Session 78: Alone at Home (March 27, 2025)
Last session, our heroes recuperated from their prior conversations/drug trips by ordering stew which I realized after the fact they never actually received. They did get some drinks though, which Elias failed a con save on.
Spraus mentioned his hallucinogenic conversation with Bongle the Combustive, a crazed gnomish wizard who gave him the idea to mix a lot of stuff together. Heph then sent his dad off to call his mom while the party planned their next moves. The bar-hopping goliaths wandered back into Hell’s Shells, and Maho told them it was time to rescue Izume.
After his call, however, Spraus seemed despondent. The party had rolled like the worst nat 1. Spraus had learned that the mysterious ships in the Shivered Sea had been landing in Passtown and Arkos, and were about to arrive in Ivalgo. The invasion had begun. Elias held a banana up to his ear to call Mort, but…got no response! Ash filled in the party that Kogar was hoping to launch shock strikes on the peaceful Shivered Sea to do enough damage and cause enough fear before they could gather the forces to retaliate. Kogar also hoped, it turned out, to learn how to make the Nor’Southern Isles appear and disappear wherever he wanted at will. He believed the secret to that ability laid with the giants.
Heph made some calls. He reached out to Bloody Mary, the head of Arkos Combat Entertainment and childhood acquaintance/business associate of Sentin Thornwillow. The party managed to convince her that the invasion would be against her best interests, leading to us seeing her, alongside many of the ACE gladiators, approaching the docks to face off the threat. He called The Dagger, who arrived, failed to sneak up on Maho, and seemed potentially interested in opposing the invasion, and the party didn’t think he was hiding something at all. He reached out to Governor Literi of Ivalgo, warning him of the invasion and giving him some information. The governor had his twins respond, overly verbosely, and got the party’s current location.
Heph sent his dad off to go back to Ivalgo, gathering Pegs Leg Steve on the way. Finally Heph called Sentin, saying “stupid says what?”, to which on a nat 5 insight Sentin responded “what?”. With the arrival of Woahdoe Boedough at the bar, the party set about to go and rescue Izume Hojo from the Hopeful Ermine.
- While finalizing the plan, Heph turns Karrl into an Owl
and sends him off to see if Sentin does leave his
hotel, and after finalizing the plan, the group heads over to
Sentin’s hotel, The Hopeful
Ermine
- Karrl is not there when they arrive
- Approaching the 3 story building, we see a few Central Command soldiers, but as we approach we hear some commotion and they are drawn off from the entrance
- Elias rolls a natural 1 on perception and thinks he is looking at Maho’s house
- Heph rolls a natural 20, and notices that the curtains are all drawn, but behind them Heph can see shadow of multiple figures backlit, some having conversations, some pacing, and one seated by the window
- He also notices that the “people” look all wrong, and they are really plants
- The door handle of the front door is also a little hot, very home alone style
- Heading around the back to look for a back entrance, there is a ladder leading
up to a second floor balcony, an entrance to a cellar, and possibly a
staircase on the far side of the building
- Inspecting the ladder, Elias sees nothing weird, and investigating the cellar doors, they also seem pretty normal
- Heph and Elias hide while Maho opens the door, and with the doors open Maho can see rickety stairs lead down into darkness, and she can see a stone floor and some crates
- Heph notes to be careful of tar and nails on the stairs, and with that Maho walks down the stairs, stepping right on a nail and losing her balance as her feet stick to the stairs and falling down the stairs
- Heph and Elias expertly dodge all the nails and tar and join Maho
- The Goliaths follow, and all manage to step on nails and fall, except Suzuki, who catches himself before he falls
- Disabling the stair trap, Ash follows down, and Heph draws a 10 sq ft (3ft×3ft) trapdoor in the ceiling with the marvelous paints
- Maho opens the trapdoor, and a stove falls through the ceiling, landing on Maho and making some noise
- Peeking through the now open trapdoor, Maho sees disconnected
piping of a stove, and some tables and an oven
- Heph and Elias tell the Goliaths to hang a bit behind, and we will call them in when there is fighting to be done
- Heph can tell that the Goliaths seem to trust the group as a whole, and Suzuki in particular seems to be a bit impressed with Maho, and also a bit surprised
- Climbing up into the room, it seems clear, although there is another trap by
the window into the kitchen we seem to have dodged
- A puddle of water with what look like two Tesla coils sitting in it
- Elias uses his Mage Hand to open the door to the kitchen while hiding behind Heph
- Walking out of the kitchen, Heph notices the front door handle is being heated by a device containing Heat Metal
- Elias investigates the room, and spots a couple of doors and a staircase leading up, and similar electrical trap by each of the front windows
- Heph takes the device from the door and pockets it
- Trying the door to the right, it opens to some sort of storage room
- Trying the door at the bottom of the room, it seems to be a dining room of some sort
- Looking at the room, Elias notices the silverware is very valuable, and in particular there is a valuable gold centerpiece, which he tries to lift with his Mage Hand, and while he isn’t able to lift it he makes it lighter, and he hears a click
- From behind paintings on walls, knives suddenly shoot out, but Elias manages to dodge them accidentally by picking up a copper piece from the floor
- Heph drags Elias reluctantly away from the room,
heading to the stairs
- Maho approaches the stairs, looking for nails, and Elias asks the goliaths to get ready to catch her if she falls
- The stairs seem safe, so Maho heads up first, and gets hit by a swinging paint can, but manages to keep her feet
- Heph follows and manages to dodge the second paint can
- Elias really wants to see this play Heph keeps
talking about, “Alone at Home”, and Elias invites Ash
on a date to go see it, which she accepts
