Session 52-A: A Heavy Heart

## Key Plot Developments

The group, terrified by the brutality of the lord of gnolls and maddened by Briar’s death, runs. Uncle Rotgut leads them through tunnels like a man possessed, running entirely on instinct. Bogtooth is gibbering; he wants to speak to Dulcinea, but he can’t form full thoughts. Finally, they feel like they’ve put enough distance between themselves and Yeenoghu.

They reach a cavern full of statues. The statues are in various poses of fear, suffering, or longing: some cover their faces, some claw at them, some gaze at the ceiling longingly. All are dotted with lichen and mineral deposits. Some of the despondent statues remind Trix of Briar. They consider trying to restore the statues with Dawnbringer.

When they plunge the healing sword of light into a statue, they get a vision of the angelic spirit contained with in—a handsome man obsessively peeling flesh off cadavers and trying to graft it into a golem. (This figure, unbeknownst to the goblins, is the Abbot of St. Markovia in the lands of Barovia.) Dawnbringer speaks to the angel—whose original name was Tamiel. Tamiel’s spirit is obsessed with helping and redeeming others. Trix intuits that this figure must have done something terribly wrong to be punished in such a way—separated from its original form, cast into a different dimension. The revelation drives him partially mad; he’s stunned into silence.

The group realizes they have another ingredient for the ritual here: six feathers from six different angels (Rotgut tries to take six from the same angel). As they go through each of the angels, they’re overtaken by various forms of madness; Rotgut attacks the party temporarily, but is subdued.

Rotgut, in his madness, caught flashes of the maze engine. He saw lightning exploding, crimson light, slippery goo, loud whispers, flying snakes, fairy fire, music and grinding noises, a flash of violet light—and two levers, one of which was broken. Finally, he saw something else inscribed on a control panel—a goblin-written phrase: “Gone fishing.”

Trix meditates in the center of the fallen angels. He thinks about people he couldn’t save—Pelek, Briar, Glyn, Pyrite, and Drigglezub. Before, he felt trapped by this chain of loss. Now, he realizes there’s still good he can and must do.

Based on his conversation with Tamiel, the angel obsessed with redemption, Trix considers what is and is not redeemable—and he’s greeted by an extraplanar vision.

He sees a small goblin hand, trapped in a pod—

He hears voices speaking in a guttural language—Abyssal—

He knows he’s been in this pod for a few moments—or years—

His wrists are swelling, his eyes are popping, there are pustules forming, it’s not stopping—

And he hears his thoughts—no, the thoughts of a small goblin girl—Drigglezub’s thoughts—

“Thank god, it’s finally over—”

And Drigglezub’s body gives out and dies. Trix is back in the Underdark.

He is certain that Drigglezub was tortured to death by demons. He collapses to the ground, but vows to keep going for his family and destroy whoever did this to her.

Bogtooth inspires the group with a rousing speech (inspiring Rotgut to call him ‘chief’). They decide to inspect the machine before they destroy it; the goblin-written “gone fishing” note is unnerving.

Finally, they reach the engine, which looks like an enormous working model of the universe itself. It’s suspended above a pit of magma and guarded by an enormous goristro demon. They banish the demon temporarily (knowing they’ll have to carve out its heart to complete the ritual) so they can look at the engine—but the malfunctioning engine’s movements cause tremors, which make Pix fall into the magma. Trix casts feather fall; Rotgut improvises a lasso to save her.

Trix gets to the maze engine and analyzes its workings. He surmises that the broken lever represented a way to travel to the future, while the second lever represents a way to travel to the past. Based on encountering Nicholas Ice Cream’s minions earlier, he believes Nicholas Ice Cream has already used the engine to travel into the future.

This interference causes the engine to begin breaking down. Its chaos causes a multitude of unpredictable warps in the space-time continuum—summoning slaads, magma mephitis, flying snakes—every few seconds, and every time magic is cast, the faerzress-soaked engine creates a wild magic surge. The goristro reemerges.

The chaos magic of the machine produces an unexpected guest: a feebleminded Pyrite. There are big, deep gashes oozing with blood all over her body. She’s looking at this room like a caged animal searching for a way out. Her eyes seem totally wild. Tremble shoots an arrow with a rope attached to it and nails it into the ground to get Pyrite to climb over—the engine is slowly falling into the magma.

