S06E08: The Gang Manages to Leave an Unlocked Room

## Aside

Some of the gang’s food is arriving a little late so we’re spending some time remembering what actually happened because it's been about 6 weeks since we last played. Satura is vacuuming behind Um, and there are some more obligatory doggy cameos.

## Background

Previously, we were sent into ancient past of the Tomb of Horrors, to hunt for pieces of the Infernal Machine before the Four Horsemen gets to them first.

Here in a bustling worker's camp, we chose to disguise ourselves as yet another construction group - one known as “Half Assed Construction”, donning matching mirrored aviators and epaulet-strewn uniforms made by none other than Kanye.

The gang navigated the site with Nissa tapping her clipboard meaningfully at the lead. In our exploration, we pissed off a curious dwarf, observed some happy Tiefling artists, and encountered some unhappy human stone masons, guarded by girallons.

While under watch by intimidating looking girallon guards, some of the humans manage to ask us for help escaping their miserable conditions; we are told they intend to escape their servitude by creating an animated stone golem. However, the book containing the spell has been cut in half, and the other half is in another dungeon. The group decides to save this side quest for later, as there are a few different ways to solve this puzzle.

Throughout this tomb, we hear chanting echoing from an unknown corridor. From the humans, we also learn about a chained up Balor down a different path.

And then instead of going after either of those very interesting things, the group goes into a hallway totally off to the side, tries to steal the contents of a treasure chest, thereby springing an obvious trap that animates a giant, menacing skeleton.

> **Kanye:** I forgot about the giant skeleton.
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> **Nissa:** That’s *all* I remembered.
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## **Session**

The group briefly contemplates the funniest way to get out of the skeleton trap while the DM waits for (and then eats) his dinner.

> **DM**: Let me remind you, Gearbox has 6 charges before he needs a nap before he can mess with the spacetime continuum again.
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The group continues to debate the various ways to solve the problem, without entirely realizing that there isn't yet consensus on their objectives.

> **Kanye**: Why don’t we reverse time, move all the bones out, and *then* open the chests?
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> **Averlyth**: What if the bones are configured such that if you touched them in a weird way the traps get triggered?
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> **DM**: *Someone* should put that into #outofcontext
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Kanye ecstatically brainstorms. Um reserves the right to leave the room.

> **Kanye**: Are the *bones* susceptible to my wiles?
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> **Um**: Everything is susceptible in principle.
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Kanye suddenly wants to know if we can talk to the skeleton and learn his or her whole life story. The DM points out Kanye is apparently assuming the undead died in the tomb, as opposed to volunteering his body to science after dying elsewhere.

Nissa is donating a Speak with Dead spell. Averlyth points out the skeleton can’t be undead while that spell is cast, so we might have to kill it first, which may or may not complicate its willingness to then speak with us.

Nissa is now suggesting we polymorph the giant skeleton into something with lips so that we may commune with it. The DM later discovers that there is fine print on the polymorph spell specifically to prevent this misuse.

> **Nissa**: How does Averlyth not have Banish yet?
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> **Averlyth**: I do! We haven’t had an opportunity yet.
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> **Kanye**: What if we banish *ourselves*?
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Kanye wants Averlyth to banish him and the giant skeleton into another realm because “he can totally beat him up in 10 turns (1 minute)”. Sorith points out we could just banish the giant skeleton alone.
Averlyth points out that banishment technically renders the targets incapacitated upon arrival in the other realm, which somewhat negates its usability as a "forced duel" spell. Sorith's further explanation on the "realms" part of that spell now has the group imagining it always banishes targets into currently occupied meeting rooms.

> **Nissa**: This is a solid plan, guys.
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> **Um**: I don’t think we’ve made ***a*** plan, I think we made 10 plans.
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The DM has finished eating so the gang rolls for initiative.

Going first, Kanye's grappling instincts are all fired up, but the skeleton is actually too big for him to grapple, so he critically pisses off the skeleton instead.

The giant skeleton is now goaded to only attack Kanye, whose second attack visibly fractures some of the bones.

Kanye introduces himself in Giant-ish.

The skeleton totally understands him and does not care.

Kanye is accustomed to that kind of reaction.

Um, who had *just* unlocked the chest, is standing precariously next to the action.

> **Um**: My instinct was to leave the room, but since I am next to this creature, I am going to stab it for a change.
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> **Um**: And then, as if I were Kanye, I am going to stab him again.
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The second one misses, and Um unceremoniously dashes towards the door before his turn ends.

Sorith goes and punches the skeleton a lil bit. It’s now in horrible shape, but still vaguely standing.

Thinking about one of our ten plans earlier, Nissa waits next to Gear Box by the door. She plans to turn back time if anything horrible happens, though it doesn’t seem like it’s the case so far; she's ready to press the button if anyone takes a big hit.

