Perrinor

Session 114: An Exploding Cauldron (August 27, 2026)

Last session, our heroes walked out of the Hojo council chambers about 8 months after they entered. They planned to scout out the Central Command encampment the following morning. In the meantime, they met up with Rei Ren to learn what they and Maho’s father had prepared for her coming of age.

Digging through the many volumes of Joerg’s notes, marked up with corrections, context, and codas by Rei, they learned something of the nature of the caves Joerg had discovered north of Hojo. The walls in these caves were covered in countless ancient runes, clearly ancestors of the ones goliaths like Maho used today. While Maho and Eden could recognize that they were structured like a language, what the runes were trying to express was too complex for them to understand. Heph recognized patterns in the runes, and together the party realized that many of these runes were structured like formulas, building on themselves line by line to carry out the great acts of creation attributed to the giants.

After many hours of research, the party decided to get ready for the night. Before sleeping, they stopped off at The Garden, while a practice game of Hoops was being played by the Hojo Griffins. The coach didn’t seem to believe the two children in the party could perform “two-point field goals scored at the basket”, or “slam dunks”. Eden, with a mis-aimed bunny hop and short-range Dimension Door; and Heph using his Winged Boots, showed the team what was what, earning the three the right to play in tomorrow’s game.

Eden ran away from The Garden towards MAna’s house, her chaotic magic getting out of control more than it had in a long time. Heph comforted her, saying he’d had his shared of magical incidents, and that he and Maho would not chase Eden away. They got back to the house and were presented with spicy mud wine from Goro when they entered.

Meanwhile, Maho decided to hang out at Tavern 13 with Suzuki and the other goliaths before their expedition. She mAnaged to hold her own drinking with them. In the haze of alcohol and comradery, she thought back to the books the party had poured over. She wondered how the runes which created rock and stone were carved into cave walls. And then the layout of the cave system solidified in her mind, massive veins all leading towards one point within the body of the mountain. Were the caverns actually made of stone? And who was it who created the giants?

