13th Age: Swords Against Owlbears
We’re in the Twisted Woods! Or a lab.
The wizard is known as the ‘maker of many’, she’s horrid and experimental. She defo made Owlbears, scieennnce.
Cerulean is robed up, tall, slim and imposing. Hands covered with metal gauntlets (yet thin, and antiquey). A similar mask means he’s basically covered up with either robes or metal as he also has a mask on. His lips don’t seem to move. Or his mouth in any case.
A collection of bones in the bottom of a vat seems to also hold 2ft of purple-blue sludge, tangibly different from the liquid in the vat. A cold, boney lava lamp?
He also sees a gigantic half-orc eyeing him grumpily, and in the last vat a single rat bobbing half-up.
Cerulean, true to his self, reaches into the bone-goop to stir and see if he can wake the bones up. He saps some life out of another vat (not any of the above!).
The oozey eyes swivel at Cerulean, then finger bones all join up and the hand waves like Thing. Weirdly at this moment, his skull appears to be blooming roses into the eye sockets, which boost his PD by 1 (and those hitting him take CON/DEX mod damage) but feels hopelessly romantic. The Ooze is learning to express romance, apparently. Thing now taps on the glass, then becomes a fist and hammers away. The glass starts cracking and banging/shouting is heard from down the corridor.
The hand goes towards Cerulean next but he shakes his head and points down the way to vats containing rats and half-orcs. No bubbles emanate from his mouth and he suggest he is in no danger at all, so the hand pivots and meanwhile the half-orc cracks his vat a bit, but not enough to get free. Hooves are heard, and a roaring/gurgling noise gets closer to the door.
One more pre-initiative pass; Cerulean points down the hall to where a pile of equipment lays and begins the art of glass-cracking. He obliterates his vat, and waits for the liquid slop to disgorge. He then steps out the vat into the room and away from the door. As he gets out however, his lower body grows a lizard’s tail! He suddenly feels extremely nervous, but also flits into invisibility. How odd!
Bone pile Thing grabs a two handed sword after popping a circlet on his head. He’s fully dressed, or as far as a pile of oozey bones can. He then moves to block the doors from which the noises and gallops are heard. He turns back to where Chamulean (Chameleon Cerulean) was, and blows the general vicinity a gloopy kiss. Chamulean coyly turns away, not that Ooze saw.
Corbert gets out the vat and stick his boots on, grabbing his sword. The rest of the gear will have to wait a moment. He develops weird boar features and tusks in the process and seems even more hotheaded than before.
Finally, the floating rat backstrokes to a tank-edge, turns over and waves at us. It escapes and gains some molelike features in the process and turns to the charging sound near the door.
We look around and see a cauldron bubbling, jars of liquids, many horrors in glass vats and jars, a few cages containing animals etc. Chamulean asks if we can send over a wand, and the Ooze forms an arched eyebrow at the suggestion of ‘wand’, before coming to his senses and tossing it over.
Combaaaaaaaaat
Thru the door smashes and some sort of hydra emerges, a 6-legged, 3-limbed hydra-boar goaded by a triple Gnoll party spearing it along. They are surprised at our presence but they steer the boar hydra to come take us all on. Gnoll 1 sees the purple gloop-ooze and flings a spear at it. This is missed by a margin. Chamulean talks smack at the Maker of Many, wherever she is, and suggests that sending these to feed him will just make him stronger, and summons a bunch of starving ghouls. They are sicced on the hydraboar and Gnoll 1. Gnoll 2 now steps up and stabs a ghoul, but fluffs the strike.
Ooze (Ubix) now moves past the gnoll taking a wide berth around the hydra and strikes at the Gnoll. The boar-hydra now goes after Chamulean’s ghouls, hitting one and flinging it across the room to take the other two out. Corby now charges in, boar hooves in boots and all, and misses with his first raging hit, but follows it up with a semi-staggering blow.
Our floating rat friend charges the nearest Gnoll and in doing so, there’s a doubling and doubling and a swarming tide of rats engage.
