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Recap 60 Supplemental: Chicken God Egg: The Angelic Furnace

August 23, 2014


Ice-Trapped!

The Motley Crew finds themselves in the bowels of a volcano with red dragons above them, an unknown number of monsters before them, and no angelic furnace in sight. After examining the corpse and reading the journal entry on deepspawn, the party looks around the room. They see one closed door and three open doorways.

Through one of the open doorways is a cloakroom. Near the wall pegs, insectoid footprints mingle in the dust with bare, man-sized footprints. Peering into the second doorway, Brecaryn thinks she sees the rubble on the floor move. Malouf cautiously investigates, managing to avoid getting caught by the tentacles of the roper they mistook for rubble. They dispatch it easily, with Adarra landing the killing blow.

Seeing that the last doorway opens to a corridor, they focus on the only closed door in the room. Josy starts to turn the handle when a blast of cold covers part of the room in ice. Adarra, Josy, and Brecaryn are all stuck. Lieralyn and Malouf manage to dig them out.

Unwilling to attempt the ice-trapped door again just yet, they cautiously move through the third doorway and into the hallway. Branching off to the left are two more hallways, the first filled with webs. Peering cautiously around the corner of the second hallway, Malouf is suddenly hit with a wave of dizziness. Seeing his body start to shake, Lieralyn quickly grabs him and pulls him back to the group.

Looking to see what attacked him, Malouf peeks into a room across the way. It's full of naked, weaponless man-scorpions and cloaked, weaponless mind flayers. He notices a flash of cloak as a door slams shut on the other side of the room.

The occupants of the room don't notice Malouf watching them. The Crew moves back into the room with the ice-trapped door sure it also leads to the room with the man-scorpions and mind flayers. By entering from here, they gain the element of surprise.

Checking the door, Malouf doesn't detect any magical aura emanating from it. Just to be safe, the others step back while Josy opens the door, banking on her natural defenses against spells to protect her.

She opens it without incident and the party uses the surprise to their advantage. Josy rushes in first and, with a blow from her mace, sends a man-scorpion crashing into the ceiling. Brecaryn summons two lizardmen to aid in the fight.

Adarra, flush from her success with the roper, runs up to assist Malouf with a mind flayer. This sadly results in an unwanted nasal encounter from two of the mind flayer's tentacles.

Despite the mind flayers' resistance to magickal attacks, Brecaryn is still able to hurt them with a few lucky magick missiles. The man-scorpions are no match for Lieralyn's and Malouf's attacks. Neither are the mind flayers able to defend themselves against the awesome might of Brecaryn's lizardman. After a long battle, the monsters are finally vanquished. Unfortunately, the victory comes with a price. Josy suffered a mental attack from one of the mind flayers, reducing her to an imbecilic level of intelligence. At least she still recognizes her companions.

In the corner of the room are the remains of some creature laying dissected on a table. It is similar to a beholder, but much larger in size. Brecaryn had noticed that the other creatures in the room had given the table a wide berth. The dissected creature must have been one of the deepspawn. If the mind flayers and man-scorpions were created by the deepspawn, and thus loyal to them, it would explain their avoidance of the dissected corpse. It would also explain why they were unclothed and unarmed.


If Only Someone Would Say They were Poisoned...

While Brecaryn examines the deepspawn corpse, she sends each of her lizardmen into the two corridors to scout ahead. The one that entered the webbed hallway does not return. The other runs back to report more man-scorpions. While Lieralyn and the awesomely competent lizardman move to engage the man-scorpions, Brecaryn notices giant spiders coming down the webbed corridor.

Adarra instructs Josy to stay in the room and wait while Adarra gets the spiders to turn around. Once their backs are to Josy, she is to attack them with her boomerang. Josy nods solemnly before promptly forgetting her instructions. Seeing Adarra leaving the room, Josy happily follows.

While fighting the spiders, Adarra is surprised by a boomerang whizzing past her head, killing one. Upon seeing the spiders, Josy instinctively attacked them. It might not have been the plan, but it all turned out in the end.

