S06E15: The Gang Refurbishes Thessalar's Lab

## Previously on MCVFD

We killed some lizardfolk, we interrogated a dead body, we found a secret door, and we followed the secret door down to a lab where an alarm was going off. After silencing the alarm, we recovered some potions and a gemstone from the Infernal Machine.

Then, we entered a room full of tanks with bodies - one of which was awake and asking to be freed. When we let it out, the body introduces itself as Thessalar, and claims he doesn't remember how he ended up in the tank. We ultimately agree to escort him through his private rooms to his office.

When we open the doors into the main laboratory, we are presented with a scene of absolute chaos: there are Lizardfolk, Lizardfolk Shaman, big weird Lizardfolk with massive claws, apparently fish people, owl bears, everything is going crazy, there are more alarms going off????

As we stood there, our Thessalar made eye contact with another Thessalar; they look at each other, point and scream “Imposter”!

## Session

We are in a large, L-shaped laboratory. This room is filled with creatures who were, until recently, strapped down or chained to tables; some of the Lizardfolk appear to be their guards. There are some terrified looking fish people fighting and trying to retreat, attached to Lizardfolk with silver wires trailing out of them. Around the corner, though we can’t see the southern section of the lab, we can hear the fairly distinctive sounds of owl bears attacking.

Straight across from us is the entrance to Thessalar’s private lab, and a Thessalar - along with a Homunculus perched on his head, responsible for manipulating all of his facial muscles into expressions.

**DM**: Next up is Kanye!
**Nissa**: Oh good, we definitely want him to go first. He will calmly assess the situation and know what to do.
**Kanye**: Does anything look hostile?
**DM**: Technically everything looks hostile
Kanye waits for Nissa to take a turn.

Nissa gives Kanye 5 gold coins because he was right about the decoder rings being valuable, then grants him permission to attack everything not in a lab coat, in our group, or looking like a Thessalar.

Kanye surveys the perimeter to review his options. He gets a headcount - there are 4 Lizardfolk Shaman looking upset. There are 2 of these larger Lizardfolk (Renders). Kanye is now setting up a defensive perimeter.

The group begins to debate morality considerations for this fight. The DM reminds us that we’re also in the distant past and these people have all been dead for awhile.

Nissa yells "SIMMER DOWN", casting slow on a 40 ft cube in the lab. The spell catches both of the Lizardfolk Renders, 2 of the Shamans, and both of the fish people.

Banking on an opportunity to be sneaky, Um waits for Averlyth to take a turn. She casts Mirror Image so that there are 4 of her. The group briefly appreciates the official writing of the spell making it purely random which Averlyth is the real one, nothing to do with how she maneuvers. There's a joke that at any point she's not sure if she's a clone or not, and they *all* have decoder rings.

Since no enemy is actually near any of Averlyth’s clones, Um can't get a preemptive sneak attack after all, so he instead runs up the wall onto his favorite surface. He readies his crossbow on the way, assuming a sniper’s position on the tall vaulted ceilings, 20 - 30 ft off the ground.

Sorith tries to grapples our Thessalar and make sure he doesn’t do anything, but he's a bit too.... lubricated for that. His skin is *exceptionally* well hydrated from the liquids he was suspended in. He’s also too distracted by the scene to be overly bothered by the move (Sorith wasn’t overly hostile either, was more like a “whoa buddy”, keeping him from doing anything rash).

The other Thessalar looks around at his useless Lizardfolk guards who are utterly failing at their jobs (around the corner we can hear some getting mauled by owlbears), and the homunculus pushes his face around so he looks SUPER irritated. He reaches for a whistle around his neck, pushes it to his lips, and then we see him think better of it. He steps back into his private lab and shuts the door.

2 Lizardfolk Renders (still slowed) are now attempting to attack the fish folk. One of them successfully hits a fish folk with his claws and just absolutely brutalizes it. He’s immediately bloodied, continues trying to retreat to not great effect because he’s still wired up to his attacker (we guess they were performing experiments on each pair).