• We wake up feeling refreshed and ready to go on a scouting expedition to check out the advancing Central Command force
  • As Heph wakes up, he hears a beautiful song coming from Eden’s room, she is playing Himeji’s Strumbox, and Heph feels some inspiration
  • Eden notices Ana doing sit-ups on the ceiling, and Eden abruptly stops playing in response to this and feels very inspired by Ana’s behavior
  • Meanwhile, Maho is woken up at the shrine by Hake by a bucket of ice cold water being thrown on her face
  • She looks up and sees someone whose job is to tend the shrine, clearly upset that Maho was sleeping there
    • He continued mopping, the water steaming up from the stones as it was spread near the center of the shrine
  • Maho remembers drinking, the thought about the caverns not being rock, and nothing after that
  • Maho briefly checks out the shrine to see if anything has changed since she was a kid, and as she thinks back on the supernatural interactions she has had recently, she feels the oldness of the shrine, despite it being kept up well
  • As she looks into the flame burning in the shrine, she remembers what Hooded Beth said about the space between the worlds being thin by her axe, and she feels that the space between the worlds is thin at the shrine, and in the flames she can see what almost looks like flaming eyes
  • The eyes flare up and Hooded Beth reaches out, connecting Maho strongly to the creatures at the base of the mountain, and Maho can hear the shatter of a porcelain mask as if it is next to her, and the splintering of wood, and the scream of pain as light touches what feels like her own body, and the scampering into the shadow of the woods around the mountain
  • One of the creatures has broken free from Central Command and seems to be coming towards Maho to join her
• Maho heads back to Mana’s, heading past Tavern 13 as the other goliaths step outside, and Suzuki says “Hi Lightweight” to Maho
  • Eden and Heph walk up to the Tavern around this time, having headed off from Mana’s to find Maho
  • Heph imbues 10 charges of Invisibility into Maho’s axe
  • We briefly plan out who is going on this expedition, and we decide to bring Ana, Io, and Suzuki + crew, leaving Mindprison to watch over Harry Nickel
  • Maho informs the group that one of the creatures broke free and is heading for her, but it’s not clear if it’s a good thing or not
• With the information that Harry provides us, we head towards the encampment, which is fairly spread out throughout a section of thick forest and cliff faces to make it hard to see
  • He tells us the encampment is headed by General Samin Klarck who is matter-of-factly evil, and Lieutenant Sascha Scheuer who is the “head of stealth and traps”
  • Harry doesn’t know all the traps the encampment has, Sascha keeps secrets even from the soldiers that are stationed there
  • He also tells us each unit encampment is assigned one Horn of Silent Alarm
• Maho leads us through the woods, following Harry’s directions, while Karrl is high up scouting and Eden’s owl is scouting the woods directly in front of us
  • On the way we have a discussion about our plan once we get there, deciding we should figure out what they’re up to in addition to just scouting out the place
  • We discuss a potential option of kidnapping someone high in command
  • As we approach the location, Karrl sees something very big moving through the trees towards us, something large and covered in brown fur
  • As the creature bears down on us, Eden pops and invisibility, Heph drops behind a tree, and Maho stands ready to intercept, the goliaths joining Maho
  • Out of the woods walks an 8 foot tall, massive humanoid creature with an ape-like face, covered in brownish fur
• The bigfoot lopes out of the woods, and seeing Maho and crew standing in a line, it grabs a massive rock and throws it at Maho and the goliaths, and then sprints at Maho and claws at her, but misses
  • Heph casts Enlarge/Reduce to try to reduce it in size, but the spell seems to have no effect as the little mech that targets the creature phases through it
  • Io puts out her finger to poke the bigfoot, and it ripples, and the other goliaths reach out and swipe their hands through it, and the bigfoot fades away
• Heph and Eden start casting Detect Magic to find the source, and Maho starts searching for an Elias card
  • Maho isn’t able to find anything, but with the help of the Detect Magic, Heph identifies a weird smelly tree, and the tree seems to be glowing with illusion magic, which seems to be in the substance smeared over the tree
  • It seems to be a set and forget type trap, nothing that will alert the camp
  • Eden has her owl look for traps, and Heph sends Karrl to go watch the camp and see if their behavior changes at all
  • As we progress through the woods, Maho sees a really obvious pitfall trap and a less obvious disturbed earth next to it
  • Heph also sees the obvious pit and walks around it, almost walking into a better hidden pit, which Maho pulls him back from before he falls in
  • Heph gives up and walking and activates his Winged Boots to start flying
  • Karrl spots one of the camps at the edge of the larger encampment, and he sees a group of 2 tents, a couple of bedrolls laid out, and one individual in medium armor, sitting on a bedroll, with a brass horn on his belt, trying his best to be alert and observant of the woods
  • There is one assassin at a fire cooking a meal, one other assassin, and 2 more heavily armored people sitting around
  • We discuss how to proceed, and eventually decide to camouflage Eden with a ghillie suit so she can get close enough to try to cast Suggestion using Message on the Horn holder
  • Eden proceeds to sneak up to the encampment, barely managing to be stealthy enough that the super observant guard doesn’t notice her
  • She casts Messaggestion/Suggestage (Message + Suggestion) saying “Announce you need to pee. Walk into the woods 50 feet towards me. Place Horn on ground. Look away, plug ears. Repeat la la la.”
  • It seems to work, and the guard looks up, seeming a bit confused, and says “I need to pee”, to which the others responds that he should hurry because the soup is almost ready
  • He walks into the woods, puts down the Horn, puts his fingers in his ears, and starts repeating la la la over and over again
  • The rest of the camp can hear him and note that he must really not want them to hear him pee, and continue on with what they were doing
  • Eden gets back to the rest of the party with the Horn, and we decide on our next course of action
  • We decide to surround the camp and fight them, leaving Eden at the back to hold concentration on the suggestion while Heph uses a Shatter to blow up their cauldron of soup
• The group gets to about a 70 foot radius, then Heph walks up and casts Shatter, using a sorcery point to empower it, exploding the cauldron of soup and showering them with hot soup and hot ash
  • The soldiers, realizing they are potentially under attack and are sitting ducks, run off into the woods to get to cover
  • One of the assassins spots Heph, and points at him, directing everyone’s attention towards Heph and Maho
  • The assassins run forward and shoot their crossbows at Maho, landing a total of 2 total shots
  • The gladiators head towards where Heph was spotted, but don’t throw their spears yet
  • Eden launches a Sorcerous Burst at one of the assassins, and he hears “LA LA LA” in his head as he is dealt psychic damage
  • Maho charges in towards the assassins, attacking the one that Eden hit with the Sorcerous Burst, hitting him and cleaving the second assassin, then turns back to the first guy, hitting him two more times and fully cleaving him in half lengthwise, and then follows through hitting the second assassin again
  • Maho action surges, hitting the second assassin again three times and cleaving him in half lengthwise as well, this time from the bottom up, and then inches back a bit towards Heph
  • Heph pops out from behind the tree and shoots a couple of lightning bolts from his gauntlets, charring the gladiator that was more hurt by the shattering cauldron, and then pops mostly back behind the tree
• The gladiators dash after Heph, using their entire turns to get within striking distance of Heph
  • Eden lobs another Sorcerous Burst at the weaker gladiator, who again hears “LA LA LA” in his head
  • Maho runs up behind the gladiators, using a Second Wind to cover the full distance, and attacks the weaker gladiator, who blocks the first attack but Maho notices his pattern and crits him on the second hit, then cleaves the other gladiator for a bit of damage, then turns her attention back to the first one and hits him one more time
  • Heph uses Magic Missile to obliterate the one with low health, and then turns towards the remaining one and locks eyes with him, mildly intimidating him
• The gladiator attempts to shield bash Heph, who manages to resist it, and then tries to stab at Heph, but the blows glance off his armor
  • Eden Sorcerous Bursts the remaining gladiator, and he hears “LA LA LA”
  • Maho turns to the remaining one, hitting him 3 times for a bit of damage
  • Heph pulls out Jarles, attempting to stab the remaining gladiator, but Jarles isn’t able to land any hits and declares that he will not let Heph down next time
  • Io comes in to help finish this fight off and lands a crit and a second hit, fully decapitating the guy, and ending the fight
  • We head over to Hans, who is still standing going “la la la”, and tie him up, confiscating his weapons

Referenced in

• Calendar