’s severed head behind him.

As they catch their breath, the aboleth’s disembodied voice echoes through the cave, calling them asinine for taking away civilization from this realm. Cho taunts it about being defeated, so it asks them if they even understand its true nature. Vojta answers that they know it will return from the plane of water in two millennia, but that it isn’t their concern. Grombrin, who is immortal, says the two of them will meet again when that time comes. The aboleth returns the sentiment, addressing him as a shard of the dawn titan. It then goes silent.

Cho apologizes profusely to Grombrin for killing him. On his request, the group then gathers the lizardfolk corpses with and without thieves’ guild markings into two piles, and add the aboleth’s head onto the first pile. Grombrin then incinerates the bodies of the thieves and aboleth, while Cho burns the innocents with Yane’s blue fire. As they settle down to rest, they discuss communing with Turagh again to find out whether she has been cured.