COS II Session 8

now imagine the brontosaurus was undead

## Starring...

* The Barovian Freedom Fighters
	+ Red, fumbling it
	+ Xadriel Maverran, there's a wind instrument joke to be made here somewhere
	+ Tokili, right beside you the whole time
	+ Stone, (almost) down her other glove
	+ Galia Trey, going into anaphylactic shock
	+ Twiggy, wanting a puppy for Christmas
	+ +2 shortsword, who can move really far really fast on walls and on lava and

* ERA001, actually a reference to 'Home Alone'

Notable Absentees: Max von Austrahlung

## Through the Jungle

After a stay in Era's cave, the party is ready to depart via Brontosaurus at Era's command, however they hardly make it out of the cave before boredom sets in any several shapechanging spells and abilities are used to speed up the movement a bit. It's smooth flying for about an hour, at which point a blast emanates from deep within the jungle which briefly puts a stop to all magical effects, including Era.

Continuing on foot, the blasts do not cease with a nearly deafening blast occurring every 10 minutes or so. Some time along the journey, Era's brontosaurus mount shows it's blatant disregard for the local population by stepping on a wasp nest; the wasps detect Galia was behind the crime, as they begin to sting her. Galia forget to mention on the waiver that she has a deathly allergy to wasp stings and she left her EpiPen back in Barovia, the common symptoms of an allergic reaction soon follow: sudden high fever, swelling, Visions of your sworn enemy the devil Strahd Von Zarovich and difficulty in breathing. Fortunately advances in magics allow most of these symptoms to be treated quickly *however* due to the stubbornness of Galia, who refers to herself as a "self-sufficient girlboss sigma female" and Clerics being stingy with spells slots Galia's troubles were not put to rest until about half an hour after the symptoms first began; in which time Galia was slashed at by an illusory Strahd multiple times. Eventually someone casts the spell that cures the correct condition and all is returned to normal, fantastic!

During that time, the party was also traversing towards the source of the blast that kept hard rebooting Era. They found the source to be a broken version of the platform they arrived in this time period on, except this version is emblazoned with a "no climbing" sign. Al decides to disregard this ancient and wise text because he's a monk and they're basically invincible right? Unfortunately that sign was there for a reason and the platform begins to rise off the ground revealing an eye-like shape below, a perfect fit for any large spherical gems of immense power. Era makes the obvious connection and places the large gem powering the brontosaurus in to the slot, stopping the blasts and zapping Al (the sign was there for a reason man). However after the fact the party runs in to the same problem: There's not enough eggs to power this time machine. The party sets up the MMMMM inside an instant fortress from Fortnite and begin their rest, undoubtedly dreaming of EGGS.

## Egg Heist

The party awakens to much fanfare and begins the day's journey with one goal in mind: find out what's in this damned volcano. The closer they get the more the overpopulated jungle floor is stripped away by the immense heat, until they arrive at the completely barren base of the volcano. There is no clear way inside so Tokili casts *Etherealness* in order to pass through the ancient layers of volcanic rock.

Upon entrance to the internal chamber, Tokili doesn't see anything because Etherealness limits your visual range to 60ft, he takes a walk and spies a dragon in the center of the room upon a pillar surrounded by a moat of lava. He does not get cucked by *sending* and is able to tell the party to try not to wake up they dragon when they inevitably wind walk through the top of the volcano. With all of them (sans Tokili because casting sending to say anything is way too expensive) unnoticed and on the ground, a plan to acquire the egg(s) can be formed.

The party is all in agreement on the general idea of the plan: steal at least one of the dragon's eggs in order to appease the platform. However there is some disagreement on the finer details of the plan, with the main proponent being Twiggy who believes that 2 eggs should be stolen, one of which is to be used as food for the platform and one to be used as literally just a pet. With such convincing arguments as "I am going to cry right here and right now if you don't" it was truly inexplicable how Twiggy's concerns went unappreciated with professional egg-thieving duo Stone and Red choosing instead to only grab one egg. With the plan thoroughly thought out, it's now time for the execution.

The party returns to their gaseous form via *Wind walk* in order for a quick escape, save for Red and Stone who ready themselves for egg stealing by casting a variety of stealth related spells because they're both trickery clerics. They carefully cross the lava moat using Red's convenient wings that he refuses to use and red prepares to lift the egg. He reaches out to grab the egg however is unable to fight his repressed veganism and refuses to lay a finger on it. His brief clarity in to his love of dragons is interrupted by the dragon waking up, turning the sleeping dragon in to just a regular-non sleeping dragon. Stone sees the writing on the wall and casts *Dimension Door* and teleported both her and red in to a crevice just barely avoiding a fire breath attack.

And since we're just learning so much about this dragon today let's add another: It is not in fact a single parent and can just get their significant other to watch over the egg while they search over the cave for those omelette-loving ne-er do wells. It's a hair-raising, nail-biting 30 seconds as one dragon covers the egg, and one dragon searches for red and stone. Inevitably despite a high of 40 on stealth rolls, the searching dragon eventually finds the yolk-thieving duo. Stone uses her famous ability: Running away and teleports to an already searched area, hoping to deceive the dragon in to giving the all clear. Before a band-aid plan can be formulated, the lava begins rising seemingly as a response to the dragon's rage. They decide that they can *\*probably\** tank a hit from this dragon, who is he anyways? And they dimension door out of the frying pan and in to the fire.