Chamulean throws a gauntlet at the pig-hydra, which causes it some severe damage, then the Gnoll hits the gloopy Ooze Ubix gets bashing away with his sword, killing a Gnoll. The hydra takes damage before staggering Corby. He turns into a Hydra and the Boar becomes a Boar-boar, and corby strikes again, hitting it and staggering it too. The rat pile grow spines like porcupines(?!!) and they attack but miss :(
Chamulean clicks his gauntlet fingers and stops the heart of the gnoll nearby and heals up Corby (not that he’s been introduced), then starts a chant up to weaken the mind of a nearby weak enemy, which is boar-boar. Ubix continues to whale on a nearby living Gnoll, the roses wilt and wither and in his place he forms a squirrel-bone-ooze pile. The boar-boar hits Corby-hydra, who fails to strike in response, but the rat pile finish the boar off, phew. The Gnoll misses the ooze again, and the Chamulean chant continues, weakening the mind of the remaining Gnoll - but in the process he loses his Chameleon tail and becomes an ant-thing, then Ubix drops it. Kapow.
Combat endsssssss
We look around and hear some further gurgling from the vat nearby and see something trying to get our attention. Ubix has a dig through the Gnolls baggage and uncovers a number of items, and Antmulean looks at the gurgly jar whilst collecting his items, and the jar flops and slops. The rat-mole-pile collapse into a rat-mole singularity and trots over to look at the vat. Inside the vat is a squirmy, floppy, boneless semi-humanoid thing which says ‘hallo’ (with a full mouth), and the rat waves in a friendly way. The bone-pile asks if the rat can speak? Corby, putting his clothes and armour on, hears this and says ‘what? Who said that?’ and he says ‘me, in the vat!’. Ubix has a look at the gear and offers a staff to Antmulean. He’s a hands-free fella tho, so he raises his hands and says ‘a curious specimen! Did the maker make you?’. It’s rhetorical, we think. But Ubix says ‘I think she made me but I don’t know - I came to find out’. Ubix asks if Antmulean makes things and he says ‘I make what’s there’, and Ubix offers some bones from himself, which give him some structure. Ubix offers a sword to Corby but it makes him feel all peaceful so he chucks it down and wipes his hand, before a nasty crossbow instead strikes him as more appealing. A ring the ooze keeps himself, popping on his bony phalange.
The ratpile form a humanoid structure and begins to talk to the boneless form, who notes we ‘got out’. And rattus asks where we are. “Did you not come to the Twisted Gardens?” and the rat observes this isn’t a garden. We’re advised that us young uns should get out whilst we can, and Unix notes he’s 2,000 years old. The rat asks if the boneless pile would like some bones (Unix is a bit worried about this), and a Gnoll body crashes into the vat, which starts bubbling. We’d advised it’ll take a while, we should leave them, but we should ‘steal from the maker and make her pay for our own transformations as we’ve been experimented on’ (casting eyes over squirrel-ooze, ant-machine, hydra-orc and rat-mole). If we don’t find ‘the cure’ we’ll end up boneless like the vat. Meanwhile we’re advised to move fast (by a more coherent boneless vat pile eating Gnoll bones) and points towards the open door. Cerulean-antmulean asks if a dignified end is preferable, and points a finger and snuffs out the gloop.
Sil and Cerulean greet each other as it’s been a while since they last chatted, and we heal up and venture out of the lab, looking back at the building we exited, it’s an overgrown house with multicolour ivy with teeth instead of thorns. Unix remembers something about wizards liking towers and perhaps the wizard is up one? And notes he hasn’t seen trees like these before (Cerulean notes that means Unix has seen trees). There’s an overgrown glasshouse in front of us, what looks like a factory beyond it and a hut to the right. The maze looks very thorny and overgrown. We agree to head to the tower - it has boney steps and we ascend, looking for trouble, but only some see things - Unix spots some small black ants on the steps and Cerulean (still in ant form) counts them up and wistfully remembers being a mindless drone. We head up towards the door (6 steps), taking care not to tread on any (this seems a big deal especially to the ant-kin Cerulean) and when we reach the door at the top, which is wooden with a bone trim. No keyhole but two knockers fashioned from the cut the entrance is in. Unix tries the door, and a voice from behind the door shouts “coming!” and some heavy footsteps as the staircase shudders at the steps, and the door cracks. An eye pops out in the crack and asks “can I help you?” Unix wishes them good day and asks where the maker is. The eye asks who we are and says she could do with some ‘help’ - Unix says with directions to her we could help. Apparently it’ll take some time, so we’re offered a tea and Unix suggests some of us might go for it. The door is swept open and we’re invited in.