Pyrite wildly runs across the maze engine on all fours towards Tremble. The goristro destroys Tremble’s bow; just its normal path of movement nearly kills the party as they’re trampled underfoot. Rotgut, who knows some Abyssal, draws the goristro’s attention.

Before they all die, Bogtooth calls on his most powerful fey magic. It resonates with the failing maze engine and creates his most powerful attack yet—an extradimensional eldritch blast.

This explosion stretches out for 100 miles, banishing all extraplanar creatures. This includes Yeenoghu and Baphomet. Before the goristro disappears, the goblins rip its heart from its chest.

The engine goes into the lava. The goblins all survived—and Pyrite’s back.

## Memorable Quotes

* **Pix:** It’s gonna be okay, boys!
* **Lemon:** I’ve never been more sure of anything in my liiiiife!

**Bogtooth:** They ate him. They ate him. They ate him. They ate him….

* **Lemon:** Hey, I never wanna die.
* **Trix:** We’re gonna make sure that never happens.
* **Lemon:** I’m immortal.

* **Bogtooth**: Rotgut, why’d they eat him?
* **Rotgut:** They treat everyone like they’re family or something, but then they don’t bat an eye when one of their own dies.
* **Trix:** Yeah, it’s kinda chaotic.
* **Bogtooth:** It’s evil, too.
* **Trix:** Like…chaotic evil.

**Dawnbringer:** I can’t do it. They’re all really far away. I can’t reach them. I can’t restore them. They’re on a plane of shadow, I…I… this is their shade. The shade is lonely. It’s reaching out for one of you to touch it. It wants to redeem….

* **Trix:** Who are you, what happened to you?
* **Tamiel**: I am Tamiel. My colleagues and I were sent to the shadow realm to take what is wrong and make it right…and we’re still working. The good fight is never done. But let me help you! We shall all be redeemed! Please, let me help you!
* **Trix:** What can we do to free you from this?
* **Tamiel:** When the time is right, the morning lord will smile.
* **Trix:** The morning lord? Who’s that?
* **Tamiel:** I know he’ll smile because I’ve communed with him. I’m on the right path, I just need to…just need to….

* **Pix:** Trix? Are you silent again? Why can’t you talk? ……Arcana! You think you can’t talk?
* **Trix**: [Gives a look that says DUH.]
* **Pix:** You silly goose! You went to hell and back! I know you can. Even babies can do that!

* **Rotgut:** Right, right, right, right, right….this is gonna make you safe!
* **Tremble:** Uncle Rotgut, what are you doing?
* **Rotgut:** I’m making sure that we all go to heaven now!

* **Rotgut:** I’m so sorry…I just heard it…the thing was telling me…I couldn’t say no…
* **Tremble:** Oh, that’s okay, Uncle Rotgut, that happens all the time.
* **Rotgut:** What?
* **Bogtooth:** Yeah. it’s pretty commonplace.
* **Tremble:** Yeah, one time a ghost went inside of me, and one time Pyrite tried to kill us. And also Glyn did too, and …..

**Drigglezub:** Thank…..god…..it’s all over….

**Trix:** I can still find whoever did that to her… and blow them into a million pieces.

* **Bogtooth:** Yeah, I might have wanted to eat all of you an hour ago, but those guys in there are definitely still gonna wanna eat us. They love eating stuff! I’m not sure what I’m getting at, I guess all the meat stuff is still in the back of my head. But what I’m trying to say is we gotta keep going. We got a wedding to get to after this! This isn’t where it ends for us. We got a whole lot of stuff to wrap up! So let’s go!
* **Rotgu**t: Yes, chief!
* **Bogtooth:** Who are you talking to? Let’s get going!

* **Pix:** [Pyrite appears.] What the fuck?
* **Trix:** That’s what I’ve been saying this whole time! What the fuck!?

* **Tremble:** Pyrite! Climb over!
* **Pyrite:** ArAgRAbLargAr!
* **Trix:** Is that really Pyrite?!
* **Pix:** She’s old!
* **Bogtooth:** She definitely sounded like Pyrite!
* **Pyrite:** Arrgaarrg!

**Bogtooth**: We’re gonna make sure your ass feels the fury of the small! GET THE FUCK OUT OF OUR PLANE OF EXISTENCE!!