Help Her Find the Way

**"Help Her Find the Way"** is the twenty-sixth episode of *Mountain of Mystery*, airing on October 3rd, 2023.

The session was DMed by TanisJr93 and hosted on his channel on Twitch.

## Summary

*...continued from session twenty-five*
As the team retreats into the Bag of Holding outside the laboratory in the basement below the Vergesson Sanatorium, Lazarus and Sado remain in the vestibule as the doors within the cellblock open; the Rogue then reaches into the Bag and improbably manages to summon a potion of *Invisibility*, taking a degree of psychic damage from his unconventional manipulation of the extradimensional space within the Bag. Lazarus gives the Bag and the potion to Sado before scouting the downward staircase that Caleb's map indicated was the route he used to escape; as he reaches the poorly-lit hallway at the bottom of the stairs, a heavy steel door slams shut, injuring Sado and separating the two on opposite sides as the voice of Syndock Truscan tells them: "Didn't I tell you this would be more difficult than you expect? What will you do now?"

Inside the Bag of Holding, Trouble's father continues struggling to break out of his bindings, watching Elowynn as Trouble watches him. Moments later, the party sees Lazarus's hand reach into the space and unweave itself as it unexpectedly pushes its way through the fabric of the Bag and emerge with a vial before retracting again. Cash examines his mother, discovering new markings from the treatment she suffered at the Sanatorium and realizing that she is having trouble recognizing him as her mind struggles to cling to a single reality.

As he prepares to cast *Lesser Restoration* on her, Prints notices an unnatural shadow crawl through the fissure where Lazarus's hand punctured the space of the Bag, and immediately strikes the terrifying aberration with a *Guiding Bolt* as Cash casts *Shatter* and Trouble casts a *Flaming Sphere*; the Bagman then attacks Cash and attempts to strangle the Cleric, who retaliates with the Wrath of the Storm, after which Reign stabs the creature with her shiv and Kahlan strikes it once with her father's dagger and kills it with two successive strikes of her scimitar.

In the staircase, Lazarus resolves to venture further underground alone as Sado drinks the potion of *Invisibility* and heads back upward; the Rogue descends to a dimly-lit hallway to find a distracted guard, stealthily darting through the patches of darkness to successfully bypass the man undetected. Following the route on Caleb's map, he moves quickly through a series of hallways for another minute before reaching the room that should contain the chute to the facility's sewers, but instead finds a remodeled storage room with solid wooden floors. Searching frantically, he realizes a hollow sound as he steps over a certain section of the floor, and realizes that the chute has merely been covered over.

Passing invisibly through the vestibule, Sado suffers a small degree of psychic damage as one of the escaped patients unleashes another cackle; he darts up the stairs, ascending again into the small closet and returning to the adjacent room to find three guards who do not seem to notice his presence. The Monk drinks a healing potion, throwing the glass vial into the opposite corner of the room where it shatters, distracting the guards enough to slip out the door, darting down the hallway and passing through a southern door into a stairwell and sprinting further upward as he begins to hear the sounds of guards approaching.

In the remodeled storage room, Lazarus expertly pries up the floorboards using his Kingsguard daggers, dropping through the narrow space into the chute as he hears guards approaching in the hallway outside. He skids down the tunnel briefly before coming to a stop just short of a rusted, stationary blade. Upstairs, Sado emerges into another hallway as a guard steps out of a bathroom; the Monk spots a panel of switches and activates them, opening eight cell doors and releasing the inmates, who swarm the guard as Sado slips out through a door at the end of the hall. Entering another hallway, he approaches another glass-pane door to discover the half-orc and a halfling still arguing, and silently sneaks through the office to exit back onto the balcony where he activates his Wings Unfurled and flies invisibly from the building, being joined by Mazikeen as he returns to Caleb's location.

In the sewers below the facility, Lazarus suffers a minimal degree of damage as he deftly navigates his way through the rusted blades, reaching the end of the tunnel to find that the exit has been sealed; searching the earthen wall, he manages to find a single fissure through which he can see trees and the night sky outside, and he casts *Misty Step* to teleport out into a pool of stagnant water. Quickly orienting himself, he races through the forest to rejoin Caleb as Sado arrives with Mazikeen, after which the Wizard inscribes the final rune to cast *Teleport* and transports the group back to the Valley Archive of the Cobalt Soul in Zadash. After being briefly chastised by frustrated Monk for their unannounced arrival, the three leave the building and return to The Evening Nip.

Inside the Bag of Holding, Kahlan and Reign recover as Cash casts *Mending* on the tear to repair the fabric of the Bag, while Trouble examines her father and realizes something off about his eyes as she begins to feel the pull of a sliver of the entity within him. Prints then uses her soulsight to find the knot of darkness deep inside his heart, and Trouble approaches her father and casts *Druidcraft* to recreate the smell of their former house, at which point the entity asserts itself to speak through the man: "You're becoming a bit of a nuisance." Trouble taunts the creature until her father regains control, recognizing her and pleading with her to run, but the Druid refuses, insisting that they have friends to help them.

Moments later, the group is summoned out of the Bag to rejoin Sado, Lazarus, and Caleb at the Gentleman's bar; Reign is led away by two bodyguards, and the party are paid 500 gold each for the completion of the mission as the Gentleman commends their success. As the group finally relaxes, Kahlan feeds Trouble's father while Cash completes his casting of *Lesser Restoration* on his mother and discovers that it has no effect; Prints is visited by the Reaper calling itself Endless, who suggests that the Tabaxi has two problems to solve and offers to help with both. He then guides the Sorcerer over the course of an hour in the painstaking process of successfully knitting back together the tattered patches of Elowynn's soul.

