Session 79: Izumes Awakens (April 24, 2025)
Last session, our heroes set about rescuing Izume Hojo. Heph sent Karrl ahead to keep an eye out for Sentin, but he was not there when the party arrived at the Hopeful Ermine. Two Central Command soldiers were there, however, and got drawn away by some of TK’s forces.
On a nat 20 perception check, Heph immediately recognized that the silhouettes behind the curtains on the windows were actually plants, and the doorknob of the front door was radiating heat. From there began a series of slapstick episodes wherein Maho and a few other goliaths fell down a set of tar-covered stairs, Heph was hit in the face with a falling iron, and Elias had to dismantle an electric trap in order to use a toilet.
Eventually, the party made it to the top floor of the building, where three individuals were waiting for them: a masked goliath they had failed to save north of Bad Zamdorf, an elvish employee of Sentin, and a short masked agent with brown fur covering their hands and around the edges of their mask. Ash took out the elf, and Heph disabled the masks of the goliath and other individual, but not before their magic caused some chaos, amplifying Elias’s voice, flipping him upside down, and causing Maho to speak in only Goblin. Removing the mask revealed the face of a Harengon woman.
Izume was unconscious in the next room, seemingly drugged laying in an empty bath tub. Maho, with the help of Suzuki, lifted her up. Maho then swallowed her Bidirectional Bivalve and teleported the party with Izume and the unconscious elf and goliath back to the safe house.
- We head into the back room of the safehouse, and find the Eladrin and other
folks still waiting there for us, but the bodies of the mistguard soldiers are
no longer in there
- We tie up the elf and Harengon just to be safe, but not the goliath as he is probably not a threat to us
- Heph notices the Harengon’s side effects were chaotic in a similar way to Wormwood and Grace potions, that is to say it’s Wild Magic
- The elf had a long sword and a longbow, the goliath had a greatsword, and the Harengon had a dagger
- Elias takes the goliath’s greatsword, mouthing “Jarles 3”
- Heph investigates the Harengon’s mask more closely, and it is definitely a Lucien Blind, although it is shaped differently
- It is also constructed in a slightly different way, it is a different design that achieves the same purpose
- The goliaths are gathered around Izume, trying to make her more comfortable
- Heph heals her for 19 health, and it seems to perk her up a bit,
although for a second the goliaths are a bit freaked out by the mechanical
spiders at first
- (Ben’s note: I mean, they crawled into her mouth and two went up her nose)
- Maho tells Izume she’s glad she’s okay, but it comes out in goblin, and Izume starts to freak out a bit
- Heph tries to reassure her she’s in the real world after translating Maho’s speech by telling her about the captured captors, and then Elias undermines the effort a bit with his talking sword
- After a moment of looking around though, she seems to think she’s still in a dream, although she’s still a bit calmer
- Maho tries to signal they aren’t captive by crossing her arms, but Izume interprets it as Maho being dead, so Maho carves the rune for life into the wall with her sword
- Izume, seeing the rune carved with a technique she recognizes as Maho’s, starts to believe she’s really awake, and asks a lot of questions
- Heph tries to explain but it doesn’t seem to help a ton, and she asks Maho questions, but Maho is still speaking goblin
- Heph heals her for 19 health, and it seems to perk her up a bit,
although for a second the goliaths are a bit freaked out by the mechanical
spiders at first
- Suzuki steps in at this point, explaining Maho is real, and the
small creature (Heph) is a friend, explaining they are far from
home in the land of the humans and creatures are smaller here
- He continues to say Maho is speaking the way she is because we rescued Izume from a terrible building, and a hex was placed on her
- Izume is still having trouble getting up, but the healing seems to have helped and she is recovering
- Maho, finally able to speak normally again, tells Izume to get some rest, as she has had it worse than everyone, and expresses she is very happy Izume is okay
- Maho explains where we are, saying it’s close to where her dad settled, and it finally clicks for Izume that she has not seen Maho in a long time, and shoves Maho a bit playfully
- She asks where Maho has been, and seems to focus in on the fact that Maho leaving meant she couldn’t cheat anymore, although she seems happy to see Maho regardless
- Maho tried to write, but nobody was delivering letters back to Hojo, and visiting was too difficult because of her parents
- She recounts the events of her being captured and asks if we know anything about Hojo, but Maho says we actually wanted to ask her what she knows
- She remembers being captured along with Suzuki, Tomatsu and Ando, and they were fitted with masks
- She remembers being interrogated by Sentin, with him trying to learn more about the other villages in the mountains and how to reach them, but she managed to hold out and tell them nothing
- Alsa was going to extract memories, and Heph revealing that Alsa is dead seems to provide a tiny bit of comfort