The 2 slowed Shaman turn around and try to cast spells at Nissa. One of them targets her with thorn whip. His spell starts out and it’s in total slow mo - next turn he’ll finish throwing his whip in her direction. The other 2 normal-speed shaman turn around and see our group, then run off instead - we see them head around the corner in the direction of the owl bears sounds. Sorith chooses not to take an opportunity of attack as they pass.

Kanye asks Gearbox where the pieces to the Infernal Machine is. Gearbox happily informs us that “there’s a bunch of them, but one’s right there!” He points to a control panel near Thesselar’s personal lab, which looks exactly like the panel in the Alchemy Lab, where we got the previous gem. Kanye uses the hand gestures we clearly agreed on in the pub last night to communicate this to the group.

Kanye goes to trip one of the slowed Shaman, who practically falls before getting hit. He then dramatically slashes him, spurting blood in a very violent and maybe overenthusiastic manner - all of the Lizardfolk around him are now disadvantaged on attacks next turn because they are very reasonably terrified of him. However, they are still slow so they’re reacting more like the sloths in Zootopia.

Kanye then finishes calculating how many attacks he gets per turn and trips someone with a glaive. One of them is dead, now there’s now also a bloody, terrified, slowed, tripped and prone Lizardfolk. Kanye blows him a kiss, then steps on him for a dramatic (totally-not-grappley) pose.

**Nissa**: Would you consider that *one foot of movement*?
Nissa takes a second to properly survey the scene. We don’t entirely know exactly what was happening here, but we can somewhat infer that the Shamans were administering things since the Renders and fishfolk look more like subjects of the experiments that the shamans might’ve been conducting.

Nissa decides that's enough ammo for mockery and yells “hey how’s that career in science working out for you” and one shaman “scientist” dies from embarrassment.

Um notices that no one is flanking anyone because all of the enemies near any of us are now dead, so the stealth thing still doesn't qualify. So instead he's heading straight for the control panel (which he had a clear path to via the ceiling anyways).

Experienced from the last one, Um effortlessly removes an Infernal Gem from the control panel and puts it in his pocket.

*Normally this action would have unleashed all the labs, set off all the alarms, and caused all the experiments to get unleashed at once, giving us a tough fight to get out of.*

*However.*

*It turns out removing the Ruby eye gems from the statue we fought before **also** disables all the control panels in the whole dungeon, thereby triggering the same effect across the entire dungeon. Despite our infamous track record, we couldn't have DREAMED of wreaking more havoc.*

Um returns to his ceiling.

Averlyth casts Sanctuary on the bloodied fish folk to protect it - the spell manifests as an arrow pointing at it, to troll the attacking Render - then pokes her 4 heads around the corner of the lab.

This massive lab was *full* of trapped creatures, but they’re now all clearly freed and contributing to the ruckus. There are 2 owlbears connected by silver wire to a two-headed owlbear, and there are more wires connecting them to an elaborate control panel. They are also surrounded by 6 alarmed Lizardfolk shaman (4 were already here, 2 were the ones that ran around the corner).

Sorith notices our Thessalar has done nothing but look self-conscious about being in nothing but a lab suit. Sorith asks Gear Box if there’s another piece of the Infernal Machine in this location. He concentrates really hard and then he says there’s one over there (around the corner), one over there (northwards towards an area we don’t know) and some over there (Thessalar’s office). He says they’re all fairly close.

Sorith can hear additional chaos in the northern hallway, including growling and barking, but he can’t actually see anything. Sorith decides to also head in the first direction that Gear Box pointed, to Main Lab South. As he nears the corner, it becomes clear that the control panel over there is probably where the Infernal Gem is - on the other side of the 3 angry [owl]bears.

Sorith parkours up the wall and comes back onto the ground. He is now behind the owlbears, and directly next to him is the control panel. Kanye thinks Sorith is like Neo in the Matrix.

