Session 16 (02/04/2022)

## Day Twelve, Evening

**Lurholin** Keystone switches on his Sonar Goggles and tremor sense floods his vision. He sees the outline of Kazapath Foxwarden Vathkelke, the goliath barbarian’s body practically quaking in a frenzied rage. Holly tries to peer further into the magical darkness but can only make out vague and erratic bends of sound. The dwarf flips over the dagger in his hand activates its healing magic and rushes forward to stab his friend deep in the side of the leg. Holly slips back silently into the magical darkness as Kaz is left confused and hurting so good.

The goliath’s hands bear down on the vicious maul, and Kaz grits his teeth as he swings recklessly into the darkness. The blow connects with the shadow demon and Kaz tries to redirect the momentum into a follow-up swing, but only hits air. “CAN WOLVES SEE IN THE DARK?!”, Kaz yells, remembering Wax and Wane.

He hears Swage wheeze back from the porch, “They can SMELL in the dark!”. Kaz nods and wills Wax to attack the shadow demon lurking before him in the void. The conjured wolf shakes off the sleep spell and lunges into the black, spectral teeth bared. An infernal yelp rings out, and Kaz smiles as he wills the other spectral wolf to attack the first enemy it sees. Wane noses through the double doors into the derelict foyer and spots a glistening, oozing black orb resting on a pedestal across the room. Easily closing the distance, Wane lands a bite on the orb and salivates for more.

Outside on the porch, a putrid cloud of green stink settles over Swage and Dove Tail. The tabaxi ranger instinctively gasps and fills her lungs with the acrid gas. She tucks and rolls back several feet outside of the cloud, retching and drawing her bowstring as she rises to one knee. Aiming the nightmare orb through the window ahead, her grip tightens as her Blessed Bow of the Black Glacier goes cold. Dove looses the arrow and watches it strike true as the frost falls to the ground below. She coughs and politely wills Waffles the demon to unleash hell on the nearest orb. Flames light up the interior of the dark house.

An intense ray of utter darkness pierces the flames and lands on Hadwin Doyle’s chest. He looks down just in time to see the death ray grow with a sickening pulse as it leeches the life force from his body. The young human’s knees buckle as he falls to the ground, unconscious. The same source emits a deep purple ray, and the flames subside as Waffles stiffens like a board in midair, paralyzed.

Wane gets a hole nearly scorched through his hindquarters as a fiery ray ignites from the other nightmare orb. A second purple ray arcs out of the window, paralyzing Dove in the front yard. Swage stumbles away from the purple ray, choking on the green cloud and falling against the window. His golden eyes widen as he spots his new friend Hadwin inside, crumpled on the floor next to the globe of darkness. He coughs out a prayer to Gond and Hadwin returns to consciousness as the firbolg tries to focus on the black orb ahead. It shows no signs of visible damage and Swage NOPES out of the cloud to check on Dove, lying stiff in the grass. He kneels and rests a glowing hand on her shoulder as he wretches to the side. Dove stirs from her paralysis and reaches for her quiver. Hadwin sits up and grunts out a shatter spell, fracturing reality and vibrating the orbs to their respective cores.

Unbeknownst to anyone but Holly, the shadow demon flails ineffectively in its own globe of darkness. The tremors of its beating wings leave an opening, and the dwarf leaps in, ever the agent of opportunity. He severs the magic of the healing dagger just before it opens the throat of the shadow demon, gurgling its last breath as the magical darkness dissipates.

Esha’Arat hurls an eldritch blast at the nearest orb, then marks it with a hex for good measure. Kaz rushes forward between the two remaining orbs and holds his ground, ready to dodge the next ray. He wills Wax and Wane to attack, but the wolves both miss their marks. Dove rolls to a kneeling position and releases another freezing arrow perfectly through the broken window at the nightmare orb. Waffles’ head twitches to the side but remains paralyzed.

A bright pink ray focuses on Wane, and the wolf vanishes from the room. Swage sees his old spectral friend falling from the sky outside and wails, “WANE!!!”, as it crashes to the ground. A sickly green ray reaches out to Esha and inflicts immense pain just as another purple ray strikes Hadwin. “God DAAA!!!”, he exclaims just as his body locks up with paralysis.

Swage coughs again as he begins to summon his spiritual weapon, the glowing orange anvil coalescing right next to the orb in the window. He attempts to bring it crashing down on the sphere, but it bounces wildly into the room. The firbolg snaps his fingers and a gout of sacred flame licks the edges of the orb, sizzling black ooze falling to the floor. Swage stumbles further away from the green cloud and tries to waft it away.

Hadwin centers his mental energy and breaks through the paralysis, rising to his feet and casting an empowered magic missile at the orb that downed him. The blasts of arcane energy writhe across the orb as it shatters to the ground. Holly dashes up within range of the remaining nightmare orb and chucks a sneaky dagger. The hit lands as Holly notices some tremors from a humanoid shape on the second floor. He begins inching his way towards the stairs.