We are led through an archway to another room. There’s a table which seems eerily well prepared for us - nuts and berries, 3 ale cups, a sugar cube and a plate of earthwormy pasta. Ubix takes his nuts and berries and they dissolve slowly, and Cerulean gives his sugar cube to the ant pals, which are swarming this table. Corbert drinks his tea, all 3 of them. Ubix asks again where the Maker is, and he hears a chorus of the ants calling for some assistance. Cerulean is tickled by this - looks like she may have come unstuck, and asks why it is up to us and not minions to fix her mess but she says “I’m your goddess, your maker”. Ubix seizes the opportunity and asks why he was made: “to test a hypothesis” (which she didn’t expect to succeed). Ubix is willing to help in exchange for ‘stabilising’, Cerulean wants answers to questions, which the Maker says ‘can be done afterwards’. Sil squishes an ant, and our big host tells Sil off, saying ‘do not do that!’ and Sil says ‘what?’ and squishes another. Sil’s put on a final warning and says ‘oops’.
It’s established the help needed is to ‘make a new body’, and we’re charged with gathering materials. She was making her last creation for ‘timbrax the overmind’(?sp), who can apparently jump from one body to another, but tried to steal the Maker’s body which Timbrax dismembered, and she escaped into the ant hive. She needs Timbrax brought to heel and a ring of hers which has the power needed. Cerulean asks where we might find the ring - and are sent to the glasshouse first. Apparently the vats were stabilising us and we’re on a 1-day clock before we disintegrate, so getting the Maker a new body will allow her to fix us up. It’s a deal - we bring Timbrax back alive (beaten into submission), and the ring. Cerulean tests the edge cases about how dead Timbrax can be. Cerulean asks more about Timbrax - an experiment into the psychic, tried to steal her form (we know this) and some owlbears made short work of the Maker’s dismembered body. Apparently it’s leapt back into its original form - a homunculus. Cerulean thinks this is enough information to lead on so stands up, and we also push back our chairs and head out. The housekeeper (Crashmeat? Hashmeat?) walks us back to the door, taking care not to tread on ants, and we’re shown back out.
We look towards the glasshouse whence we were directed, and look for owlbears, and we also mark that the thorny rosebush has interpositioned itself between tower and glasshouse, and the maze seems to have an entrance right in front of the tower - the quickest route to the glasshouse. It’s shifting regularly but appears owlbear free so we head into it. Cerulean’s analytical mind and years of chess games help him assess this maze, he sees its former layout and calculates the recent shift and helps navigate through a chunk of it. Sil uses her scout form to scurry along the path ahead, ruling some in/out but using her mole form to burrow and plot optimal links. That’s reported back to us. Ubix looks for weak points in the rosebush to break through, and Corbert uses survival skills to look for the fresh rosebush growth to see where the thing has shifted. All this work leads us out in one piece to the glasshouse!
