Episode 88

## Summary

Vahlka returns! The relief of having her back doesn’t last for long, as the Arsonists come across an operation led by Theo to artificially construct a leyline. He’s assisted by tons of snakes and yuan-ti, who the party fails to stealth around and has to fight. After a high speed dragon chase, Olivia ends up kidnapped.

## Recap

* We begin with the party walking through the grasslands of Chezar after their time in Chronatus's puzzle room. Olivia continues to Control Weather with the Harp of the Bards.
* After some time, we see a glint off the side of the road. The PCs go to investigate - there is a rocky outcropping with what appears to be a nest on top of it, and something silvery on the ledge.
* After some discussion, Barkley and Olivia ride the flying carpet up the ledge to see two wyverns and two eggs. One of the wyverns is a strange platinum color.
* The wyverns see the girls and immediately claw the fuck out of Olivia and tail swat Barkley off the carpet with their tails. Lucius casts feather fall on Barkley from below and Olivia disengages from the wyverns on the carpet.
* After some healing, the party gets back on the road until the Control Weather spell runs out. Astrid and Olivia look for a place to shelter with Astrid doing all the work and Olivia helping not at all. Astrid finds a cave. We decide to use the illusion stone to talk to Vahlka before our long rest.
* Vahlka answers the illusion stone from her hotel room in Umbravall. The party discusses what happened during the day, badly attempt (and fail) to translate goblin, and argue about eggs. Olivia says eggs are babies and Vahlka, trying to explain that eggs are tasty babies, accidentally says "Everything is a baby before you eat it!" She promptly corrects herself to saying "Babies make good food," or at least they do if they are eggs. There is a brief tangent about Godfrey's Robe of Eyes, which is horrible and creepy.
* Vahlka lets the party know that she has gotten not only her father out of Umbravall, but also Andromache and Ender. Vahl asks about Astrid, Kakere, and Sylvana and Olivia and Lucius explain. The group signs off the call with Olivia's "cult symbol".
* Sylvana is extra and sits out in the storm alone. Barkley uses her xray goggles to see into everyone's pockets but no one really has anything interesting.
* Astrid takes the first watch, nothing eventful happens. Olivia and Sylvana take the second watch and notice something fall from the sky out of the storm. Sylvana says that she and Kakere will probably investigate it and meet us in Lorane later.
* We wake up the next morning, and Olivia begins to control the weather again with a critical 20 on her charisma check to oppose the source. Sylvana, Kakere, and Astrid all head north to investigate the falling object, while Lucius, Olivia, Godfrey, Barkley, Deacon, and Zholsen all head south towards Lorane.
* When the party heads down the road, we see two people ahead looking at a map. Barkley stealths forward, invisible, to see who it is. ITS VAHLKA!!! And friend. Barkley is filled with wild ecstatic joy, and leaps out of hiding directly at Vahlka like a rocket. Vahlka, who didn't see or expect her, just feels an invisible force rush at her and instinctively spikes the gnome into the ground at full force. Barkley is undeterred, so happy to see Vahlka.
* The friend with Vahlka is Jade, a drow (?) woman who came with Vahlka here via teleport. She leaves now that Vahlka is reunited with Barkley, throwing a smoke bomb and shouting MYSTERY!! before running away.
* The rest of the party rushes up to greet Vahlka, who announces herself by saying "The prodigal bitch returns!" and spreading her arms. Olivia tackles her while her arms are open, Barkley joins, and Lucius hesitates to join the hug until Godfrey pushes him in towards Vahl. It is a pure and happy moment and I love Vahlka forever.
* Vahlka lets us know that Anika helped her get back and that she brought her family to the safe house created by Anika as a base of operations for her rebellion against Osyna. Vahlka also let the party know that she has some of Osyna's hair for scrying.
* The party walks a long way and talks about Lorane. After several hours there's a sudden flash of light about half a mile down the road. Suddenly an enormous blue-violet pillar of light, a leyline appears. The party has a long discussion about what to do about it. Olivia explains her experience with leylines in the Northmarch, and how casting spells near them is unpredictable.
* The party: we PROMISE we won't cast spells near the leyline
* Vahlka: I don't trust like that (she was right not to trust like that)
* As the party walks to the leyline there is a conversation about the state of the world and the many metaphysical problems plaguing the planes and the natural order. The conversation veers into talking about Godfrey's robe again, and Vahlka falls back, flipping off the back of Godfrey's robe. Godfrey sees the rude gesture with his many eyes. Some more arguing about the virtues vs. grotesqueness of the robe occurs.