Cash helps his mother to an upstairs bedroom as Prints offers to cast *Comprehend Languages* on Trouble's father so that the party can understand him, but the Druid declines, instead asking Endless to take care of her father is the procedure fails. Prints uses her soulsight to locate the sliver of darkness in the man's heart, but as she reaches through his corporeal form and takes hold of it, the fragment shatters within him, killing him instantly; Trouble catches him as he falls, and Prints races upstairs to find Cash as Endless approaches Trouble's father to collect the Kenku's soul and carry it into the shadows.

Caleb consoles the Druid moments before Prints and Cash rush back downstairs, and the Cleric casts *Revivify* with contributions from Kahlan, Lazarus, and Trouble: the Fighter offers her father's Kingsguard dagger, the Rogue offers his own blood after shattering a tumbler in his anger, and the Druid *druidcraft*s a flower and places it on her father's chest. A burst of lightning erupts in the room, and Trouble's father awakens, alive; exhausted, Cash heads back upstairs, where he is approached by Endless and admits that he feels vindicated. The Reaper suggests that though Cash may resent where he came from, he believes the past will no longer hold the Genasi back. Downstairs, Trouble's father regains consciousness, freed from the darkness that had previously plagued him.

*...continued in session twenty-seven*
## Notes

* The events of the session occurred on the night of 8 Duscar 839 PD.
* Alternate titles for the session include, but are not limited to:
	+ "The Warden of the Bag"
	+ "Vergesson Redemption"

## Quotes

* "Is there any switches anywhere?" – FloodedBasement
* "Fucking rusty blades." – Capwithoutacountry
"You have blades in front of you." – TanisJr93
"Rusty Blades might be a good, uh, dude-stripper name. Um..." – Capwithoutacountry
"Or a metal band." – Zach
"I was gonna say: that was the name of the punk band I was in in high school." – Megquins
"Yo!" – TanisJr93
* "Now: is that a Deception check against herself, and she therefore has disadvantage `cause she's lying to herself?" – Capwithoutacountry
"Yeah." – TanisJr93
* "Lets GTFO." – Sado Thuliaga
* "Can I try something *very* stupid?" – Megquins
"Absolutely." – TanisJr93
"Is that not the *theme* of tonight?" – Capwithoutacountry
* "You're becoming... a bit of a nuisance." – Everything-and-Nothing
"If you ask the man whose head you're in, I always was one." – Trouble
"You can't... hide forever." – Everything-and-Nothing
"Then come and get me." – Trouble
"Only a matter of time." – Everything-and-Nothing
"Tick-tock." – Trouble
"I *will* find you. Don't you worry" – Everything-and-Nothing
"About you? Never." – Trouble
* "Aja?" – Cutting Through Oak
"Hello, Papa. It's been a long time." – Trouble
"*Aja?*" – Cutting Through Oak
"When we are somewhere safer, I'll tell you the whole story. But, you know, this–" – Trouble
"Bad! Run! Bad!" – Cutting Through Oak
"No. Papa, I know–" – Trouble
"Bad! Run!" – Cutting Through Oak
"Papa: it's so much worse than you know, and it's already here." – Trouble
"Papa. Bad! Run, Aja! Run!" – Cutting Through Oak
"Not this time! *This* time, we do this together. And *this* time, we're not alone. *This* time, we have help." – Trouble
* "If you're not pissing *someone* off, you're not doing your job, are ya?" – Lazarus Oldman
* "I'm so sorry, Papa. I'm so sorry. I am going to miss you. I've missed you every day, and that won't change. Papa: I promised you one thing, and unfortunately, this is not the way I meant. But it's still true. You're no longer in danger. And I'm sorry. I am *so* sorry that this had to find you. Goodbye." – Trouble
"I am sorry, Aja. But I need to take him now." – Endless
"Tell him for me, would you? Tell him I'm happy, and that I'm safe. Lie to him. Please." – Trouble
"As you wish. And I will not leave his side until we get there." – Endless
"Thank you." – Trouble
* "It's too late. S– stop. Don't waste a diamond on a man who's not coming back. We might need it. He was woodcarver, you know? A furniture-maker. Damn good one. Stop it." – Trouble
* "I'll buy another one. Fuck it. *Revivify*." – Zach
* "I don't want you to lose your father too." – Kahlan Karsus
* "I would like this to be another lesson. You aren't alone. Your friends can affect the *world*, as long as you trust each other and stand together. If one of you falls short, know that there is always another ready to catch you." – Endless
* "I couldn't do that for you last time. I had to try." – Cash Goldcrest
* "You are changing. You are becoming who you are meant to be, and you are doing that... you are doing that with your friends." – Endless
"I'm sure trying." – Cash Goldcrest
* "No sleep. No sleep." – Cutting Through Oak
"Fine. Tonight: no sleep." – Trouble
* "That penguin dice is making this story *hurt*." – TanisJr93
"Apparently." – NimueofAvalon
"I blame you." – Megquins
"A parent... a parent *lived*." – Capwithoutacountry
"Fuck you." – NimueofAvalon
"*Right?* Holy fuck: a parent *lived*. *Two* parents lived." – Megquins
"*Two*." – Capwithoutacountry