S5: The Hellevator

Meanwhile, back at the Mattress Wholesale, Aurora was
rehearsing her podcast, which largely consisted of her indirectly bashing
things that members of the Witch Pinchers had recently done. Unfortunately for
her, it turned out that her podcasting pod had been accidentally switched on,
causing Doris and Lur to hear all of her unrehearsed trash talking. The two of
them sulked back to the Mattress Wholesale and Lur began to eat hay out of one
of the mattresses, seeking to replicate the conditions that cause horses to
become so tough. After an awkwardly tense conversation between Doris and Aurora
in which Lur excessively tried to hype up the skills of the sorcerer, the party
started getting ready for bed.

In the middle of the night, Aurora began to toss and turn,
finding herself stuck in an incredibly vivid dream. In it, shadowy figures
loomed over a pair of smaller indistinguishable figures sitting on the floor.
The largest shadowy figure began to mutter incomprehensibly, and their eyes all
began to glow green before the edges of Aurora’s vision began to fade. She
awoke with a start to the sound of the emerald on her brooch rattling on her
desk and a blinding light emitting from it. Too tired to do anything else, she
merely stared blankly at it until it stopped. Lur noticed the commotion coming
from her room as he had terrible hay-induced shits in the corner. After
explaining what had happened, they approached Doris and he tried to detect the
magic. His vision was split between a combination of a bright green light and
it being a small part of a greater whole, as well as hearts emanating from
Aurora, both of which were strongly overpowering the subtle presence of small
two eyes.

Unsure of what to make of the vision, the three of them were
interrupted by a little girl’s shouting from outside. In the street in front of
the wholesale they found a girl who introduced herself as Olivia and offered to
sell them the news, verbatim, for four half sand dollas. She beamed when she
was paid and Lur acquiesced to her requested to call her a normal sized person
instead of small, and proceeded to tell them about bird terrorism, refugee
problems in the overhang and buildings falling from the sky in the Scarlet
Sanctum. Lur perked up with her mention of the buildings in the Scarlet
Sanctum, and was impressed with the information. Seeing an opportunity, he
offered her more money in exchange for her going around town hyping up him and
Doris. He even managed to convince Aurora to take her on as new advertising.

Knowing that there was still money problems for the Witch Pinchers,
Lur suggested that they go to the Sanctum and try to make the buildings float.
Unable to come up with a better idea, they journeyed to the Magistrate and
waited until the guards were distracted by a non-magic user trying to get in to
turn Lur invisible so he could sneak in. They were awe struck by the plethora of
floating structures, held down from floating away by large chains. Unsure of
where to go, they approached a person with ten ears who insulted them instead
of helping them. What a bummer.

Opting to use the novel technique of using their eyes, the
party managed to spot a downed building in the distance being watched over by a
thin and nervous looking guard. They explained that they were there on official
business to move the rubble, but the guard seemed unsure when they couldn’t
provide paperwork. Doubling down, Doris explained that he was a specialized
wizard and could summon a crab familiar to move the rubble, which thoroughly
impressed the guard. Making Lur visible again and using a cantrip to make it
look flashy, the guard was convinced that they were here to do what they said
they were. They were soon interrupted by the old man who was previously trapped
in the morgue, who had managed to get himself stuck in the rubble. After Lur
freed him, they suggested that the guard go and take him to a nursing home, which
he misunderstood as a home for nurses. They then explained that he should go to
a place for old people, which he misunderstood as a morgue. He then brought the
old man back to Wilson’s Morgue.

Now unmonitored, they burst through a door they found in the
rubble and entered the first room..:

1. The first room contained an old man teaching a collection
of his belts how to fight. Lur attempted to convince them to turn against him,
but the belts became unified when threatened. Seeing that they were outmatched,
they ran for the door and closed it behind them, preparing for them to try to
follow in pursuit. Strangely, there was no noise behind the door once they
closed it.

2. Wanting to get a drop on the Dad and their belts, Lur
kicked the door open, revealing a feisty looking group of punks who introduced
themselves as a Door Kicking Gang. Impressed with Lur’s chops, they beckoned
him to try kicking open an elevator they had collectively been trying to kick
open. When Aurora hit the button instead of kicking it, the gang was disgusted
and left to abandon them. They got on the elevator and hit a random button.

3. They
found themselves in a library with shitty fan fiction books written by the
librarian Tiddly Winkus who urged them to read his material. They left instead.
[And also considered burning the entire place down]. Aurora stole the 138, 254th
entry of Jeff the Legendary Warrior without checking it out.

4. As the elevator door began to peek open again,
the party had to cover their eyes as a bright light came through the doors,
revealing a tidy little alleyway, almost evoking Diagon Alley, but much neater
and less interesting. Waiting for them in the street were three dull looking
elves wearing tidy clothing, who introduced themselves in a monotone drawl.
Wondering whether she could shop for some stuff, Aurora asked if there was
anything nice nearby, and one of the elves suggested the nearby coffee shop
which they could buy a single coffee from for 600 gold pieces. Impressed by the
inordinately high price, the Witch Pinchers opted to steal from the place instead,
grabbing a glass jar of coffee beans, believing that they could resell it for a
nice profit. Before they could investigate more of the alleyway, the elevator
began to start shaking violently. Concerned that the building might be about to
collapse, the party convened in the elevator and pressed the next button.