Sorith gets the gem, then spends a Qi point to prepare the dodge action.

The Lizardfolk Renders attempt to attack the fishfolk. The healthy fishfolk is now bloodied. The other Lizardfolk Render successfully attacks the fishfolk with a target on his head - through the Sanctuary - and he falls to the ground dead.

The owlbears around the corner are *pretty* mad at the Lizardfolk. The first owlbear straight up slaughters one of the Lizardfolk shaman. The second owlbear deals a lot of damage to another Lizardfolk shaman, and the two-headed owlbear makes three attacks: killing another shaman and then hitting yet another.

There are now only 4 lizardfolk shaman and they respond in kind - 3 of them deciding to go after each owlbear, 1 deciding to target Sorith (with his dodge on).

3 of the lizardfolk shaman begin chanting. Because it wasn't chaotic enough, they cast conjure animals, and each of those shaman summons 4 fey spirits in the shape of crocodiles. There are now 12 crocodiles, pointed at and swarming the owlbear.

2 of the owlbears are grappled and damaged by a swarm of lil baby fey ghost crocodiles. The remaining shaman casts entangle starting from a point under the middle owlbear, getting every owlbear and Sorith. Two are grappled, one is restrained, but the owlbear with 2 heads is neither grappled nor restrained, and now Sorith is restrained.

Nissa keeps the DM in check about rolling for slow, but all of the slowed creatures are still slow (2 renders and the last fishfolk).

Kanye asks Gearbox to point to the nearest Infernal Machine part. He points to Thessalar’s personal lab, and Kanye gives the ever known hand gesture of going through the door. He is now in front of the door. Which is known to open *into* the room.

After much deliberation, Kanye wants to kick the door down. He approaches the door at a full run, does a Captain Kirk style kick with both of his feet so his momentum carries him through and he lands on the door as it goes down.

This door easily buckles under Kanye’s weight, and he lands on his feet standing on the door, in the entrance of the private lab of Thessalar.

He has a brief glimpse of amazing instruments of complex design, all seemingly engaged in active experiments. Facing the door is a desk sculpted like 4 small dryads, the desktop is littered with thick tomes and there's a complex control panel sitting on top. Thessalar is sitting at his desk; his Homunculus is on his head, quickly moving his face into an expression of alarm and fury.

For some ungodly reason, Kanye has laser focus on our objectives today.

He casts Need for Speed from his bracer to get another action this turn: he wants to use his sleight of hand ability to pick the gem from the control panel, but he realizes there's a few of them and he wouldn't be able to get them all at once.

With a stroke of genius - and with Nissa casting Guided Shot from her bracer - Kanye instead hURLS the desk (and control panel) backwards without even looking at it. It sails effortlessly through the air, skidding to a halt directly next to Averlyth outside the private lab.

Kanye then uses an action surge to go backward out of the room, pulling the door back into the entrance, never breaking eye contact.

Averlyth is nearly knocked over by a rather ornate wooden desk. She successfully passes a dex check (yay!), pulling out a gem from the control panel. She gives Um a thumbs up and then backs all 4 of herselves away from the desk to give him some space to do cooler things.

Um fires a crossbolt shoot at the double-headed owlbear, but it hits one of the crocodiles instead as it jumps up to bite the owlbear (and it falls down dead).

Sorith manages to rip free of the grasping vines. He runs on walls, then punches the shaman that entangled him 4 times until he died.

**Sorith**: Are there anymore shaman?
**DM**: Yeah there are 3 more
**Sorith**: Well, I better punch them, then.
Sorith throws a flurry of blows on another shaman, who is nearly dead but not yet.

Kanye and Nissa are the first to notice the door to Thessalar’s lab dropping to the ground inwards. He steps over it into the main room; the homunculus has manipulated his face into an expression of absolute pure fury.

Nissa observes that this provokes an attack of opportunity from Kanye, who is still under the influence of Need for Speed. Kanye successfully shoves him in the direction of the owl bears.