Esha draws her sentient scimitar and casts Green Flame Blade but misses her attack. A healing spirit in the form of a small lizard crawls its way up onto her shoulder.

Kaz takes a deep breath and swings his maul back behind him, preparing for a massive overhead blow. The weapon completes its arc, obliterating the one remaining orb and bathing the room in silence.

## Day Twelve, Night

Seeing that his new friend is hurt, Holly walks up to Hadwin, waves at him, and plunges the healing dagger into Hadwin’s shoulder.

“Jesu-” Hadwin yells in surprise, but the wound from the healing dagger and all his others have already begun to heal.

Esha calls forth her Healing Sprit, this time in the form of a small lizard, and begins to heal the rest of the party.

Waffles, still paralyzed from the Nightmare Orbs beam tries and fail to break free from its paralysis. Dove ties a string to Waffles and drags them around the house with her.

Using the Sonar Goggles, Holly doesn’t detect anything else on the bottom floor. However, he does see that there is someone still upstairs. He slowly sneaks his way up the stairs to try and get a better look at whatever it may be. He discerns the shape of a humanoid kneeling on the floor and drawing something. He goes back down the stairs and tells everyone what he saw.

Kaz, Esha, and Hadwin make their way up the stairs with Kaz leading the small group. Holly follows as well but stops halfway up the stairs. Dove and Swage wait for the rest of the group outside of the house.

Hearing the chanting growing louder Kaz takes a step back and kicks the door down sending it flying. This triggers a trap on the door and Kaz looks down to find several small darts sticking out of him. He brushes them off and continues into the room.

Inside the room, a robed figure kneels inside a magic circle, it stands and turns towards the group when they come into the room.

“You guards will never take me!” they say as they sink into the floor.

Suddenly the magic circle bursts into flames leaving behind the circle now carved into the floor.

“What the hell's going on up there?” Swage asks

Swage reenters the house and casts Detect Magic and checks out the bottom floor before starting to make his way upstairs.

Back upstairs Kaz, Hadwin, and Holly begin to explore the room. Hadwin starts to make a charcoal rubbing of as much of the circle as he can and Kaz sifts through the papers and books in the room. He finds blueprints to a building called Warden Manor and letters and notes that point to some sort of assassination plot.

Holly walks over to the other door in the room and opens it. Inside he finds what appears to be a dining room and the skeletal remains of three people, one of which is a child. He looks some more and is also able to find some children’s artwork and a family portrait. He carefully rolls up the portrait and takes it with him, planning to report their deaths to the guards.

Once upstairs Swage’s spell surrounds a few items in a magical aura. He finds a book with an illusion aura, a dagger with a necromancy aura, and an Aarakocra feather with a transmutation aura. He places the feather and the book in his pack but wraps the dagger in a cloth first before touching it.

Hadwin finishes his rubbing and tries to decipher the language, he is unable to, and Pele lets him know that it is a variant of Abysmal.

Dove finally makes her way upstairs as well, wondering what’s taking everyone else so long.

“What happened?” She asks Kaz

“I kicked in the door, and some black-robed thing said we’d never take him, and he teleported away using that circle,” Kaz replies

Dove looks over and sees the circle and pulls out her Demonomicon, hoping to find information about the symbol in the middle. The book turns to a page about the demon lord Pazuzu, along with the basic information about the demon, is this poem.

"Tongue plucked raw from gaping maw

Blood from vein let fall like rain

Behold these eyes, your bloody prize

And now the fall from vaulted hall

These bones! This flesh! Consume it all!

Pazuzu! Pazuzu! Pazuzu!"

Excited that she found some useful information she tries to show Hadwin her book.

“Look at this, I found some information!” Dove says

Only seeing blank pages in the book Hadwin says, “I’m busy!”

“It’s really important!” Dove continues pushing the book closer.

“It’s nothing!” Hadwin says not looking up this time.

“Did they not teach you to read at your wizard school?” Dove asks

“It’s nothing!” Hadwin says again

“Okay,” Dove says and closes the book, and turns to walk away.

“I don’t think he can read.” She says under her breath to the rest of her friends.

While the rest of the group had been investigating the upstairs Swage made his way back downstairs and laid the three items he had found out on the floor. He begins to identify each of the items that he found upstairs.

**Cults of Pazuzu for Dummies** – Reading this book will turn you into a cultist of Pazuzu

**Cursed Sacrificial Dagger** – Works like a normal dagger, except it damages the user as well

**Aarakocra Feather** – Will grant the casting of one demonic spell, but then will take the user to meet Pazuzu face to face

Realizing he may have more information about Pazuzu, Holly lets Skippy out of Swage's flashlight and asks him what he knows. Skippy doesn’t have any new information for the group, but he does warn that Pazuzu is no joke and to try and avoid him at all costs.