It’s there, overgrown with vines, the ivy with teeth, but the doorway is clear. The glasshouse is dark as the vines overgrow, the smell of blood and corpses everywhere - dragon squirrels, manticores and the like. Dismemberment, bite marks and the like, and Sil tries to work out what did this to them: Looks like a battle royale to the death of these various types. Or, the body hopping thing was moving from body to body, killing each one in turn? Ubix wonders about this. A monkey body is left in one piece tho and Ubix says ‘hello’ to this one with closed eyes, and three eyes open up (one in the middle of the forehead) and the body says ‘who are you?’ and Cerulean says ‘interlopers’. “Oh! And what are you interloping here about? Coming to join the fight, prove you are the strongest?” Apparently Cerulean doesn’t need to prove this (even though Corby sees him as just bones, or metal, or whatever, but not physically strong). Ubix asks why he needs a good strong body and he says ‘to occupy’ and the three eyed thing asks where we all came from (the Maker) and what we’re doing here (searching for a ring). Why this ring here? (as it was lost here) and for whom we’re working (the Maker) - “oh, her” (them), “that woman” (ants). The three eyed thing asks why we’re working for her, and Cerulean explains the flaw (well, the mutations) but also the offer to remove it. Cerulean ekes out the fact that Timbrax is indeed this person, and Ubix says ‘you have to come with us’. Timbrax says ‘you may not like it, but this is what physical perfection looks like!’ and out of a pit (toilet?) clambers a giant spidra (spiderhydra) with 8 heads, 8 legs and 64 eyes…
Session ends
From behind Timbrax a pair of legs climbs out of the hole, bringing other legs behind it. Cerulean asks if anyone feels close to death (no), then a deep rumbling cackle emanates from him as he lays eyes on the octoped and the pitiful Timbrax before him and he says “is that the best you could find, Timbrax, throughout the entirety of these gardens? An Insect? (sigh). I will have to show you where true strength resides”. From the three orifices in Cerulean’s helmet is a blue spectral flame which manifests a person-shaped spirit which draws a rapier. It hits the spider and boom bang. Timbrax points out this is an arachnid, not an insect, and wounds Cerulean mentally with this critique of his entomological skills. Sil collapses into the pile of rats and goes at it, moving into engagement with Timbrax. Corby charges in and strikes the spidra, before it splits attacks between all 3 of us, hitting Corby twice, clipping the spirit, and whacking Sil’s pile of rats.
Cerulean continues cackling, asks if anyone is dying and says “Timbrax, no matter if it’s an arachnid or insect, I’ll crush it under my boot either way, just like I will you”, and blasts him with a spell. Hit boom, then another hit on the spider, Cerulean is on fire with his witty repartee. He asks “Is anyone close to death yet? Is anyone bloodied?” and Timbrax nods glumly at the latter. Timbrax just misses with the riposte. Sil’s sack of rats grow owl beaks, most weird, and then the attacks fly(?) in, and critically connects on Timbrax. Despite being told to take him alive, this seems most worrying…the kill became an overkill, and we’ll have a story to tell the maker. The body drops, and for Cerulean, a rush of magic energy transfers from Timbrax’s body to the spider. Corby hits the spider again, kapow, before Spidra-Timbrax attacks the wraith spirit, dissipating it, and then keeps cracking away, now on Corby: one hit, finally infecting the mind of Cerulean who will strike on Corby next, eeeeeek. Finally staggering Corby, Timbrax-Spidra recovers from the cruel blade.
Cerulean tries to strike Corby but misses (phew!), then shakes it off but, notably, does not apologise. Sil rat-owlbear-pack claws away at the spidra-Timbrax, gnawing away at the legs. It falls over on its back and struggles to move, lapsing into unconsciousness, and Sil reforms into one not-pack-of-owlbear-rats.
“Well, that was straightforward” says Cerulean, and Sil observes “Spider doesn’t have a ring”. We go look at the monkey, the search beginning in earnest (Corby making a mess looking), and Sil goes to look at the hole: it was just a spider hole, 10m across, not leading anywhere. Corpses of other animals litter the hole. Cerulean looks for magical stuff and sees nothing anywhere that isn’t on us, so tells us it’s not to be found here. We decide to wake the spider up and interrogate it. Corby pulls together ‘tools’ and begins to wake Timbrax-Spidra up via the ol’ pain method, and wakes it up promptly, owee. Corby points at one head to talk and make clear the implications of the other heads talking, and all nod in unison to recognise this term. We ask for a ring - THE ring - and Cerulean makes clear that Timbrax is in no position to be dishonest. He says it was probably on the maker’s body before the owlbear waylaid it. Sil asks Timbrax where the pile of ants’s old body was killed; “unfortunately when I was escaping with her, I ran into an owlbear patrolling for food by its nest” - north of the tower. Cerulean asks whether there’s anything we can do whilst he is still conscious, they swap some more banter and then we decide whether to leave him here or what. Timbrax offers to move our minds to ‘more stable bodies’ (Corby is not into that suggestion). Sil also has plenty of bodies, thank you very much, and Cerulean notes ‘we are not attached to this one, but there are no bodies around here that would accomodate us’. Brag.