Busy with the spiders, none of the party realizes Lieralyn is poisoned from a scorpion tail sting. She stoically fights on as the toxin starts to cause her body to shake and her vision to blur. Only after triumphantly killing one man-scorpion does she exclaim...

Lieralyn: Goddamned poison!

...thus, alerting Josy to her plight. Luckily, Josy's mind is starting to recover, and she is able to read the scroll to neutralize Lieralyn's poison. Lieralyn jumps back into the fray with Malouf.

After killing all of the man-scorpions, Lieralyn examines the new area, noticing the outline of a door in the wall. While she is doing this, Malouf checks the door in the dissected deepspawn room, remembering he had seen someone running through there before the battle. He is able to detect an aura of magick coming from this door. Likely another ice trap.

Using the same method as before, with Josy opening the trapped door, they enter the room to follow their mystery opponent. A fireball comes flying through the open door, hitting Malouf, Brecaryn, and Vain. A figure is seen running through another secret door, sliding the stone wall panel closed behind him. Inside, the room is full of rust monsters.

Lieralyn: Shut the door!

Before Malouf does so, Brecaryn realizes the rust monsters are just an illusion. Lieralyn is too traumatized by the equipment losses she suffered previously to believe Brecaryn. In order to convince her to enter the room, the rest of the party gamely pretends to slay imaginary rust monsters.

The sliding stone panel is similarly trapped with an ice spell. This time they're ready for the succeeding fireball and all manage to dodge it. At the end of the hallway, Malouf spies a fully clothed mind flayer wielding a wand and runs forward in pursuit. The mind flayer flees, slamming another door shut between them.

Guessing the mind flayer is heading to the secret door Lieralyn found earlier, she and Adarra position themselves next to it and wait for the mind flayer to exit.

Sure enough, he soon does, with Malouf and Josy hot on his heels. The Motley Crew had set their enemy up with a perfect pincer maneuver. Perfect, that is, until Malouf slips and drops his axe. Without his help, the three are unable to kill the mind flayer before he casts one final fireball.

The fireball engulfs the mind flayer, as well, killing him before they can question him and search his clothing. The sole item that survives is a key with a snowflake-shaped bow. This must be how the mind flayer ice-trapped the doors.

While Josy, Malouf, Adarra, and Lieralyn were busy chasing the mind flayer, Brecaryn was slowly bringing up the rear, checking the rooms and corridors the mind flayer ran through in his attempt to escape. In one room she collects a hand axe that returns to the thrower, wands, and a crossbow with one +1 bolt.

Continuing on, it seems like they are traversing the perimeter of a large rectangle. Down the next long corridor, they hear feral growling coming from a room off to the side. As they approach, werewolves rush out to attack.

Brecaryn summons giant wasps to harass and distract the werewolves, providing Malouf and Lieralyn the opportunity to kill them all before they get past the threshold.


A Lucky Shot

A quick check ahead confirms that they are walking in a big rectangle and the next corridor leads back to the stairway from whence they escaped the dragons.

They also find another set of stairs leading down another level. As they enter the lower level, they are greeted by a familiar smell. Nightshade flies ahead to scout. Sure enough, three owlbears are occupying the room ahead.

Josy, with her mind fully restored, expertly flings her boomerang at an owlbear and even more expertly stuns herself instead. Brecaryn, Malouf, and Lieralyn clear the room while she recovers.

There are two doors leading off from the owlbear room. Opening one, the group discovers their first live deepspawn. It has surrounded itself with medusas and mind flayers riding owlbears.

Serendipitously, Lieralyn is positioned right across from the door with her new, reflective shield on her arm and petrifies a medusa seconds after the door is opened.

Malouf and Lieralyn rush in to attack the deepspawn. Knowing the deepspawn and the mind flayers are resistant to magick, Brecaryn concentrates her attacks on the owlbears. Adarra casts spells to slow them down. Josy flits around the room waiting for an opportunity to attack or aid a companion.

