S06E14: Kanye is Finally Right about the Decoder Rings

## Previously on MCVFD

We felled a statue and almost killed our cleric! We have some rubies! We let a clockwork heart see us!

## Session

If we could turn back time…. If we could find a way…. Kanye activates Gearbox to rewind time.  We duck out of sight.  The gang expects to see the clockwork heart walk back by .... But they see nothing.  *Something* changed, but not the clockwork heart.

Kanye runs down the hallway, but doesn’t see it.  They hear the unmistakable sound of large, heavy footsteps coming from the hall of statues. The gang decides it’s time to focus on the main task of getting the gems back.

They follow the silver wires back to the ceremonial chamber and through to the rock wall.  Kanye hears chipping on the other side of the rock wall…. And tries to encrypt a new morse code communicating “help, we’re trapped!”  He listens for a response.

Kanye hears an alarm? And several extremely agitated Lizardfolk talking in draconic.

Kanye takes out his laser on his suit -- it will take 2 charges or a pint of blood to power the laser.  He notices the suit is switching the position of the buttons around to try and trick him into clicking “blood”. Asshole design.

In the end, Kanye decides it’s not worth it and steps back so Sorith can Shatter the wall.He hits the resonance frequency of the stone and it explodes, hitting the unaware lizardfolk.  12 dead lizardfolk lay in the hallway.  The alarm is real, and loud. Can we turn them off?

The gang sees a long hallway with two doors.

> **Nissa**: If only we knew someone that liked to open doors :(
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> **Kanye**: Oooh! Me! Pick me!
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Kanye busts down the door and rolls into the room.  No one is inside what turns out to be a guardroom.  A trapdoor leads to a crawlspace under the stairs that leads to the watch room they saw before.  The guardroom has a card game in progress-- Nissa notices one of the players was cheating!! There are also no beds in this room.

> **Kanye**: I would like to check the other door.  Very carefully.  With my feet.
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The gang sees a barracks with crude sleeping pallets.  It smells like shit in there.  There are 8 guards engaged in various guard off-time activities.  A dead human thief is hanging in shackles on the wall, and has obviously been tortured.

Kanye introduces himself, of course, puffing vape clouds into the room on his Billow Branch as he makes an entrance.  He fails to impress but quickly activates his Dragonguard horn-rimmed glasses to ensure it lands with full effect.  They’re so totally intimidated.  They fall over each other trying to run past the gang out the door.  They see a two-headed demon billowing smoke out one head while yelling insults at them with the other.

Nissa turns to the corpse and asks it who it is.  Just like previous uses of the spell, there is a calm about the spirit.  He is little Gadai. How did he come to be here? Mogdahan sent Mac and Big Gadai and me and the gemsmith, to steal the gems from the statue to complete the lich’s skull.  What happened to them? They were captured.  The last he saw them, they were in prison.  The torturer took Big Gadai and Mac and told the lizardfolk they could have him.  Did he see any other treasure? They didn’t see much of the temple-- made it past the guardroom but got ambushed by the spider, then found by the lizardfolk.  Nissa lies that we are here to save him and his friends, but made it too late for him-- is there any password or secret they have as a gang to prove they talked? *Tell Big Gadai that it’s time for breakfast.*  The spirit dissipates.

Kanye looks closer at the boardgame.  In addition to the coins on the table, there are 12 uncut rubies. Um looks closer-- the gameboard looks like a map of the temple, with parts unseen! Including a secret door in the hallway we came through.Now that we’re looking, it’s where the wire ends in the wall, so *that* makes sense.  Um opens the door and checks for traps -- really sure there are no traps.  The wire continues down the hallway.  The wire leads into the alchemical lab.  The alarm is much louder in this hallway, and louder behind the alchemical lab door.

Um looks through the keyhole to the lab.  He doesn’t see any threats in the next room -- just worktables with glassware and experiments.  Nissa asks if Gearbox can sense the parts -- there are multiple parts and one of them is on the other side of the alchemical lab door!

Kanye kicks the door down.  The experiments seem to recently have been turned off.  Sorith: they know we’re here.  Sorith listens at the door that was unmarked on the lizardfolks’ map.  He hears bubbling liquids… big bubbles.

There’s a control panel in this room.  Lots of buttons with sciency words on it.  Plus one button that says “silence alarms”.  There is also a gem wired into the control panel with silver wires. Kanye pushes the silence alarm button.  There’s still another alarm but it’s noticeably quieter.