We drag the mostly-legless corpse out of the glasshouse, leaving a slimy trail behind, and we begin to take it to the tower, dropping it off en route before looking for the ring. We do so, letting the ant-makers know and the angry 8-legged guard/dude relieves us and takes it back inside. Ant maker now adds “and the ring?” which Corby takes unkindly to and says we’re quicker than a bunch of ants, and stands up so the conversation is over. We take a moment after this criticism of our inefficiency to heal and recharge. To the north is a small clump of woodland and we establish these owlbears are nest-burrowers. To the west of that what looks like a sculpture park of large marbly monsters - spiders, manticores, dragons, centaurs and the like. We head up and at the edge of the woods, we wonder how we’ll try and figure out the location of the owlbear nest is. Sil - part mole, part spider - remembers information on the structure and form of owlbears nests, feeding hatches and the like, so we begin looking for a suitable tunnel entrance. Sil assumes the scout form (a single rat - with 6 legs, and mole nose features, with digging claws) and seeks to sniff out an owlbear nest. Sil is hit with the smell of faeces and remembers owlbears crap outside their lair; the rat rears up, makes a ‘come this way’ gesture, and we follow on. Sil explains we have to…not? Go charging in, which Corby truly grapples with, and suggests perhaps being behind the others to make sure he can’t let his feet betray him.
Sil sneaks in in rat form to the nest, trying to wangle in and from a safe distance behind Cerulean and Corby follow. Sil is clinging to the ceiling, neat. We work out we’ll have to use some skills to get in, find the right spot, search the bucket of limb-chum for the owlbear young and get out without rousing the enemy.
Sil continues to navigate deftly and works our way towards the hatcheries. Cerulean, now travelling down these tunnels, and we sense owlbears close by, so as we duck into a tunnel and an Owlbear, unaware of our presence but close enough to maybe catch us - Cerulean spots and pulls us into a cubby hole and tells us all to be quiet and hope the Owlbear passes us by unnoticed, quieting the beating hearts of his companions. Unfortunately as a rat’s bpm is near 330, it proves most hard for Cerulean to still it. Sil doesn’t take kindly either, and was clinging to the roof, so briefly loses consciousness and falls to the floor right in front of the owlbear. Corby tries to deftly throw something to distract the owlbear and pick up Sil. The visualisation is success, but the rock hits the owlbear in the face, and Corby slips on a pile of leaves trying to scoop Sil up, but ends up in pile next to Sil instead. Oooooooops…
Sil wakes up, sees Corby lying next to them, and sees an Owlbear looking down on both of us. Sil shrugs, looks apologetic, and burrows down out of trouble and towards the hatchery. Cerulean has clearly had enough of this trouble and knowing there are some old bones in the hatchery, tries to stir ‘em up and reanimate them, hahaaaaa. His senses reach out and he manages to grasp dem dry bones - feeling a concentration of ‘parts which can be animated’. He feels like this works somehow. Corby meanwhile is trying to remember whether to make himself big or play dead, to confuse the Owlbear. He goes for ‘play dead’ then remembers the Owlbear is a scavenger, and rolls away in the nick of time. Corby gets to his feet and seeks running away. Eeek.
