Week 20
Kirv reappears from his plot hole, once again disguised as a table. Sorrel finds her own plot hole and disappears.
Zer0 awakes earlier than the others, notices the new table, pokes it a couple of times and heads out of Iliqua’s room for a wander. Finding a staircase, he heads up a couple of levels finding slightly better rooms, then a locked door.
A conversation is heard on the other side of the door, along the lines of missing people involved in research of potentially nefarious nature. Councillor Raistlin is mentioned, along with some stolen research.
Zer0 attempts to hide as the people on the other side open the door, they notice Zer0 but mistake him for a statue. The people leave (elf and human), Zer0 bars the door with a dagger to keep it open and heads on to the roof top.
A three-pronged magical statue/thing stands here with blue balls floating around it. He watches it for a while, and heads back to Iliqua’s room.
Iliqua brings out URA again, and Kirv makes himself known, briefly spooking Zer0 until he remembers him. Kirv leaves to find the others and food.
Once Kirv leaves, Zer0 recounts the rooftop conversation to Iliqua. Afterwards both head out to the mess hall.
Misty wakes, finally putting on clothing. Jaxzon does his maintenance tasks, cooing quietly to his axe.
Misty and Jaxzon head to the mess hall and meet up with a female elf who chats shit about Iliqua. Misty wanders off while the elf talks to Jaxzon, trying to poach him to another group. He denies her and she leaves, he finds a table to eat.
Kirv arrives and heads straight for the food as per usual. Him, Misty and Jaxzon grab some soup. Kirv and Jaxzon play musical chairs, the former trying to sit next to the latter, and the latter moving away every time. Misty shows some concern about how long Jaxzon can avoid stabbing him.
The musical chairs finally stop, with Kirv getting the hand from Jaxzon. Iliqua and Zer0 sit with Misty, all of them stealing glances at the other two.
Jaxzon polishes his axe to a mirror finish, getting several others staring at him. Misty pulls out a book to read, but everyone gets a message from Vistra asking them to come up to her office.
Breakfast is finished, and the party head off to see Vistra, Iliqua checks the offices out, looking for Raistlin’s one, but not finding it.
The super bitch high elf (Talia) is again met outside. Various golden tickets are waved around, and Talia leaves in a huff.
The party enter, noticing that the body is still on the table. Misty tries to leave again. Vistra talks about the party heading into the lower levels, and mentions the disease source appears to come from the insects.
Health potions are distributed, and warnings about being infected, with some possible reduction in effect with the application of fire. Sorrel being a possible shape changer is briefly talked about but finally the party and Vistra head off.
“Beware some of the experiments as they tend to be quite volatile.” warns Vistra. “We were going to send some extra people with you, but some tampering with the barrier has injured some of the staff, and we cannot afford to spare them now.”
The party are escorted to the basement levels, Vistra opening the way. She leaves, closing the outer door - the hatch in the floor opens, white light flooding out. Misty attempts to sneak, failing magnificently, slipping on the hatch and falling in.
The rest of the party enter the hatch, a long sterile hallway stretches into the distance. A marching order is established - Jaxzon, Misty, Kirv, Iliqua (and URA) and Zer0. The hatch closes behind them.
A large metal door with Elvish writing on it - “Cleaning” and “Staff Only”. Misty tries to open the door, finding it locked. Iliqua uses URA to open the door with the golden card. The party heads in, the first door closes, the runes flare up and the party is cleaned. The other door opens, showing another hallway, and a smashed pane of glass.
Iliqua casts invisibilty on Misty, who actually manages to sneak and heads off to where the smashed glass is. She looks into the room, seeing a large burrowed hole in the back wall, with a large beetle shell on the ground, and Iliqua is called in to check things out.
Jaxzon tries to peer into a room, seeing several tables with glowing gear on them, appearing to be quickly abandoned. Misty checks out the rest of the hallway, spotting a T-intersection further down. Zer0 copies Jaxzon on the other side of the hallway, seeing a large room with several glass tubes and a large table in the middle.
Another room is checked out, a smaller room with a couple of blocks, weapon and magical scars upon them.
Misty heads off down the hallway, hearing a pleading voice and running steps. An elf appears around the far corner, quickly followed by large footsteps and a wet crash, turning the elf into goo and collapsing the ceiling. Misty goes to check out the rubble, stepping in a combination of blood and insect ichor.
Jaxzon checks out the rubble, noticing the rubble shifting around, bringing more from the ceiling down. The sounds of glass hitting the ground are heard, and Iliqua is smashed into the wall, knocking him prone - a large beetle enters the fray and combat begins.
Kirv turns, brings out his sword and casts eldritch blast, and actually hits for once, then moves behind Zer0.
Zer0 steps up and swings, but loses his sword. He steps away from the beetle, getting smacked in the process. He retrieves his sword and steps back into melee range.
Misty fires a crossbow, losing her invisibilty, but does not harm the beetle. A panicky attempt to hide fails miserably, making a lot of noise.
The beetle rushes off to attack Misty, provoking an opportunity attack from Zer0 who misses. A second attack also misses.
Iliqua stands up, looking very battered. Engages bladesong and casts false life, regaining some colour and health, then steps behind the corner.
Jaxzon dashes around the corner, almost making it to the beetle, casting Shield of Faith.
Kirv once again casts eldritch blast, returning to missing once more.
Zer0 rushes in front of Jaxzon to get flanking, finally hitting and gaining the beetle’s ire.
Misty swings at the beetle’s back, missing. Attacks with her dagger, misses again.
Beetle absolutely smashes Zer0, taking a big amount of health off him, a second attack misses badly enough to smash the nearby window.
Iliqua steps out and casts firebolt, doing no damage.
Jaxzon steps up and swings wildly, missing the beetle and smacking Misty instead.
Kirv runs along the wall, unleashing his lightning breath weapon, doing some damage.
Zer0 calls on second wind, and misses with an attack.
On advice from Jaxzon, Misty disengages and backs into a corner, firing her crossbow almost hitting. She sheds some tears at the horrible situation.
The beetle rushes off to attack Kirv, Zer0 and Jaxzon both take opportunity attacks, hitting and killing it before it can get to Kirv.
Kirv’s sword awakens and tries to drag him to one of the far rooms. He tries to open the door, finding it locked. His sword vibrates and the door opens, pointing to a table, that has cloth covered items on it. He removes the cloth, finding a sigil from the Spirit of the Jungle. Picking it up, the sword absorbs the sigil, and Kirv disappears…