Kanye reaches for the gem.  Um silently judges Kanye for fumbling and nearly dropping a completely immobile gem.  Um confirms with Gearbox that we picked up a piece of the infernal machine.

Kany walks back out to the lab, and finds some sealed vials of liquid.  Two labeled Thessel toxic poison, one blood of the lycanthrope antidote, one for vampire antitoxin, and one thessel toxin antidote.  A set of alchemist supplies, glassblower supplies (Sorith takes these), and tinkerer’s tools.  Kanye takes four clean vials, fills them with soda from his suit (mountain dew this time!), and proposes a toast!  To us and the gems!  Sorith turns up his nose at the offer, takes out his own vial of cider, and cheers with that.  Kanye pours some mountain dew onto Gearbox.  Gearbox: I can drink! WHY?

Kanye drinks a potion at random.  The writing on the label is blurry.  Potion of Txxxxx Gxxxxxx - Sorith uses his alchemy skills to guess that it’s a potion of Titanic Growth.

Sorith picks up a red potion that pulses like a heartbeat.  It could be a healing potion, or a potion that removes all your blood.

Nissa picks up a potion.  It’s glowing in an obscene shade of pink.  Sorith recognizes it as a Philter of Love.  The creature that drinks this will become charmed by the next creature it sees inside of an hour.

Kanye picks up an unlabeled vial filled with a thick liquid that looks like oil.  It’s an Oil of Slipperyness-- enough to cover a creature.

Gearbox, which way is the next gem? Due east.

There are floor to ceiling tanks in the *Body Tanks* room.

Four are filled with light blue fluid with identical bodies of an elderly male.  Um and Nissa read his lips-  “let me out.”  Kanye fills a vial of the blue fluid for Sorith to investigate, from an empty tank and each of the bodies’ tanks’ fluid.  Kanye puts on a lab coat and gets ready to DO SCIENCE!  Sorith thinks this is some sort of preservative.  Maybe oxygenated?

Sorith super fails to understand anything medical at all about 2 of the inert bodies.  The third body has no pulse, signs of breathing, or pulse. Inert, but dead doesn’t feel right.  He examines the living body-- it’s moving around and trying to communicate, there is a vein throbbing in his forehead as he yells.  Sorith reaches out and drains the fluid.

The body pours out onto the ground, vomits blue fluid, and coughs on the ground.  Kanye gives him his lab coat to cover up his old nude body.

Nissa asks him how he ended up in the tank.  He doesn’t know! He’s Thessalar.  Who are we? The Mulmaster County Volunteer Fire Department on an inspection! Kanye introduces himself, of course.  Sorith asks who the other bodies are.  Thessalar shrugs. Sorith asks, isn’t this your lab? Thessalar says yes.  Nissa asks how we can help him, now that he’s out.  Thessalar says he has notes on his desk, and his assistants probably know what to do.  Sorith asks if the lizardfolk work for him.  Um asks what he remembers last before the tank.  Running experiments…. New breeds of owlbears… can you imagine a polar bear-owl mix?  Kanye studies Thessalar as they talk.  He is SUPER OLD and doesn’t look quite right, unhealthy skintone even for a preserved dude… is his blood the wrong color?

Thessalar asks us to escort him to his main lab, in exchange he will overlook our obvious trespass.  Nissa magically whispers to Um-- lag behind and check things out as we go.  As Thessalar walks he’s moving with more confidence-- feeling more healthy or just more confident?

Fancy decorating! The fireplace braziers are shaped like the statue of Molach.  Um checks things out and spots an open journal on the desk in the bedroom.  He skims and the text implies that Thessalar is invulnerable to poison but vulnerable to healing potions?  There is a small key with a ruby stone on the desk, which Um pockets.

In the bedroom, he finds a vial with skull and bones, a jewelry box, 3 rubies, and a piece of river crystal.  There are also notes and plans and diagrams in the room.  On closer inspection, the plans appear to detail the creation of a homunculus -- made from the statue of Molach.  It hints its destruction would destroy the Idolon’s ability to inhabit statues.

An earsplitting alarm is going off in the lab-- lizardfolk guards and scientists running around, fishfolk fighting with lizardfolk guards.  Around the corner, the gang hears the ominous growl-hoot of lizardfolk fighting owlbears.  Thessalar looks confused and overwhelmed, and then makes eye contact with a fully dressed Thessalar in the lab, but it has a slack expression.  The homunculus on his head manipulates his face to make expressions.  They point at each other and yell, IMPOSTER!!!!