Terra Povos: The end of the Hole

 So it’s been a while, but we’re still trying to escape from The Hole. That means finding the warden and basically getting the index so we can get our stuff back, and using the lever so the single actual exit will open. 

Lithos, at Whisper’s suggestion, casts Detect Magic and starts going through the storeroom. We go through looking for magic items, and come up with Oil of Slipperiness (+2 on Escape Artist checks) along with some leather harnesses and thirty yards of surgical tubing. Vinnie swoops over and looks at this robe: “I love these things! It’s a robe of bones.” It’s like a robe of useful items, but all the items are uncontrolled skeletons or zombies. Amergin keeps that. 

Small goblin skeleton

Medium human skeleton

Medium human zombie

Medium wolf zombie

We find Whisper’s stuff. Also, the communication pipes are all over the walls, so if people are paying attention they can hear us. Whisper starts swapping out for his original equipment. We continue the hunt. We add an Elixir of Truth, then Dust of Dryness. Then a Hand of the Mage, which Vinnie is also very excited about. Next: a Bead of Force, which we pass off to Whisper. An Elixir of Fire Breath, which Lithos promptly claims. 

Lithos keeps looking, and finds bracers of armor +1. At that point the warden’s door opens and he emerges to swing at James. Lithos hurriedly stuffs them in his bag. James is badly surprised and very nearly goes down. The warden is carrying a magical shield, wearing plate armoir, and swinging a war axe. Baldy sicks his rats on the warden, and they start swarming his armor. Whisper pulls the last of his equipment into place. 

Monster goes to help James. “Hey! I like the tiny one!” He charges the warden and hits him pretty solidly. James disengages and moves back: “Bad touch! Bad touch! No means no!” Cloak of Resistance +1, which Lithos also adds to his inventory. The warden power attacks Monster, and takes him down. The rats do some damage to the warden, however. 

Whisper considers the Bead of Force, and also the possibility of just locking the warden in with the swarm of rats. Whisper commands the horse to charge and attack the warden; it misses. James charges the warden and attacks, but misses. Lithos searches and finds a pearl of power for a second-level spell. The warden cuts at the horse: “Hey! How’d you get this horse!? Ain’t none of you strong enough too– HEY! How’d you smuggle a floating skull in here??? These fucking rats…”

The horse fails to hurt the warden, but it does keep him distracted and covered in rats. Whisper attacks but misses. Monster is just about three seconds from giving a death rattle. Lithos calls back one of his spells, steps to the doorway, and lets loose with a Scorching ray, burning the warden. The warden cuts down our horse. 

Whisper throws the Bead of Force behind the warden, where it explodes, damaging the warden and blocking off the stairs behind him. Monster has been partly revivified, and swings at the warden… and drops his sword. James swings, misses, and takes a step back; Amergin heals him. Lithos goes back to searching and finds a bag of holding type 2. The warden attacks and manages to finish the rat swarm. Then he attacks Monster, who’s still lying on the ground. Monster dies. 

Baldy lifts the pipes and tries to call for more rats. Whisper fires another crossbow shot and misses. James: “Can we talk about this?” 

Warden: “Drop your weapons and lock yourself in the vault!” 

James throws down the cursed mace and retreats to the vault.  Lithos: “How bad is it?”

James: “I’m fine! It’s fine! We’ve almost got him. And his ass looks very fine!” 

Lithos: “Vinnie… Monster Zombies.” He continues searching and finds a Necklace of Fireballs, Type I. 

Vinnie raises a zombie which moves to attack the warden. The warden promptly cuts the zombie down. It is at that moment that warden notices: “Wait! You didn’t actually put your mace down!” He starts towards James. 

Baldy fires off his crossbow again, while playing the pipes and waiting for more rats to arrive. Amergin swings his shilleleagh and misses. Lithos throws a fireball out there and catches the warden; the warden attacks him but misses. Baldy shoots but misses. Whisper moves to flank, then fires a crossbow bolt that goes right through the chainmail at the back of his helmet. The warden screams: “Beardless testicles!” -- a ferocious dwarven curse.

James moves up next to Lithos and swings at the warden, but misses. Lithos backs away and throws another fireball, burning both the warden and Amergin. The warden steps towards Lithos and pulls a potion out; Amergin smacks him, but he drinks the potion of Cure Moderate Wounds. James swings and misses. 

Lithos drops the fireball at his feet. The warden swings at Lithos, who fails to dodge the blade and drops like a rock. Warden M'Hole swings at James and misses. 

Vinnie: “You got this– NOOOOO!” 

He casts Clone on Monster’s corpse, and this Cronenberg body-horror version of Lithos stands back up. James: “WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?”  He fails, however, to get the warden to turn and look. He swings the cursed mace but misses. 