Red grabs the egg, which causes him to have a brief moment of clarity in which he realized that by removing this egg from the timeline he could be wiping out as much as a third of all dragons. The undue stress causes him to immediately drop the egg and he is absolutely stunned by not only his horrible, horrible action but how fast the egg scrambles upon the red hot obsidian pillar. Stone snaps red out of it by using her only non-hamburger hand to grab one of the two remaining eggs and skedaddle, once again using the spell of the day: **Dimension Door!** to teleport right outside the volcano.

The dragons are notably not so happy about all this, causing the whole mountain to shake with furious anger. Red and Stone are unable to contain the red hot dragon egg and have no choice but to watch their stylish clothes burn away before their very eyes. The dragons fly out of the volcano and use their only useful in this exact situation "detect" legendary action to spy the ever-slippery Red and Stone, one flies towards them and screams at them. Red grabs the egg and tries to run down the mountain, he finally has become numb to the destruction of eggs and is ready to go ass over tea kettle down the mountain, but is stopped by the ever-present Tokili, remember him from 5 paragraphs ago? He casts scatter to move the egg fellas down the mountain behind a different, more concealing rock; he also graciously offers a bag of holding, so it'll be a bit safer to transport.

Before absolute safety for egg and man can be achieved, the party hive mind decides to vacate the area and uses several castings of *Polymorph* to do so. It is very apparent to those still in the volcano that the lava is rising at a concerning speed, thankfully they are all able to leave the inner sanctum before anything truly terrible happens. Tokili, Red and Stone make off as vultures with the egg via polymorph, Al and Galia follow closely behind thanks to Twiggy's wind walk, Twiggy himself casts Polymorph and keeps up after everyone, ERA stands completely still before teleporting to a place she's never been and had no idea existed. Boulders begin flying out of the volcano and pressure builds. Galia and Xadriel polymorph, following a trend. Thankfully the enraged dragons are evaded, however toxic ash and fireballs are now spewing out of the volcano. All of the birds in the party have the same idea to B-line to the pedestal closest to the volcano. The quick-witted Tokili realizes that there's no way the party is making it to either time travel pedestal, because he is responsible for both Red and his own polymorph he forcefully positions Red over top of Stone's eagle form before dropping polymorph, both landing safely in a bed of feathers. The sky and horizon are now completely obscured by the immense detonation of ash and rock. The party is split over a large area so Tokili casts *Major Image* to create the largest sunlight beacon imaginable to his own detriment. The party, in a mix of vulture, eagle and gaseous form convene at a clearing in the jungle right as an ear-shattering explosion rocks the world. Ash a wave of ash approaches the closely huddled party. Tokili pulls out a tuning fork in which he prepared 8 years ago to be attuned to the lands of Barovia, and casts *Plane Shift.* With that everyone in the party disappears, except for Al and Galia: who were still in the form of wind when the spell was cast.

Galia and Al being home alone'd, quickly rush to ERA's cave as it's the only form of cover they have. The wall of ash impacts the mountain, however leaving them unscathed.

## Cooling Down (via volcanic winter)

The majority fraction of the party who hitched a ride on Tokili's plane shift finds themselves on a stone, cavernous floor with deafening wind. This is no place for a good nap here, so Tokili lays down an instant fortress and invites the party inside as he draws a doorway to the mmmmm. It's refreshingly quiet when compared to the roaring winds outside. They try their best to make the night normal, with Tokili working on Birdwatcher's memory.

For those who stayed behind in their gaseous form and fled to ERA's cave the world looked hardly the same. Galia and Al's lifespan was reduced by 20 years due to the short-term exposure to the toxic volcanic ash that covered the landscape. The two sit and sleep in complete silence over the night despite Al's best efforts at conversation. ERA never appears at the cave, not even through her teleportation circle which had been used to get out of a sticky situation less than 24 hours earlier. It's hard to tell when the sun rises, as the entire sky is blotted out by ash, there is nothing but freezing silence.

The pandemonium crew returns at this time, shifting back to the platform they arrived on. They send a message to Galia and Al telling them to teleport over here and bring ERA's notes. They also find, completely ruined and charred next to the platform is the deformed, lifeless body of ERA001. Tokili recovers her body and makes plans to revive her, but for now it's time to leave for the next time period. Al and Galia arrive at the platform thanks to the help of Galia's helm of teleportation. Tokili summons the dragon egg on top of the platform's holographic image of the egg as time and space warps around them.

The party finds themselves in a trash-covered brick alley. Session over.

## Developments

* Birdwatcher Memories 4 and 5 have been recovered.
* The party is no longer in possession of the winery gem(s).
	+ The party is no longer in possession of a reanimated brontosaurus.
* ERA001 is dead. Her body is in Tokili's possession.
* The party has obtained ERA's notes.
* The party is now in the masquerade era (1920s) (noir time) (i'm so excited) (things are about to happen)

## Trivia

* Red's been having awful luck with heists lately.