"Getting sick of these things!" Conor barks as he steps in front of Rinika/Savi, blade flashing.
“Ouch! Why me?!”
Savi zips back into Rinika’s personal bubble, and peers from behind a poof of dark curls.
“Fine, we lied. She ain’t Glyphim-whore’s spokescat. She’s his killer.”
Savi then takes the smiley-face coaster she created seconds ago and whips it at the visage like a tiny frisbee.
Whether it hits the visage or the wall, it breaks on impact and its pieces dissipate.
“GRRM…”
Lunk growls as he sees his dinky friend fly out of the room, trailing blood! He peers around the corner. His massive arms thrust his enlarged katana, the unsharpened side down to avoid accidentally slashing Conor as the weapon passes over his head.
Nik tries to launch some acid over Conor's shoulder and into the visage.
...and manages to splash acid all over its mask!
Jek again finds a charging lane that goes right through the party.
"Incoming!"
Working off a hunch, Rinika spends her round talking and moving out of the way. "Mr. Drow person, hang tight and we can help you, but we'd like to talk. Please don't run."
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In a beatdown not seen since last Tuesday the visage is cut, burned, and got a very large splinter. It boils into nothingness as the others have before it.
The gaseous form of the drow drifts over to Jek and reforms on his lance! His heart is pierced, but he manages to whisper his last words, "The other...Erehe. Vault of the Drow... on Oerth. Destroy him, too. He must not remember what he's forgotten... these fiends need the location. Don't let the murderous god win..."
Nik thinks this vampire is dumb because Jek just needs to remove his lance for him to come back, unless someone now decapitates him and anoints him with holy water.
Ignoring Rinika's desire to interrogate the probably-vampire, Nik asks "think we should finish this guy off?"
Before anyone can answer, Nik scratches his cheek and adds "seemed suicidal enough that he might appreciate it."
Then he shrugs.
"I don't see a way to get him to sunlight, but we have some holy water. Anyone want to chop off his head? I know how to sprinkle the water."
Lunk looks upon the impaled vampire with pity. He signs to Savi and stands ready to deliver the coup de grace.
Must be an elf thing?
Savi says to the drow, “Lunk prays you’ll find peace in the afterlife.”
She flutters out of reach of the oversized katana.
Rinika's eyes go wide and she furiously scribbles down notes. "The location of what, sir?"
Lunk stands patiently, holding his coup de grace until the conversation is clearly over.
Conor stares at the thing for a moment, "Did ... Did that thing just commit suicide by Jek?"
"Not really. He's apparently too dumb to know that won't work. Anyway, it seems like maybe Rinika wants to interrogate him, so maybe we just leave him like that for now? Whaddya say, Jek?"
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Rinika's eyes go wide and she furiously scribbles down notes. "The location of what, sir?"
The vampire is slumped over and shows no sign of consciousness. Nik's eyes confirm he is currently dead.
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“Is he dumb, really?” Savi asks. “I’m being serious.
“Lunk and his mom are both mute, so with people who don’t understand sign language, they communicate with action. When this guy impaled himself, it made it clear he wants us to… y’know.”
Savi hesitates a bit. She looks at the self-impaled drow.
“It was probably easier for him to do than to say.”
Lunk delivers the coup de grace.
"Strange rescue..."
Jek waves his lance a bit until the body floats free.
"So... he wanted to die. Where's Oerth?"
"Oerth? I feel like one of my instructors mentioned that once in the monastery. It was a long time ago and I wasn't paying attention, so I have no clue." Conor replies unhelpfully.
Nik, ignoring Savi's misunderstanding about the vampires lack of understanding of his own immortality, sighs as the body and head float free of Jek's lance, surely soon to be reuinited.
"He has to stay impaled for the holy-water-anointing thing or it won't work, guys." Nik complains flatly.
Shrugging he continues.
"Whatever, let's just ask him about stuff after carrying him out of here. Jek, want to whittle one of my torches down into a steak? Or can I borrow your any-tool for the duration of our prisoner's rescue? Or perhaps I should say other prisoner's rescue? I guess we'll be saving two now..."
"Wait, didn't you have to burn a vampire to actually kill it?" At this point, the info in his mind seems a bit blurry. Now there's a god involved which wants to kow things that others have forgotten...
"What a mess..."
"Wait what did we do with the other one?"
Rinika looks at her new parasol with uncertainty.
Lunk whips out a red potion.
Savi takes it, rather nervously.
“Uh… are ya sure, Lunk? This was supposed to be for you if you got hurt. Plus, the timing…”
She drinks it anyway. It’s a lot of liquid for such a little person. She’s probably gonna fly in the vent and pee like crazy.
For now she wills a trash bin to appear, drops the vial into it, and mage-hands the trash bin away. The bin drops to the ground, shattering very noisily. Shards of bin dissipate. Shards of vial no not.