- She finally turns to the rest of us and introduces herself, and Heph introduces himself and Elias, undermining Elias’ attempt at mystery
- She is very perplexed about how small everything is and how hot and dry the air is, and everything is very strange, but it’s a good diplomatic opportunity for her because she will be the chief one day
- She starts to formally extend a peace offering, but then throws up a little
- Elias asks her to rally any troops she might have, but she doesn’t have a way to contact Hojo
- She tried to warn the village elders about the visitors, but nobody believed her, hopefully her disappearance will have encouraged them to take her seriously
- It’s unlikely we will get help from the goliaths, and we may have to end up helping them
- She notices Heph’s staff, which he hands to her to investigate, and explains it came from his friend who is very strange, she notes it is from a tree from her homeland, the Karamatsu
- Heph remembers he ran into Rormir North of Bad Zamdorf, post an expedition to Cryptop, where he had captured some goliaths, and he tells Izume that
- Izume notes the wood is still alive, and asks Maho if she knows any advanced runecraft that can be done with the wood of that particular tree
- She continues to explain she has advanced teachers, and one thing she learned is that if you take the ashes of the wood burned fresh and use that to inscribe runes, you can inscribe runes that are significantly more powerful
- Heph asks her if the Harengon’s mask is done with the ashes, but it’s not done with the technique that she is thinking of with the charcoal
- She thinks Sentin didn’t understand how important she really was, and that’s probably for the best, but she can probably teach Maho some stuff
- Izume asks for a dagger, and Elias pulls out Jarles,
while dropping several daggers on the ground
- Jarles says hello, and Izume drops it, startled
- After some exchange about how Jarles seems like a euphemism, Elias eventually gives her a regular dagger, and she uses it to shave a bit off the staff, and after a moment the bark regrows over the area she shaved
- Heph tries chopping a bit off the end, and it regrows, but more slowly, and he gives the additional piece to Maho
- Maho can use the ash from the wood to power up her runes
- Heph notes that it is close to time to head to the artificer
convention, and Maho and Elias decide to join him
- Heph crafts a little “drone” for Elias to use to pretend to levitate things
- The group decides to go in disguise, and establish a secret signal of Heph tugging on his ear to communicate if Heph is charmed
- The signal is borrowed from basedirt, a baseball-like games that exists in different forms in each of the party members’ cultures
- Elias has finished packing lunches, and looks around for Ana to help with disguises, and she climbs up out of the brown lunch bag
- As her hand comes out of the bag, Elias is startled and kicks it
- Ana asks everyone to close their eyes, and a cartoon dust cloud appears around Maho and Elias, and when we open our eyes, Maho and Elias are now nerds
- Maho’s waistband is now pulled up higher than Heph is tall, and she has suspenders, above it is a sweater vest over a loose blouse, and she has braces
- Elias is decked out in crypto bro attire, a T-shirt that says “blockchain” with “i love crypto”, epaulets with logos, and covered in QR codes, and his hair is slicked back and overly greased, and he has an uneven amount of peach fuzz, and his daggers are disguised as pens
- Ana says Maho and Elias will fit in with the other losers, which Heph takes offense to
- Heph reminds her that he and Rormir are the reason she is still around, and she tears up remembering and gives Heph a hug
- Heph casts Identify on the Harengon’s mask, finding that it is a
Lucien Blind, although it seems to be a stronger dose of
the magic, it is more precise and controlled
- The individual that was wearing this mask was chaotic, and the mask may have slightly muted the chaos that would have existed without the mask
- As Heph notices this, the Harengon shifts in their sleep a little, and one of the boxes of comics erupts in fire, which Heph puts out with Prestidigitation
- Heph explains that the Harengon seems to have Wild Magic, and the mask may have tempered it a bit
- Elias pokes at her, and she shifts but doesn’t wake up, seeming to be sweating and running a bit of a fever
- Wynn and the Eladrin offer to watch the Harengon and the elf while we are gone
- We have a brief discussion about Ash, but ultimately decide she should remain hidden for now
- Izume, now leaning up against the wall, asks how she can help, and Heph suggests she and Ash keep an eye on the people, and pulls Wynn aside before leaving and tells him he knows he is really in charge here
- Izume begins to order the group to divide up by expertises, and tells Suzuki he is going to run them through some drills
- Izume tells us she wants to see Sentin dead, and Heph explains that the Eladrin are really there for Kogar, and Izume she will talk to them more to understand their motivation
- We head out to the safehouse, load up on Woahdoe Boedough’s wagon, and head towards the convention center, planning to run some errands on the way there