5. On the next floor, the party was greeted by
a literal party for the crab warrior Lur, with confetti, streamers and noise
makers, all being held by a surprising and unsettling set of hosts. Before them
were some skeletons, the original witch that they had pinched and one of the
cultists from the Overkeep siege. Uncertain as to whether it was a trap, Lur
demanded that they eat the cake before he would partake, which the evildoers
were more than happy to do. Seeing them unharmed by the cake, Lur also joined
in and was pleasantly surprised by a well made crab cake that was not made out
of crabs [it was actually made out of algae]. The elevator began to rumble
again and Lur, thinking quickly, grabbed the Witch and brought her aboard the
elevator to interrogate her as to the purpose of the emerald that Aurora had
found in her cave. As she tried to give an answer, the elevator’s movement
suddenly caused her to fade away into nothingness.

6. Apparently a lot of stuff in this quest was inspired by Harry Potter, because this room was pretty much the Room of Requirement with a shit ton of random garbage in it. Lur found some crab steroids. Some goblins were rummaging through stuff and were wary of the heroes. The elevator started rumbling again and they were forced to leave.

7. Aurora tried to kick the door down for a change. Turned out it was just a door painted on a stone wall. Ow.

8. Using unforeseen intuition, Lur decided to open the door instead of kicking it, hearing a yelp on the other side when doing so. On the other side was a cute little puppy that had been smacked by the door opening, hurting its leg. Aurora decided to take it and name it Omen.

9. The elevator ground to a halt to another floor containing a door. Taking the lead, Lur went to kick the door down again, but found that this one also wouldn't budge.
Unlike the last floor, and really all of the previous floors, this door wasn't about to be kicked down without a fight and a wooden leg sprung out of the wood and attempted to kick Lur back. After berating them and getting mad at Aurora for trying to poke it, the door calmed down and the heroes tried to convince it to come with them and become a traveling door. [Secretly, they thought they could probably catch a decent amount of money for it]. The door was almost convinced until they tried to unscrew its hinges and it screamed out in pain, suggesting that it would be impossible to remove it without hurting it.

Aurora was considering taking the door anyways, regardless of whether it was in a lot of pain, but the elevator began to start shaking again. In their rush back to the elevator, one of the door's grown hands was cut in the elevator and severed. Doris subsequently pocketed the hand.

The party was starting to grow a little tired of riding the elevator, so they tried to push the lobby button, which caused the elevator to rumble and almost make a roaring sound. They pressed it again and the sound and shaking worsened, forcing them to cover their ears. Unsure of what to do next, they decided to press the basement button and opted to try to find some stairs to get up to the first floor from there. When they reached the basement, they found a dark room with an extremely hot furnace inside it.

As they were about to get out, something odd began to happen at the left and right edges of the elevator door mouth. A sharp row of teeth started coming in along the edges and the doors began to close.Realizing that something was amiss, the three of them tried to race out of the elevator, but Doris and Aurora were too slow. Doris received a nasty slash across his shoulder and Aurora's leg was caught in the mouth of the elevator.

Lur, seeing his companion in trouble, tied a rope to himself, threw it to Doris and raced back into the mouth and began slashing around, giving Aurora a chance to escape the creature's grasp and limp to a safer location.
Doris and Aurora took stock of the elevator and realized that it was actually the mouth of a creature whose head was laying on its side. It was such a large creature that they couldn't even take stock of how large it was inside of the vastness of the elevator shaft that it had taken up residency in.

The trapped crab decided that decapitating the monster would be the most glorious approach to defeating it, and tried to crawl down into its neck so he could swing his sword around. In execution, Lur merely managed to get his sword buried in the neck of creature, leaving him with holding on for dear life as his only option as the creature threatened to swallow him whole.

A large hand swooped up from over the head and attempted to pull Lur out of its mouth, but Doris was quick to cast a fireball at the mouth, creating a hole. The creature, taking Doris as the greatest threat, reached out to smack him, but came just short.
Avoiding the swooping hand caused Doris's staff to roll just out of reach.

Seeing his chance with the newly made hole in the monster's mouth, Lur injected himself with a third dose of crab steroids and crawled his way to safety, unfortunately leaving his sword behind in his haste.
A pair of vicious attacks on the monster's eyes along with a killing blow from Lur finally brought the creature down as it slipped down into the seemingly endless depths of the elevator shaft, leaving the party fairly shaken by the encounter.

Across the shaft was a door, giving the party only one option as to where they could go. Doris managed to leap across and tie a rope to a pillar on the other side, but Aurora struggled with crossing with her hurt leg while carrying Omen.
Doris offered her his staff and managed to get her up, but there was a cracking sound and Doris grimaced, realizing that his staff had cracked. Still high out of his mind on steroids, Lur managed to make the jump with ease, before throwing the rest of his crab steroids into the chasm, muttering something about
not wanting to become addicted. Feeling haggered, the heroes hoped that the door would have something good on the other side and they were pleasantly surprised to find the Mattress Wholesale on the other side. It appeared as though there was now a doorway to the Sanctum in their home!

### Loot

* Omen
* formerly enchanted wooden hand
* 138, 254th

entry of fan fiction of Jeff the Legendary Warrior by Tiddly Winkus