A Way to Help Us Out

**"A Way to Help Us Out"** is an hour-long minisode of *Mountain of Mystery*, airing on August 8, 2023.

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

## Summary

*...continued from session twenty*
As the eleven members of both parties eat and converse over dinner at The Bar Barian, Sado recalls a conversation he had with Lazarus the previous morning after they returned to the Adventurers Guildhall in Zadash to turn in their contract; having met the twins Barren and Aron, the Monk inquired about the nature of adventuring, which the Aasimar suggested is a search that looks different for everyone because everyone is looking for something different. Lazarus also learned from a guild clerk that the one surviving member of the Brothers in Arms is somewhere in the city, though she doesn't know the man's specific location.

Trouble apologizes to Aboukir for her outburst toward him in Berleben, and the Mammothari forgives her "animositous" behavior, after which the two debate whether "animositous" is a word or not, with Lazarus suggesting that it might be a protologism until more people use it, at which point it will become a neologism. Recalling the moment that Prints looked into the Druid's aura and removed the bead of darkness from her soul, Lazarus asks if the Sorcerer can examine his aura, explaining that when he fell unconscious after attempting to psychically connect with Endless, he encountered the memory of a man that seems to be lingering inside his mind.

Prints opens her awareness to Lazarus's spirit, and is confused to see what she realizes is the energy of a second soul in what appears to be an evenly-matched conflict for control of the Aasimar's mind. He explains that, two years prior, an assassin had attempted to murder Prince Eidys at a wedding reception on the Menagerie Coast, but was thwarted by Lazarus, who was struck by the assassin's blade instead and blacked out; while unconscious, he battled against the phantasm of the assassin within a mental recreation of The Bar Barian in his own mind, until with one final thought, he reached into the assassin's mind and tore out his power, burying it beneath his own mind before waking three days later with no accent and the worst migraine of his life.

Lazarus then takes a plate out to Jagger on the porch as a hawk-owl arrives at the bar, having been summoned by Kahlan using the *Find Familiar* spell. Jean begins to explain the problem they're facing, but before he can continue, he, Thava, Siobhan, and Shiloh sit upright, their eyes glowing blue, and Cash feels an overwhelming presence identical to the one that reached out to him in his dream. After several moments, the glow fades from their eyes and they regain their senses, at which point the group discovers that Thava is holding a large blue sphere, and all four say simultaneously: "Well, shit."

Shiloh leaves the table and retreats to an office behind the bar, slamming the door as Siobhan and Jean explain that they had been telepathically contacted by Kord, who gave the sphere to the group with instructions to transfer all of their power into it, rendering them "next to useless." They explain that Sound of Bells was present during the telepathic gathering, and moments later, a surge of heat spills through the room as the Tabaxi Ranger appears, having teleported from Avernus, where she had spent nearly a month despite having left Zadash just five days earlier. She explains that she had been tracking Elowynn, who was being pursued, and following a combat, she found herself in the first layer of the Hells. She then asks the group to give her and Jean five minutes alone; Lazarus telepathically asks if the Bard wants him to remain psychically connected, but Jean declines, though Kahlan mentally instructs Mazikeen to remain in the room.

Through her familiar, the Tiefling watches Bells look at Jean for nearly two minutes before the Tabaxi approaches and hugs the Bard, telling him: "I learned some things when I was down there. I learned the way you messed with the memories, and I learned why you did what you did. You're going to need to tell them eventually. You can't hold this forever." Jean responds: "I'll hold it as long as he needs me to, and longer still. `Cause that's the promise I made. And I have been, and always will be, a man of my word." Bells invites the rest of the group back inside, and Jean reveals that he learned that his team had been unable to fully destroy the monstrosity 22 years prior because the ritual required all of the scattered fragments of its essence to be collected together; he has since learned that at least five pearls of the entity's energy exist across Exandria, one of the which the party already recovered from the hoard of the ebony dragon Umbrah.

He also suggests that successfully destroying the gathered splinters of the creature may require that Trouble temporarily confine the shards within her fractured mind, which will become more difficult as more of the entity's consciousness is reassembled. Jean explains that the group will need to retrieve the remaining four eggs before The Searchers can track them down, and that the sphere will maintain the magic that conceals their location. Lazarus learns from his mother that the Cult has been embedded in the Dwendalian government for "quite a few years," and Siobhan explains that her team cannot confront the monstrosity again as Thava admits that she has never been more afraid of anything in her life than she was when she first saw the being in its entirety.

Prints questions the advisability of her mother sacrificing her powers given that Bells is her clan's fiercest protector, and Trouble questions the logic of any of them giving up their powers at all to hide something that they intend to retrieve anyway; Jean explains that if the magical concealment collapses, the Cult will reach the eggs long before the group can given their greater resources and numbers, but suggests that the group has a chance to destroy the multiversal monstrosity for good if they're willing. Prints responds that the decision belongs to Trouble, and Jean admits that there is a likelihood that the Druid will not survive; Trouble accepts the risk, conceding that she does not expect to make it through the ordeal alive, and Bells observes that the Druid sounds "a lot like someone [she] used to know." Jean assures Trouble that he will continue to search for a way to prevent her from dying.

Siobhan mentions that retrieving the egg she hid will take the group to a beach, and Trouble suggests not revealing their locations to her so that the information is not in her mind. The group agrees, and Prints remarks that killing a dragon seems easy in comparison, at which point the party excitedly describes their battle in the Shadow Cavern; a few minutes later, the parents gather around the sphere and place their hands on it, leaving a space where Prints's father would have stood. The sphere glows a bright, electric blue as the energy of their powers is absorbed into the glass, forming into a maelstrom of lightning at the center; exhausted by the ritual, Bells informs the group that she will be summoning her Tabaxi clan to Trostenwald, and Thava agrees to summon Qhore.

Prints nervously holds her tail, and is comforted by Lazarus.

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

* The events of the session occurred on the evening of 2 Duscar 839 PD, with a flashback to the morning of the 1st of Duscar.
* Time passes six times more slowly in Avernus than it does on the Material Plane, given that 30 days passed in Avernus during the five days that Sound of Bells was gone from Exandria.
* By the end of this session, the members of the Protectors of the Scales reduced themselves from level 20 to level 3.
* Alternate titles for the session include, but are not limited to:
	+ "Collection of Morons"
	+ "A Hellscape of a Maze"
	+ "Wildly Problematic"
	+ "The First Time I Died"

## Quotes

* "That would be the Stormlord, Kord. We all kinda got tied up to him one way or another during the whole... situation. And he... He found a way to help us out." – Jean Goldcrest
* "Where in the Nine Hells were you???" – Fresh Prints
* "I have *so* many questions about this plan, and most of them start with 'What the fuck...?'" – Fresh Prints
* "There's no right answer to this. Only the best we got with the information we have. Only, this time... this time, this thing ain't walking away. This time... with all of you, we can kill it. If you're willing." – Jean Goldcrest
* "Trouble: I gotta be honest with you. I don't know if, at the end of this, you'll survive." – Jean Goldcrest
* "I've known that for a while. In fact, I've known that since the first time I died. I don't... make it through this. That was never the goal. The goal was that *they* do, and that I go as far as I can." – Trouble
* "What is a tie, and why is it yours, and can I have one?" – Trouble
* "I would like to make a recommendation: don't tell me... don't tell me their locations. Ever. I'll go along, but don't put that information in my head." – Trouble

## Episode

* Twitch
* YouTube