* When we get to the leyline, Godfrey hears a mechanical whirring. The party concludes the leyline was artificially created. The leyline emerges from a crumbled old stone building nearby. We realize some of the features of the leyline: that near it, spells don't cost spell slots, that spells cast do not require concentration and that spells cannot be ended early, that all spells cost an action to cast, and that magic near leylines is VERY unstable though we're not sure what will happen if things go awry. Cantrips don't count as spells and can be safely used.
* The party sends Barkley to check it out, and she returns and tells the party she has "Bad news, and very bad news." The bad news is that the building is guarded by enormous constrictor snakes and big venemous snakes, the floor is carpeted in hundreds of smaller venomous snakes, there are Yuan-ti Purebloods and Yuan-ti monstrosities holding captives and working around a huge machine that is related to the leyline in some way. The really bad news? Theo is there.
* The party argues about whether or not to go deal with the issue - Olivia and Vahlka want to shut this operation down, Godfrey and Lucius wanted to leave the situation. As per usual the girls bully the boys into doing what they want. The party agrees that the plan is to stealth as close as we can get and then try to damage the machine enough to shut it down. To prep, the party leaves the radius of the leyline to safely cast Protection from Poison on everyone, Pass without Trace on everyone, and Blessing of the Trickster on Vahlka. Then we approach the ruined building.
* Olivia rolls a nat1 on her stealth check and one of the guardian snakes stops to face her. She immediately gives up the pretense of stealth and strikes it with Necara, starting combat - everyone except the guardian snake is surprised. The snake tries to hit Olly, misses, and then Vahlka rushes in and cleaves the snake in twain. Barkley rushes around the building, planning on going for the machine inside. Lucius remains stealthy and moves closer, Godfrey creeps around the opposite side to get a glimpse of the machine, but comes face to face with a second giant snake. Deacon casts chill touch on some of the snakes. Olivia rushes into the building, snakes at her feet, and shouts "Come get me asshole!" at Theo, using Vicious Mockery to try and lure him away from the machine so that her teammates can get to it. Theo says "What the hell?" and Olivia says "I'm here to ruin your plans once again!"
* The giant snake attacks Godfrey and misses with a nat1. Vahlka protectively steps in front of Olivia and wields her sword like a baseball bat and holds her action to protect the bard. The venomous snakes attack Barkley and Vahlka, but the whole team is magically protected from poison so they only take partial damage.
* Barkley rushes towards the machine, taking attacks of opportunity from the venomous snakes. She stabs Anxucotl into the control panel of the machine but the machine doesn't budge. Theo is holding a disk that is connected to a wire that connects to the machine. He seems to be able to cast spells normally - so he casts Shatter on Vahlka and Olivia, killing one of the giant venemous snakes in the process. He shouts "Hey apprehend them, get them!" and one of the Yuan-ti comes to attack Vahl. It triggers Vahlka's held action and she strikes him hard with Sethokesh. The swarms of regular snakes completely cover Vahlka and Olivia. Lucius uses Firebolt on a giant snake. Godfrey uses eldritch blast on the snake that is now trying to grapple him. One of the Yuanti grapples Barkley to keep her from continuing to stab the control panel, picking her up by her cloak. The other yuanti strike at Olivia and Vahlka with arrows, though only Olivia is pierced. Deacon uses Chill Touch on the snake swarms on Vahlka and Olivia.
* Olivia says "Why the fuck are you doing this Theo, this is our home, what are you doing??" and uses Vicious Mockery on Theo, but he saves and says "I know where I am!" Olivia replies with "Then what the fuck are you doing??" But Theo doesn't reply. The gigantic snake fighting Godfrey finally is able to grapple him. Vahlka attacks and kills the Yuan-ti in front of her with a smite. Snakes bite at Vahlka and Barkley, Vahlka is the only one who gets hit. Barkley ties to stab the machine while grappled, but her knife clanks into the machine uselessly, so she squirms and yells like an angry cat and stabs the Yuan-ti. Theo casts Greater Invisibility on himself, but he is still holding the disk on the wire connecting to the machine so.....we still know where he is......Theo is a dumbass and thinks we don't know where he is even though we definitely know.