For a moment, things take a turn for the worse when the deepspawn grabs Malouf and Lieralyn in its tentacles, disarming them. But Malouf is able to break free and extract Lieralyn before it can crush her.

Brecaryn aims two lightning bolts at the remaining owlbears. One of them dodges the bolt. Lightning bounces off the back wall into the deepspawn. With an unforeseen stroke of luck, the bolt of lightning hits the creature at just the right angle, killing it instantly. All of the other creatures in the room drop.

After a moment of stunned silence, the Crew dispatches the fallen monsters before they can recover and become independent beings.


The Furnace, At Last!

Glancing quickly around the room, they decide to try the door in the northeast corner. Upon opening it, a blast of heat and wind come rushing through. Peering down the corridor, Malouf sees light from a room to the left. It also seems to be the source of the heat.

Moving cautiously towards the room, the group starts to feel weak-kneed and nervous the closer they get to the doorway. Taking a quick glance into the room, they see two giant, gargoyle-like, winged demons standing in front of a blue wall of light. Behind that is a furnace made of gold brick, a bright pink flame burning within. At last, they have located the angelic furnace.

Noticing the demons are being very careful to avoid contact with the shimmering blue wall, the party has a long whispered conversation and comes up with a plan to push them into it. Brecaryn will enlarge Malouf and Lieralyn. While they tackle one demon, Josy will try to use her mace to knock the other back. Brecaryn will help by pushing the demon with a spell. And Adarra will do her best to not die.

As one, they rush into the room to confront the demons. All at once, the demons disappear. The room is replaced by a desolate plain covered in fire, flaming skulls whizzing past.

Demon: Foolish mortals. We can read your minds. We knew every aspect of your plan. You are now in a hell dimension and will never leave.

The air is burning hot. They cannot survive long on this plane.

Malouf: (turning to Brecaryn) Is this an illusion?

As soon as the possibility is brought up, Brecaryn, Malouf, Josy, and Adarra are able to disbelieve what they see and realize they are still in the furnace room. A glyph flashes briefly before their eyes and none of them can avoid seeing it. They are left feeling somewhat weakened.

Lieralyn remains staring blankly, as if in a trance. She cries out suddenly, a bloody gash appearing on her chest. Malouf swings blindly in front of him.

Malouf: Something's here!

Casting a spell on herself, Brecaryn is able to see the two demons in front of them, beating their wings to keep from being pushed into the wall of light. Adarra casts fairy fire where she thinks they might be, successfully outlining one. Malouf grapples with his newly visible foe.

Escaping the illusions at last, Lieralyn aids Malouf. As the demon gets pushed through the wall of light, it is engulfed in a white flame.

Adarra outlines the second demon just as a wall of fire comes blazing across the floor, injuring all but Brecaryn and Vain.

Waving its hand, the last demon opens a portal, summoning three lesser demons. While Josy, Brecaryn, and Adarra engage the lesser demons, Malouf and Lieralyn successfully push the second demon into the wall of light, and it also dies in white fire.

Without their master, one of the lesser demons leaves and the party easily kills the other two.

Examining the room, Josy is sure that the area behind the blue wall of light is a piece of the Seventh Heaven jutting into their world. Anyone trying to enter would instantly burst into flames as the demons had. Josy prays to Yondalla for protection.

Taking the egg, Josy struggles to carry it, waddling through the wall towards the Furnace. Though protected by Yondalla's blessing, Josy's body is wracked with pain. She manages to toss the egg into the furnace and just makes it back to the wall before collapsing. Malouf pulls her through to safety.

As the egg is destroyed, two silver and gold bears walk out from beyond the furnace.

Bears: Thank you for your service. Now that the demons are gone, we can remove this piece of Heaven from your plane.

With that, they and the furnace disappear. The room now appears to be a partially excavated portion of a cave. With the egg destroyed, they've completed their mission. But can they allow a single deepspawn to remain alive having witnessed its ability to create monsters? And how will they get past the red dragons?


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Tags: Adarra, Brecaryn, Josy, Lieralyn, Malouf, Nightshade, Vain


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