Thessalar takes a moment to assess his surroundings, then coldly casts Cloudkill from his desk. A heavy yellow poison now obscures the area, catching everyone, including himself.

(The other Thessalar and Gearbox managed to duck out of the room when the gas cloud happened, don't worry about them)

One of the owlbears kills a crocodile, the other two come charging towards the shamans. Two of them die - tl;dr don’t piss off a pack of owlbears. The last shaman is inside the cloud, so…. All of the shaman are now dead!

The two Lizardfolk Renders successfully kill the last fishfolk. One of them also successfully breaks out of the Slow spell.

Kanye closes his visors as quickly as he can, but he still gets a little bit of the vapor, taking a little bit of poison damage. The group quickly ensures he’s making sure he’s counting his charges (this is the 4th one). He also continues to go fast, so he goes in the direction he saw Thesselar going in. He decides to delay his turn until he can see a target because he doesn’t want to attack something he can’t see.

Nissa takes damage from the fog, and then aims the Horn of Blasting in a direction that should catch Thesselar without hitting Um or Averlyth (but will definitely hit Sorith further back). It will also hit all of the owlbears (the shaman are dead so the crocodiles are all gone).

The good news is, when Nissa blows the horn, in addition to all the other sounds it makes, there’s a sound of a door being knocked over down in the Midden, and very quickly the gas cloud starts draining out that door. Turns out it’s seeking low ground and there’s a drain hole in the  middle of the Midden. As it drains away, it reveals a scene of carnage - there is a pile of dead lizardfolk shaman, owlbears and crocodiles.

Sorith is now deafened for a minute and has no idea what happened because the area was totally obscured. Plus he makes loud bangs all the time??

There’s a two-headed owlbear that’s not bloodied and Thessalar is not bloodied. He's rubbing his ears but otherwise appears to be okay.

The horn of blasting once again did NOT explode on Nissa, so Kanye sprays confetti from his power suit.

*Kanye can now see a target.*

Without further ado, he pops his visor, presents his scroll of pedigree, and begins to introduce himself at double speed. The homunculus manipulates Thessalar’s face to look contemptuous; there is no indicator if they understand Kanye at 2x speed.

He makes a goading attack with his glaive, Thesselar is now bloodied, but not taunted. Kanye briefly considers what our goals here are.

**Kanye**: Sigh… but interrogation is so tedious
**Nissa**: I mean, not if I talk to him after he’s dead!
The group realizes that the Homunculus is technically a separate target, but Kanye decides to use his second attack to target the one-shaped-like-Thessalar anyways.

Kanye makes another successful goading attack on Thessalar, and now he’s taunted correctly. And then for his SECOND action, he aims for the Homunculus with his glaive, in an attempt to knock him unconscious. He watches Thessalar for a reaction when he swings his blunt end of the glaive to swat the homunculus off his head - it just goes sailing and hits the back wall and slides down, clearly unconscious, collapsing in a heap on the floor.

Thessalar’s face immediately falls slack, communicating no emotion at all, but his eyes look furious. Now Kanye wants to smack him with the sharp end instead. Thessalar is now not looking too hot. Kanye is somehow, miraculously, still fast.

Um takes advantage of Thessalar’s fight with Kanye to take a sneaky critical shot to kill the living shit out of him. He falls forward, hissing in fury, and as he does, he pulls a dagger and tries to stab Kanye. The dagger, dripping with poison, glances off the power armor and Thessalar falls to the ground, dead.

The other Thessalar walks up and spits on his body.

There is a two-headed owl bear, the group has a second to decide if we want to do anything about it. Averlyth is motivated to let it leave to inspire more fear. Sorith is like “what??" (you heard me)

The owl bear chases the 2 Lizardfolk renders out of the lab, and we are now left alone with the dead body of (one) Thessalar.

Kanye wants to hack off the druids off of the desk for his trophies.