Averlyth, discovering some fun new buttons to press in dndbeyond, casts Sacred Flame and the skeleton collapses to the ground, bones mildly flickering with an ominous dark light.

Kanye throws the wooden chest's lid wide open to reveal 278 platinum pieces, 97 small gems worth 10 gold apiece and a single peridot worth 5000 gold.

> **Kanye**: Okay, two hundred… seventy eight…
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> **Averlyth**: I’ve already written it all down.
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> **Kanye**: Oh okay, I was just pretending … to type...
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Kanye scours the assorted piles for the finest bone for his collection. He finds a skull with 3 gold teeth.

Nissa collects as many of the second finger bones as she can identify. She acquires a healthy assortment.

Averlyth scans for good skull candidates for a Bane shrine - deciding between a chimpanzee, goblin and child’s skull, she goes for goblin (with sharp teeth) because the other two sound "too innocent".

### Gold Chest

Seeing as how one of the three chests was clearly not empty, the group is now motivated to see the contents of the others. Kanye volunteers to carry one of the remaining chests out of the room, after Um performs a cursory check.

> **UM**: I don’t think there are any traps, knock yourself out.
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> **Kanye**: Okay! I’d like to knock myself out on this chest.
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> **DM**: ....Roll a strength check?
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With full confidence, Kanye picks up the gold chest and strolls towards the hallway.

The *instant* the chest crosses the threshold of the room, hundreds of bones fly off the ground and assemble into a colossal, deafening skeletal swarm.

Sorith punches the swarm without hesitation. The first punch actually misses because honestly have you ever tried to punch a swarm before, but no one in the group notices as Sorith is just naturally graceful and plays it off very well.

The swarm isn’t too happy about the punching and slashes back at Sorith.

Kanye places the gold chest outside the door, walks over to Gearbox and hits the rewind button.

We have no idea what to expect - something *changes*, but we don't see reality rewind quite in the same way that it does with our other experiences with time management. The skeletal swarm is still there, but it looks noticeably weaker, almost as if another round of combat had happened and it had taken more damage.

Um leaves the room to open the chest while everyone else is in combat. He pops the chest open; nestled inside, he finds a bunch of potions. At a glance, several appear to be high level healing potions.

Nissa sings Taylor Swift to the bones - it could barely hear her over the cacophony, but it knew it was being made fun of so it dies.

Um walks in, not even knowing there was a battle.

> **Um**: Health Potions! :D
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### Silver Chest

The gang unanimously decides we might as well go for the silver chest too. Um asks why can’t we just damage the bones prior to inevitable combat. We joke about hammers and then forget to apply this wisdom.

Kanye hauls the silver chest out the door - same as before, the moment he exits, the bones tremble and reanimate.

Before us looms a monstrous, threatening juggernaut, whose bones don’t look like they really fit that well: various limbs hovering in and out of imperfect gaps, skulls and ribs fighting for balance. It seems clear that these parts didn't come from a cohesive skeleton.

Um cheerfully unlocks the chest outside of the room. This time there are a number of scrolls, as well as a wand.

> **Um**: I hope it was worth it! :D
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The juggernaut aims for the closest target, but misses Sorith entirely. One of its bones falls off in sadness.

Kanye is thinking about giving Sorith the signal for the tackle and grapple move, before the DM realizes its Averlyth’s turn. Averlyth is suddenly thinking about the Fastball Special by mistake.

Averlyth casts a guiding bolt at the juggernaut - it hits hard in a glimmering light, knocking off bones like pins at a bowling alley. The next attack on the juggernaut gets advantage thanks to the glistening outline around it.

Sorith happily takes this advantage and stuns the everlasting hell out of the skeleton, giving everyone else now also advantage on hitting the dude.

Nissa serenades him with another song from Taylor Swift, which is pretty offensive because he’s actually more into metal, *and* he can’t leave in protest because he’s stunned.

Kanye has never been more excited to grapple in his life.

He runs at him, giving Sorith a high-five as he goes by, and happily grapples the bone juggernaut.

Kanye then proceeds to attack the ground with the bone juggernaut, thanks to his belt of aggressive grappling.

> **Kanye**: do i need to roll to hit the floor?
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The good news is, the bone juggernaut gets damaged hard.

The bad news is, the bone juggernaut shatters upon impact, sending an avalanche of bones across the floor.

The mass under Kanye's grasp collapses into a large heap and then bones swarm around the party as it reconstitutes itself. Kanye and Sorith are slightly injured but manage to dodge some of the movement. Nissa and Averlyth weren't prepared and find themselves knocked prone in addition to taking greater damage.

Kanye is left holding two bones and mild existential dread around the consequences of grappling.