* Snake swarms attack Olivia, Lucius, and Vahlka, but most of them can't get through our armor. Lucius casts a Firebolt on one of the snakes but misses. Godfrey is the first to break the "no spells" promise, casting Flame Blade - the spell goes off successfully and now Godfrey has a concentration-less Flame Blade spell. The Yuan-ti grappling Barkley claws and bites at her and drags her away from the control panel of the machine. The Yuan-ti purebloods move alongside Theo and make arrow attacks against Olivia and Vahlka. Olivia takes a lot of damage from the arrows, Vahlka's armor deflects most of the arrows. Both girls are completely covered head to toe in little wriggly snakes. Deacon uses Chill Touch on the snakes again but it's not terribly effective. Olivia drinks a healing potion. Then she sees that Theo is next to Barkley and wants to keep him from getting sneak attack on her, so she casts Hold Person on him (breaking her promise to Vahlka of course) - but the leyline magic is unstable. Instead of casting Hold Person, there's a random roll on a table of every spell in the game, followed by a d20 roll to see if the DM or the Player gets to control where the spell goes. Olivia rolls the Heal spell and she gets to choose where it goes, so instead of paralyzing Theo, she gives Vahlka 70 hit points.
* The giant snake constricting Godfrey continues to constrict him. Vahlka kills two more venomous snakes easily and rushes to Barkley's side. Barkley takes a little bit of damage from a small snake bite. Barkley makes a small stab on the Yuan-ti that is grappling her, and in return Theo stabs Barkley - Olivia tries to cutting words the attack but it doesn't work and he hits her HARD and we do a lot of action math trying to apply the poison resistance and sneak attack and all that. Theo then moves across the map, triggering an attack of opportunity from Vahlka, but her swing at him misses. The swarms of snakes all move to Olivia, who now has seven different swarms on her space, so she basically looks like a snake blob. Lucius moves to try and help Olivia, taking an opportunity attack from a snake swarm. He tries to cast Sleep on the swarms, but because of the unstable leyline magic, he instead casts Programmed Illusion. Suddenly, a 30 foot aura of dancing and orbiting tire-sized pink roly-polys float in the air around Lucius. He shouts "Olivia I'm so sorry!" At Olivia, who replies "What? I can't hear you! I'm covered in snakes!"
* Godfrey attacks the snake that's grappling him with Flame Blade but doesn't manage to cut free. The Yuan-ti attack Barkley and shoot arrows at Lucius and Vahlka. Deacon rushes in to cast one of his spells on Olivia but because of the leyline its Power Word Heal instead - suddenly Olivia is full health. Olivia disengages from the swarm and shouts at Theo "Theo, I know you're actually in there and you don't want to do this. Please, what the fuck is going on? Why are you wanting to hurt everybody?"
* Godfrey continues to be attacked by the big constrictor snake that has him grappled way in the distance where the party can't see him. Godfrey casts Hellish Rebuke on the snake, but because of the leyline magic, it is instead Aura of Life, which stays up without concentration. Vahlka uses Wrath of the Wyrm Queen on the Yuan-ti grappling Barkley. It does a metric fuckton of damage and nearly kills him. Barkley stabs the same Yuan-ti but he still doesn't die and continues to have the gnome grappled. She screams "Put me down you asshole!"
* Theo starts to cast a spell. Olivia considers counterspelling but because of the leyline magic she decides to use cutting words, reducing the damage by 3 points. The spell turns out to be a Disintegrate spell aimed at Deacon, who would have been disintegrated but because of the cutting words has 2 hit points left. A yuanti that had been patrolling the building finally finds Godfrey and attacks him. Deacon gets swarmed by the seven snake swarms Olivia had disengaged from, six of the seven swarms miss their attacks but one hits, which is enough to drop him unconscious. Lucius debates on whether to try and Plane Shift Theo or to heal Deacon, and Olivia yells at him to use a potion on Deacon.
* Godfrey casts Far Step to escape the grasp of the constrictor snake, the spell actually goes off as intended. In response to his luck he says "My god is closer than you realize!" and then he teleports himself around twice, ending up standing on one of the crumbling walls of the building. The Yuan-ti holding Barkley decides to cut his losses - he drops the gnome and disengages. The rest of the Yuan-ti purebloods use their shortbows to attack Lucius, and their claws to attack Vahlka and Barkley. Deacon hesitates, concerned about trying to heal himself in the leyline aura now that he's badly wounded. Vahlka shouts "Come here!" to Deacon and he disengages from the swarm of snakes on him and rushes to Vahlka's side.