Amergin steps in and keeps Lithos from dying. Lithos withdraws from the rats but still gets bitten. Warden Hammer M’hole attacks James, missing and then hitting; James is swaying but he doesn’t go down. Whisper stabs the warden, and the warden goes down. 

Vinnie: “That dude was kind of bad ass!” He kind of slurps at the fallen warden, and another one of his teeth starts glowing. We turn back and search the Vault, and this time find the rest of our stuff. We kit back up, and get Vinnie to, well, zombify the warden. 

Upstairs in the warden’s quarters, we find... well... It’s very richly decorated; the index of the vault is totally doctored. The Canary Diamond is up here, but not in the inventory. There’s three flasks of fine whiskey worth about 100 GP each; into the bag with ‘em. We use the lever to open the outer door, so we can finally escape the prison. 

 

"Okay," asks Amergin. "Now how do we get out past the riot?"

 

And Lithos, who has had more than enough of all this, looks at Vinny and thinks, You could pull the lever.

 

Vinnie: The sleep lever? 

 

Lithos: The one marked gas that we thought was the sleep lever. 

 

Vinnie: Oh. Good thinking, kid.
He pats Lithos on the shoulder with a Mage Hand.   

Vinnie takes his new zombie out through the secret door and into the tunnels. About five minutes later the last sounds of rioting suddenly cut off in agonized screams. Vinnie and Warden Zombie return a few minutes later. “Okay, it’s all clear now.” 

Whisper, also in telepathic contact: What’d you do, Vinnie?

“Nothin’! I got no hands! They was just screamin’ because of the sleep gas. 'Cause they saw it coming again.” He nods to the warden zombie. “He's the one who did it. I think this is a bad guy. We should kill him.”

We check through the tunnels. There are two sets: guards, cells, etc. The second set connects the warden’s chambers to the guard chambers with the ballistae guarding the gates. Baldy does a bit of ventriloquism so it seems like the warden is speaking: “We need you to let us out when we come through.”

The guards are convinced, but Whisper stops to have a little chat with Lithos – having slit the throat of his clone. A chat to the tune of, "It's a good thing you're dead back there. You'd better think about who you're going to be when we get out of here, because you can't be you anymore." 

 

We exit The Hole and head up the passages. Somebody has left a rock arrangement that looks a bit like a golem's shattered hand, and we find a scroll from Gorm telling us where to meet him. The whole group stops, looking at that note. Looking at Whisper, and Amergin, and Vinnie, and Lithos. It's decision time. 

 

"Do we meet him?" Whisper chalks on his slate. "Or do we just fade out? Our reputation is fucked. Mom and Dad are going to be heartbroken." 

 

We go back and forth, with Lithos pointing out that we'd been set up to become the bad guys: Gorm sent us into the prison telling us that we could escape fairly soon, but with wholly inadequate equipment to manage that and a "man on the inside" who was a fucking demilich. Everyone else, rightly, points out that we -- by which they mean Lithos -- just genocided a hundred or so political prisoners. Lithos, who is pretty well fed up with taking shit from everybody he meets (with the exception of his siblings, except that even that seems to be giving way all of a sudden) points out that they'd already killed several guards and started a riot; there was no way they were going to come out of this with their reputations intact.

Vinnie takes this as his cue to admit -- brag -- that, well, he was the one who killed the senator. He's a connoseur of souls. That's why he devoured the warden's soul over our objections. That's why he couldn't resist the senator. They were powerful, forceful souls and -- unlike us -- up to his exacting standards for taste. What he wants now is the tarrasque’s soul and the Rogue Caminante Guy’s soul. We'll help him get them; that's why he came with us. In exchange, he’ll use Wish to make it so the events in The Hole never happened. 

We tentatively agree, and Vinnie settles in to rest and prepare his spell. We wait until he’s well and truly resting, and shove him in the bag of holding. Muffled voice: “Are you fucking serious? You still want me to work on that spell?” 

Amergin: “Yes.”

So now we have an incredibly powerful demilich in a bag of holding. Ironically, this will not hold him; but it does give us a chance to discuss things with some confidence that he won't be able to listen in. Whisper takes off, because he doesn’t see any way out of this that doesn’t end in disaster. He can’t take on Vinnie; none of us can. The best he can hope for is to be a loose end, and maybe discourage Vinnie from doing anything to our parents just by being out there. James goes off with Whisper, because Whisper is more terrifying than the rest of us.

Lithos, Amergin, and Archibald agree to the deal, because that's the only way to undo this massacre.

However, with the party thoroughly split and the Demilich largely in charge, this campaign is probably over.