As Sil digs down, spooling spider silk with them, in pitch black, hopes to rummage around the body parts to feel their way for a ring (since it can’t shine) and looks to do a Mission Impossible-esque swoop down to recover it. Hmm! Thanks to Sil’s insurrectionist history, abseiling skills and planting of incriminating evidence/bombs they are surprisingly adept at this. Cerulean looks to strike the Owlbear just enough to scare it into getting out of its scavenging nature, to highlight that Corby can and will fight back…a deft little warning dagger stab running along the length of the beak flays the Owlbear and gives it a scar across the eye too. The fencer background of Cerulean makes this truly exquisite and the beak is deflected just as it pecks at Corby. Corby sees this as an invitation to commence combat, since Cerulean had the first blow, so Corby thinks a dagger attack is in order too…he lashes out and forgets to have pulled his dagger, so just pokes the Owlbear in the eye. Oops.
Cerulean pulls back to allow the Owlbear if it wants to check on the cheeping Owlbear chicks, and Corby dodges back too. The chick cries take primacy, and the Owlbear charges down to check on them. Sil climbs back up the silk, M-I style, and scales back up to join us. By the time the thudding of the Owlbear -> hatchery noise ends, Sil has rejoined us. Sil burrows back up with a ring in their mouth and squeaks (with a mouthful) at Cerulean’s question ‘success?’, and he proposes we return to meet our maker.
We escape the nest, hearing concerned roary noises, they sound piiiiiissed, but nothing aggressive as we’re clearing the area. We make our way back to the Tower, but there are no ants on the step. Odd! Cerulean suggests she may be upstairs, so we head up and knock, and the big 8-limbed flesh tower calls us in. Within, we hear voices from the kitchen area as before, and we move in seeing, sitting at a table, a roughly humanoid form of a mass of ants. We also note the fleshtower has had the Spidra-Timbrax sewn into him. Weird! The pile of ants note ‘you are back!’ and ‘have you got everything?’ (to which Cerulean points ‘you only asked for one thing’). We are led by the pile of ant-humanoid, shedding ants a bit along the way to a room with a circle and square overlaid, and the fleshpile moves to stand in the middle of the circle. We’re beckoned to stand on a point of the square and the ant-body-thing gonna get on the other corner. Sil is feeling challenged, so turns into the hundred rats and forms an approximation of theirself. The Maker explains this should help stop us becoming dust tomorrow, and chaos ensues. The gemstone has a nice amethyst colour stone and a ball of lighting-light the same colour emerges. Some ants get drawn into the light, and get torn apart and form a protoplasm spreading out above us all. Sil and Corby feel a tugging in our flesh, and it rips some essence from us, owee, taking life force along with the instability. Cerulean feels like whatever ritual is happening is messing with his/their mojo, seeing ants around them, but also finds their feet bound to the floor. Looking up we realise the gloop above us looks not very healthy at all. Sil tries to move and can’t, we’re bound there, oof.
Cerulean, now in many-ant-voices, says “er, Maker, I trust you’re not doing something foolish…that shell will not contain your spirit very long” and from Cerulean’s body the voice of the maker chuckles and says ‘but it’ll do, and I can modify it to improve it’. Cerulean recognises that Trashmeat is wearing the ring and perhaps may be the weak link in this ritual chain (well, not weak, lots of strength from the various meat parts). Cerulean tries to break forms out of the circle in order to inhibit this ritual - one form is a fairly broad, sturdy woman dressed in similarly noble attire to Cerulean, carrying only a pair of specs which she pops on. Cerulean feels more cerulean-y, but the ritual continues and Corby continues to get chipped away at. Corby summons all his strength and breaks through the ‘chains’ holding him, and pops out of the circle too. “What now?” says Corby, looking a little confused. Cerulean asks Trashmeat how much defence he’d supply to the cause of the mistress and Trashmeat confirms yes, he would protect her at all costs. Cerulean points out her fading form, and Trashmeat says ‘well, she’s been like this for 2 days’. Cerulean points out the instability may only keep Trashmeat a single day. Cerulean pops off a few ants using their deathknell skills, mostly to prove they can. The Maker says ‘don’t let them distract you! Just dissolve these ones’, whilst Cerulean says ‘why not fill that corner over there’ (which Corby left) and continues to befuddle Trashmeat, who stands firm at these entreaties. Corby pulls his crossbow which dislodges Trashmeat from the centre of the circle and falls backwards. The dissolution ritual is moderately disrupted and the gloop dissipates from above Corby and Sil’s heads. The Maker roars ‘no!’ and shouts at Trashmeat to get back.