- Although Ash finds it weird that a sex comedy would star a child
- At the top of the stairs, there is a parrot tapestry playing back a fight, and a crossbow rigged to fire when the door to the outside stairs is opened
- Elias grabs the tapestry, and shoving it into his pocket it keeps talking, so Heph takes it and puts it in his bag of holding, noting that is was enchanted with a variation of Magic Mouth
- Heph, Elias, and Maho peek around the corner in that order, Scooby Doo style, and see a living room of some sort
- Heph investigates the room, and sees puddles under the window, and hears flowing water coming from the southern door
- Elias suddenly gets an urge to poop from the drink he had earlier
- Opening the first door, there is a set of stairs, a table, and a pile of laundry under a chute
- Elias opens the next door, in a hurry to find a bathroom, and sees what looks like a bedroom, with a door out to the balcony we saw, and there is an empty cage on a bookshelf
- Elias opens the last door, and sees a bathroom
- There are two tubs, and the pump for the sink seems to be leaking and overflowing
- Elias checks for traps, and seeing another electric trap he moves it with Mage Hand to a tub and walks in to use the toilet
- While Elias is taking care of his business, Heph double checks the bedroom, and sees nothing else of note in the room
- Heading into the room with the chute, Heph suggest that
Maho lifts him up to peek through the chute to the upper floor
- The laundry on the floor appears to be Sentin’s
- Maho lift Heph up the laundry chute to peek into the upstairs, and an iron falls down and hits Heph on the face
- With the help of Elias’ rope of climbing, Heph climbs up the rest of the way, and sees a room with some furniture, with no traps
- After some brief discussion through Message with Elias, Heph agrees to climb out and check out the upper level from above
- Finding the next room to be empty, Heph uses the pigment to draw another trapdoor in the floor, allowing the rest of the group to climb up
- Heph makes a window in the wall for an escape plan while the rest of the group climbs up
- Elias, Heph, and Maho head out into the next room, and Elias uses Mage Hand to open the north door, finding a mostly empty room and the trap at the top of the stairs (a cannon that can swing down on a rope)
- Elias opens the east door and reveals a workshop of sorts, and seeing no traps, Heph goes and checks out the tools and papers
- Heph grabs the papers and pockets them, then brings the Lucien Blind to the goliath and asks them to destroy it
- Suzuki picks it up, and tosses to Maho, asking her to hit it, which she misses, but she spins and hits it on the second pass, shattering it into a bunch of pieces
- Elias opens the south door, seeming to be the last door, and reveals a collection of people ready to attack
- A masked goliath runs out to attack, swings twice at Elias and
lands the second hit
- An unmasked elf shoots twice at Elias, missing the first one but landing a crit on the second one, which Maho uses her cloud rune to redirect to the goliath
- A third cloaked figure, wearing a fitted porcelain mask with hands covered in brownish fur, blasts crackling energy at Elias, but misses wildly and singes the northern wall
- Elias yells out as the energy passes, and finds his voice is about three times louder than normal
- The elf steps forward, launching two more shots at Elias, missing
both shots
- The cloaked figure steps forward and launches another ball of energy at Elias, hitting him this time, dealing some damage to him, and flipping him upside down, and he lands on the ground prone
- Heph climbs up on the goliath’s back, and uses his Blind removal device to remove the Lucien Blind from its face, and it collapses to the ground unconscious
- Heph then runs towards the cloaked figure, attaching the Blind removal device, and it has trouble fully seating, and the creature manages to resist the removal, although it is now grappled
- The previously masked goliath is now unconscious
- Ash comes around Elias, a bit nervous about her first fight, and looks at Elias, who in a bloody mess on the floor gives her a thumbs up, and asks Elias what her next step should be
- Elias tells her to get the elf and she heads into the room and punches the elf a couple of times, dealing a chunk of damage and stunning him, then lands a roundhouse kick to the face followed by a flying knee, managing to take him out fully and knocking him unconscious
- Elias watching this immediately pops a boner and is blushing at her prowess
- Maho runs in and surprised to see the elf already down turns her attention to the cloaked figure and swings at it twice, dealing a chunk of damage
- Elias takes a shot at the cloaked figure, dealing a large amount of damage and trips it, it’s prone but still conscious
- Ando, Suzuki and Tomatsu run over to the unconscious goliath, and seeing that it’s not Izume, Suzuki commands the others to tend to the unconscious one and heads into the room, opens the final door and runs in without checking for traps, and a blast of fire shoots down from above and lights his hair on fire, but he sees Izume
- The elf is unconscious
- The cloaked individual looks at Maho and send crackling energy at Maho, but she is able to shake off the effect, and she tries to say the creature has mind magic, but she says it in goblin, which Heph understands
- The creature manages to fight off the effects of the removal device, but with some persistence Heph is finally able to pop their Blind off, and underneath he sees a Harengon, a fey rabbit person, and they collapse to the ground, unconscious
- Suzuki notices what he thinks is a bucket of water, but notices it is a bucket
of oil before he dunks his head in
- Maho runs up to him and forces him to ground to try to roll out of the fire, and Elias runs into the room to try to put him out with a wet towel
- Izume is not wearing a mask, but is unconscious in the tub and looking quite unhealthy
- Heph goes back into the workshop and leaves Sentin a note saying “stupid says what?”
- Elias helps Ash carry the elf, and while walking over Elias says “that was hot, I mean those were good moves” and she answers back very awkwardly
- Maho opens a magic door back to the safe house, and everyone runs through quickly, arriving back to in the entryway of the safe house where we stashed the Eladrin