* Olivia rushes forward and uses Necara to slice the wire that's connecting Theo to the machine, shouting "Stop killing people! You know this is wrong!" Theo makes an angry noise as he suddenly loses the ability to control his magic, and realizes that our party could see where he was the whole time. Vahlka uses Lay on Hands to heal Deacon for 50 hit points. The giant poisonous snakes do damage to Barkley and Barkley drinks a supreme healing potion before disengaging from all her attackers.
* Lucius hears a high pitched sound, presumably Theo used some sort of horn that only dragons can hear because the rest of the party can't hear it. Theo moves, though we can't see where, and one of the Yuan-ti attempts to cast a spell. They leyline magic throws the spell out of whack and instead he casts Branding Smite. The swarms split up and go after Olivia and Deacon. Lucius moves and casts Firebolt at the huge constrictor that's trying to reach Godfrey on the wall. Godfrey Far Steps away from the wall and towards Theo - Godfrey is the only one who can see him because of his Robe of Eyes. Godfrey watches Theo as he hides against a back wall of the crumbling building - Godfrey doesn't even turn around because he can see Theo through the back of his blinking robe, and it's really creepy and awful. Godfrey then casts Eldritch Blast directly into the machine, landing a critical hit and causing the machine to explode in a violent leyline burst. Everyone nearby it (Barkley, Vahlka, Deacon, a bunch of snakes and Yuanti) takes a ton of damage and is thrown violently backwards. The Yuan-ti near it all die as do all the snakes, and snakes and snake parts rain down on everyone nearby like horrible confetti. Vahl, Deacon, and Barkley slam into nearby walls but are alive. The machine is still going though it's clearly damaged.
* Godfrey, who can see invisible creatures, sees the familiar form of Moira arrive, invisible, presumably summoned by the horn that Theo blew. The invisibility falls away and she sweeps up next to Theo and Godfrey. She says "Hello little man." Godfrey replies, "I remember you, we got you out of - " But he can't finish his sentence before she strikes at him with her teeth and claws. She extends her tail out for Theo to grab. Godfrey attempts to Hellish Rebuke in response to Moira's hit, but because of the leyline he casts Seeming instead, which changes everyone he can see to look like various versions of Godfrey wearing different hats, and it's ridiculous.
* The Yuan-ti purebloods who weren't caught in the blast of the machine start to flee the scene. Moira uses a legendary action to attack Godfrey and Godfrey falls unconscious. Deacon tries to cast a spell, but because of the leyline he casts Aura of Vitality. Olivia rushes out of the building, standing beside Theo though she doesn't realize it because he's invisible. She starts screeching at her brother, saying "Why Theo?! Why are you doing this to me!? What did I ever do to you?!" Then she tries to cast a spell to stop Moira, dramatically pointing a finger at the dragon to cast Hold Monster.......and the leyline makes her cast..........Locate Animals and Plants. The spell informs Olivia that....wait for it........there are snakes nearby. WOMP *WOMP.*
* Vahlka is losing her shit and charging back up to the machine and attacks it twice with Sethokesh. Barkley follows suit, slamming Anxucotl into the control panel. The machine sparks and once again Barkley, Vahlka, and the remaining Yuan-ti pureblood take a bunch of damage and are thrown back violently. The Yuan-ti dies. The leyline flickers.....flickers....and then the leyline disappears back into the ethereal plane. Theo loses his invisibility, Godfrey loses Aura of Life.
* Olivia yelps when Theo appears next to her, and he grapples her, dragging her with him as he climbs up on Moira's back. Lucius gets stabbed with a scimitar from the last Yuan-ti that's alive. Lucius tries to plane shift the guy with the Cubic Gate that he has to send him to the 9 Hells. But Lucius misses his attack. Godfrey fails a death save and bleeds out on the grass. Moira strikes the unconscious man with her tail, making him fail more death saving throws, but just as Godfrey is about to die - the haunted doll he has been carrying with him jumps into action. It absorbs his last death save, dying in his stead, its spirit floating up from his pack and fading away. Presumably the spirit inside the haunted doll, which probably cared for Godfrey a great deal, is now at peace. Godfrey is stabilized. Moira, carrying Olivia and Theo, flies away.