Combaaaaat
Cerulean cackles again, and says ‘maker, maker, you truly are pitiful! You’re called the maker but have you ever created anything of use or purpose? All you’ve done is adapt, change. Not a winning strategy! Just changing that which is already there’. And with that witticism, protoplasmic ghouls are summoned and begin hitting Trashmeat too, boom. A bunch of mooks great created and attack Cerulean and Corby. Sil drops the many-rats-into-human-shape and actually forms pile of rats proper, and goes for the Maker. Trashmeat flails against the ghouls hitting him, then the mooks strike again on Cerulean and his ghouls. Corby goes for the Maker but the ant-mooks intercept, so his strike hits and fells a few of them.
Cerulean throws more shade at the Maker and points out she’ll be forgotten soon enough, and the ghouls get attacking. The next thing is a pile up: ant-pile punches rat-pile but misses, so Sil tries to set fire to the ant pile, and turns to attack the Maker as well. Trashmeat hits the ghouls some more, leaving only one standing. Corby now gets to charge the Maker and does, connecting with a greatsword blow.
Cerulean now tells Trashmeat he should have listened to Cerulean, and a foreboding drone emanates, which causes crippling negative damage to the weak enemy nearby. Maker now moves to punch Corby, and connects, causing a huge crushing blow, oweeee. Sil now hits the maker and staggers her, pow. Trashmeat flees the ghoul, to try and attack Cerulean, and takes an opportunity hit in the process, but not tries three strikes, bang-bang-bang, to put Cerulean’s talk out of his mind. He drops Cerulean, who falls to the ground, but bounces back to take another hit or two…missing with the penultimate, but landing the last. Cerulean remains on their feet another time. Corby swings and misses, but hits with a retry, and that also allows him to rally his hitpoints up, feeling a tiny bit less staggering.
Cerulean disengages from Trashmeat and gets as far away from him and the Maker-melee nearby. He then casts a spell to try and suck the life out of Trashmeat and into Cerulean, sucking damage out of T and into C. Trashmeat falls apart as Cerulean says ‘too late Trashmeat, too little and too late’. The seams unstitch and the innards fall apart, the tower of meat crumbling. The final protoplasmic ghoul joins the Maker melee and strikes her. She bursts out now in the form of ant-tornado, encompassing all of us engaged with her, ending the ghoul. The tornado blows again, but misses Sil and hits Corby the second time. Ratpile feels real good, and looks to unleash all sorts of hell on the Maker. Some amount of hell is hit on her. Corby commences his raging and that greatsword blow does the job, and snuffs out the Maker following Cerulean’s death knell.
Combat ends
Cerulean takes the ring off the maker, seeing it as a useful magical focus, and tries to ascertain also if there’s anything within them which they want to purge. The ritual is reviewed by Cerulean to see if it was all just a body thieving ruse rather than a ‘healing’ ritual. Cerulean realises their ‘organic’ parts seem to be growing faster than they once were, which is a tad odd, and does a lot of ritualistic study.
Sil ensures the Owlbears become established as a successful breeding population, which means we all hang around here for months. That’s nice.
With the maker dead and Corby unsure if he’ll turn to dust tomorrow lives his last night in the grounds, avoiding the owlbear nest but taking in nature, and waiting to see tomorrow. At the second night Corby realises he’s not turning into dust…so is probably immortal. This pleases Corby and probably makes him more reckless in future battles. After realising that the rest of the party have become naturalists and librarians, he wanders off to test the limits of his immortality.
Scenario ends
Final Mutations
Sil is a rat-mole
Ubix is a ooze-squirrel
Corbert is a hydra-orc
Cerulean is an ant-machine