With that last bit of information given, Skippy is returned to the flashlight and the party leaves the house and returns to town.

At the gates Jon Jon and a new guard keep watch.

“Hello, Dove! How are you doing today?” Jon Jon asks

“I’ve been better, but how about you?” Dove replies

“Ugh! I’m on watch again. I don’t like this side of town, it's spooky.” He says.

“What kind of spooky stuff have you seen?” Dove asks

“Nothing yet.” He answers

“Well let me tell you what!” Dove says pulling out her book, she opens it, turns to the page on Pazuzu, and holds it up. Jon Jon can only see a blank page; he glances at the other members of the party and says.

“You know it’s a blank page, right?” Jon Jon asks

“No one else can see it Dove, only you. It’s magic, it’s attuned to you.” Swage adds

“When were you going to tell me!” Dove says embarrassed

“I did!” Hadwin exclaims

Dove's face grows red, and she pulls her hood up to cover her face and hurries into town. The rest of the group follows her, except Holly who stays behind for a few more seconds. He hands the portrait of the family to Jon Jon.

“There are skeletal remains of a family in the house back there. I wanted to let someone know and thought the picture may help identify them.” Holly says

“I’ll pass the information on to the guard captain in the morning.” Jon Jon replies

Holly then enters the city as well and heads for the inn along with everyone else.

Once at the inn the party goes about their own business.

Hadwin returns to his room and begins to try and decipher the text from the circle. He is only able to make out about half of the language but knows he’ll recognize it the next time he encounters it. He also learns that the spell is very powerful and requires a lot of components, none of which were present in the room.

Dove enters the inn long enough to pay her tab, and then returns to Estafador’s carriage. They share stories late into the night and don’t get much sleep.

Holly retires to his room to decompress from the crazy events of the last few days.

Esha gets a few drinks at the bar and finds herself cheering on a pair of arm wrestlers and dancing on the tabletop.

Swage decides to take a bath since he had spent most of the day at the forge and fighting. While in the tub he uses his Artisanal Blessing to create a chest with a lock and key. Once out of the bath, he places the three magical items from the house into the chest and locks it tight.

He reenters the inn and sees Esha, already very drunk wandering around the bar and stealing other people’s drinks. He also sees Kaz just finishing his first drink, a barrel of the Dragon Ale. He makes his way upstairs and to bed.

Kaz approaches the two arm wrestlers and challenges them both at the same time. He handily defeats them causing other challengers to approach.

Hearing the cheering from downstairs Swage, Holly and Hadwin come back down to see what’s going on. Esha, full of liquid courage, challenges Kaz and even starts before the three count is unable to beat him.

Hadwin approaches the drunk Goliath next, rolling up his sleeve and sitting at the table. He almost immediately catches a whiff of the giant’s breath and almost loses his lunch. Kaz pins his arm down without much effort after that.

Saying a prayer to Gond, Swage approaches the table next. The two huge man grasps hands and begins to strain against each other’s impressive strength. In the end, Kaz comes out on top and is able to defeat Swage. At this point, a line has formed from Kaz’s table to outside of the inn with people waiting for their chance to try.

Lastly, Holly approaches the table and says, “You can’t kill anything living, come at me.”

Hearing this insult, the drunken Goliath begins to rage, his muscles growing noticeably larger. He grasps Holly’s hand in his and counts to three. On three Kaz uses all his strength to push Holly’s arm and fling him from the table across the room. Holly hits the floor and begins to fumble with something on his armor.

Kaz feels a large hand on his shoulder, and he looks up to see a giant dwarf! Holly had used the Brooch of Many Sizes to enlarge himself to Kaz’s size.

Kaz grins and takes Holly’s hand again, this time he begins to Frenzy, and his muscles begin to strain against his gray skin. The match starts and Holly finds himself being thrown through the air for a second time.

At this point, the inn has begun to close for the night, and most of the patrons have left. Swage, Holly, and Hadwin return to their rooms, and Kaz stumbles outside to Estafador’s carriage. He falls asleep on the floor.

## Day Thirteen, Morning

In the morning Estafador wakes Dove and asks if she’d mind leaving for a bit, she tries to leave the bed but Kaz is taking up most of the floor.

“Oh! I can take care of that!” He says to Dove.

Using Thaumaturgy Estafador says, “Kaz. Wake up.”

To Dove, it sounds like he’s whispering, but to Kaz, it sounds like an explosion just went off in his head. Kaz sits up screaming and tries to stumble out of the carriage glaring at Dove and Estafador.

Dove follows not long after and they head inside to meet the other and get breakfast before leaving.