* Deacon heals Godfrey. The last Yuan-ti alive disengages, but Vahlka cuts him down. Olivia uses Dimension Door to teleport off of the dragon's back and onto the ground by the building to be free of Theo's grasp. Barkley rushes to Olivia's side and pulls out her magical feather from Morgan Le Fey, her summonable amphithere mount. "We can catch her if you want. Morgan Le Fey goes much faster." Olivia says "Uhhhhhhh let's do it." Vahlka violently shakes her head and says "No no no, bad idea, very bad idea!" but Olivia says "We're gonna do it." Barkley summons Morgan Le Fey, Olivia and Barkley hop on her and speed after the dragon. Vahlka punches a wall in frustration.
* A high speed dragon chase ensues, Morgan Le Fay is faster than Moira so she eventually catches up. Theo tries to cast invisibility on himself and Moira, but Olivia counterspells him. In response, Theo casts disintegrate on Morgan Le Fay. Barkley casts Death Ward on Olivia. They both plummet to the ground and go unconscious, but Death Ward brings Olivia back up to 1 hp. Olivia immediately heals Barkley and says "We have to go get him!" as Moira flies past Lorane towards a forest Olivia is familiar with near her house.
* Everything after this point has been dramatically edited for continuity and because we're gonna pretend there wasn't a bunch of metagaming and table talk going on whoops.
* Barkley heals Olivia and puts her hands on her shoulders, saying "Olivia, I agree that this is dangerous and that we have to stop him but not at ALL costs, we both almost just died. So uhm, I didn't get on Morgan Le Fay without an exit strategy which I just had to use. I'm down spells, you're down spells, he's down spells which is good but a bunch of us almost just died. I agree we have to go after him but we have to regroup, we have to get our group together and make sure everyone's still okay."
* "Barkley if we let him go, who knows what he can get away with. This is my family and my hometown."
* Barkley argues back, saying "May I be so bold to say that's he's half of your family, and the other half of your family is back there and they almost just died. They're okay now, but we put some distance between us and them, we don't know how many Yuan-ti are between them and us right now. You said yourself that he probably wasn't out to hurt your parents, so you're mom's probably safe..."
* Olivia replies "I don't know that he's out for it, but Tanith might be. He doesn't actually get a say. Barkley...he's pretty likely to be gone by the time we get there if we don't go now."
* "And if we get there and we find him, we're pretty likely to die. or at least I am, maybe he won't kill you. But do you really want to take that risk?"
* Olivia shoves the bag of holding into Barkley's arms and says. "I think I know where's he's going, and I have to go."
* Barkley drops the bag of holding and starts crying, hugging Olivia. Reluctantly she replies, "Okay... I get it...but come back."
* "I am extremely annoying and you're never getting rid of me." Olivia tries to reassure Barkley. "It's the same thing we talked about before, I'm not leaving, I'm just going somewhere." And then Olivia runs towards Lorane.
* Back with the others, Vahlka is screaming "I SHOULD HAVE TACKLED THOSE DUMBASSES." The squad back at the building has released the prisoners and Barkley trudges back to the group. Barkley tearfully explains what happened to a frustrated Lucius and Vahlka. Godfrey says he accepts what Olivia did, Lucius says that he very much does NOT accept it and that it was a stupid decision. Vahlka agrees with Lucius. Barkley tries to explain what she thinks is motivating Olivia by saying that Theo is Olivia's only brother and that feels obligated to try and get answers and try to get him out.
* "Fuck familial ties, who gives a shit about brothers." Lucius says.
* "I would if i had one, Lucius. And for a second there I thought I did so maybe you should shut up." Barkley replies. Lucius angrily throws his hands out and walks away, furious. Vahlka silently seethes, looking worried. "I'm not sure that she'll be fine, but you know." Barkley adds.
* "My question is, if he doesn't want to kill her, what does he want her for? You think he's not going to bond her or some shit?" Vahlka says. Barkley says she doesn't know. "Maybe Tanith wants TWO bards?"
* "One can not truly control one's destiny. You can't force Olivia to follow us, you're not chaining her down. if this is the path she choses then she chooses, enough said." Godfrey says.
* "Guess we'll just cut her down when she comes against us if it does happen, but you know i don't relish the attitude." Vahlka says.
* "Why am I not surprised it took only a few hours of getting back before disaster struck again." Vahlka says with a sigh.

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