Um spends a pre-action to sigh and rolls his eyes. Then he fires his crossbolt in the direction of the juggernaut, definitively punching through two of the skulls.

Averlyth stands up from the ground and casts a prayer of healing to get everyone feeling a lot better than they might’ve been before.

Sorith casts Gong of the Summit far away enough to affect only the skeleton, but it’s able to withstand the effects.

Nissa may or may not be offended that *her* party member tried to also deal damage with something that might pass as music, and continues to perform from an award-winning album. The juggernaut continues to find he is no match for Taylor Swift.

> **Nissa**: That’s not wise enough to know she’s a Goddess.
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Kanye is going to bludgeon the juggernaut with one of its own bones. He misses, so he falls back to his trusty grapple instead.

Um shoots another bolt at the bone juggernaut - the force breaks it apart again and now Kanye is holding a loose pile of bones.

This time, when the bones hit the ground, they reform into 12 regular everyday skeletons who are suspiciously missing their second finger bones.

Kanye laments not taking the thumbs.

6 skeletons are now surrounding Kanye and Sorith, each. The skeletons on Kanye all miss - Kanye ripostes with their own bone, aiming for the one with a top hat and a badge saying “Mr Manager”. The skeletons on Sorith have better luck, with 4 of them deal a smattering of piercing damage on him.

For the first time since Clerical school, Averlyth casts Turn Undead.

Thanks to Destroy Undead (and the skeleton's challenge rating of one quarter), 8 of them explode before our eyes.

There now remains 3 skeletons around Kanye and 1 around Sorith.

Sorith demolishes the skeleton next to him in two punches, and then lands a third punch on one of the top-hat-less skeletons.

Nissa makes fun of the skeleton with the top hat, saying “it’s so first century” (*editors note*: we are in the first century). The skeleton is VERY confident about his appearance and impervious to her remarks.

Kanye goes to grapple the skeleton that does not have a top hat and has not yet been punched - somehow the skeleton grapples *him*??

Inspired, Kanye leans back.

Intertwined with this skeleton as the moats of skeleton dust float down on him.

The skeleton that grappled Kanye instinctively lifts him like the end of dirty dancing (?)

Everyone rolls a wisdom saving throw to avoid clapping. Averlyth leans into it.

> **Kanye**: I honestly wasn’t thinking about my next attack… I guess I’ll try to grapple him again?
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Kanye is still in the air.

> **Kanye**: I came here to loot a chest, but he stole my heart!
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Um unsheathes his crossbolt and aims squarely at the skeleton holding Kanye up.

It explodes, crashing Kanye to the ground.

> **Um**: That’s what you get for attacking the floor, Kanye, the floor attacks back.
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The skeleton by Sorith dies of embarrassment.

Everyone turns to the last skeleton. With his superior reflexes, Um shoots the top hat off, and our enemy explodes as the gang collectively deals a finishing blow.

We’re reasonably confident we’ve tapped out this room’s ability to generate skeletons.

> **Um**: I can’t speak for the rest of you, but I stuck with my plan, I’m standing outside
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With no more chaos left to cause, the group evaluates both our loot and our circumstances.

We realize that one of the items we've stolen (spell scrolls of guards and wards) may be sufficient for helping the enslaved stone masons in the tomb escape.

Nissa realizes she’d be able to read the Balor’s language (Abyssal); Averlyth isn’t goth enough to know the lingo.

Kanye is punching a lever in his power armor to get magical drinks to get hydrated. Having taken the most damage, Sorith suggests a short rest for the group to recuperate after that fight. Instead of resting, Kanye spends the 30 minutes talking about what he wants to put into the chest.

The group heads back into the Chamber of Spheres before wandering down the other hallway we have not yet explored - the one where the chanting sounds like it's coming from.

We emerge into a chapel, and the clear source of the chanting - there are dozens of exhausted-looking worshippers surrounding us, and the area appears dedicated to Vecna, a God of evil secrets.

As we watch, one of them collapses and becomes petrified into another chunk of black stone.

We see a priest missing a left arm and left eye - presumably in Vecna's image - but he has a second set of arms grafted to his back. Two sets of girallon escort him.

He gestures at us to sit down, and we all are filled with the desire to obey.

Kanye rolls a 0 and chooses this moment to use Indomitable to reroll, successfully breaking out of it.

Everyone but Sorith resists. Sorith walks over to the pews and starts chanting.

Sorith then uses Monk’s stillness of mind to end one effect that charms him. Period.

Sorith emphasizes that no one was hypnotized.

Nissa is ready to inform the priest (with her clipboard) that none of this is union-sanctioned.

Averlyth is ready to lay down the law because this dude is stepping on her turf and she needs to convert this entire space into a place of worship for Bane.