A few spilled drops of potion look like red golf balls sticking to skin and clothes, slowly oozing down.
“I’m not a vampire,” she says defensively—even though the claw marks sealing and forming fresh pink skin makes it obvious Savi drank a cure light wounds potion.
Fey Protection: Your birth brought an unexpected guest to your parents’ home: a helpful fey who prophesied about your future and gave you a magical gift in exchange for your parents’ hospitality, a cup of milk, and a drop of your blood…
"We left the other one as a cloud. It's fine. I doubt we'll ever see her again." Nik says dismissively.
"In any case... Now we need to find another Vampidrow, right?"
Nik shrugs in response.
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“According to my monster manual, vampidrows are not a thing.”
Savi wills a book bigger than herself to appear. It says ’Monster ABCs by Savi T. Fairy’ on the cover, and when she opens the book, there is a badly-drawn cartoon vampire on the page captioned ‘Vv Vampire.’ To its left is the same cartoon monster dressed in a weird padded armor, with the caption ‘Uu Umpire.’
"Whatever, let's just ask him about stuff after carrying him out of here. Jek, want to whittle one of my torches down into a steak? Or can I borrow your any-tool for the duration of our prisoner's rescue? Or perhaps I should say other prisoner's rescue? I guess we'll be saving two now..."
Jek does one of these things so as to avoid breaking his oath.
The vampire is prevented from coming back to life for now.
"Call him mud for all I care. Just as long as someone else takes point." Nik complains, rubbing the spot where the enervation trap zapped him.
Rinika does a cursory search of the cells and then heads off to the rear (top leftish) chamber.
Another spherical room, this area has a flat, round platform at its center made of thick black iron. Sitting upon the platform is an immense cauldron of similar composition. Banners of black silk hang from the "bottom" of the platform, floating haphazardly in the gravity free environment. Peering into the cauldron you see a swirling maelstrom of color. You feel a warmth from the cauldron but not the contents.
"How does this cauldron heat without a fire?" This place has some completely nuts physical laws...
"A wizard did it." Nik suggests.
"Anyone want to try a sip of weird potion that we found on a plane that wants nothing more than to rip us apart? Hmmm, I wonder if it would turn you undead..." Nik adds, suddenly actually considering taking a sip.
"Mystery fluid... Tenebrous's mystery fluid... hidden base... Tenebrous's hidden mystery fluid room... "
Jek blinks a few times.
"I've spent too much time here..."
He walks out and waits for the party.
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Nik eventually decides to cast Detect Magic to observe the obviously magical cauldron and its contents.
Nik begins to see the true nature of the cauldron and its contents.
As you discern the aura you begin to hear, softly at first, moaning, whining, and screaming coming from the cauldron. Faces stretch out of the colors, beseeching you with imploring looks.
"By The Dawnflower!" Nik shouts, panicked.
He quickly leaves through the exit Jek took; floating out of the room with the (apparently terrifying) cauldron as fast as he can.
Nik cowers behind the Bariaur, panting for breath.
After catching his breath (a feat which takes him entirely too long, even considering the thin air in this place), Nik hisses "Jek. The soup. The soup is PEOPLE."
Savi knows exactly why Nik is fleeing in terror. But before she can warn Lunk of the impending explosion that spells certain doom for all, Nik heroically takes the death trap with him.
So Savi refrains from things like screaming and arm-waving and zigzag flight patterns.
In her display of feigned calm, she overhears the words ‘people’ and ‘soup.’
“That… that isn’t right. No matter how you look at it.” She flies over to Nik. Not sure how to calm him, she changes the glow of her flesh to teal. Teal is a calm color. “Is there anything we can do about this soup?
“Besides not drink it, I mean.”
Savi’s pretty sure that the ‘weird potion’ question did not apply to the cauldron, but in any case, Savi will recommend Lunk steer clear of beverages made from unknown ingredients.
"Uh... should we knock it over?"
Helios realises having no gravity might cause his idea to appear somewhat dumb, but anyways... the whole place looks dumb.
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Jek places a large consoling hand on Nik's back.
"It's ok Nik. I'm here. Just remember, people are just as afraid of you as you are of them."
Savi extends her hand to the crossbow like a .
Aw, gimme a break…
The heavy crossbow weighs 8 pounds—a.k.a. 80 times Savi’s weight—but with Ant Haul still active for the next few hours, she can easily move the crossbow by pushing it along.
So she does. She leaves the room with the cauldron with Nik’s crossbow.
She pushes the crossbow all the way to Nik. “You dropped this. Well… technically you didn’t, since everything floats here.”
Rinika goes over and stares into the soup. "What do you think souls taste like?" she asks with curiosity.
She looks slyly at her friends, then turns around with her back to the cauldron and whistles innocently.
Then, with strained concentration, she shoves her dead spot into the tip of her tail and she dips it in the soup.
Rinika goes over and stares into the soup. "What do you think souls taste like?" she asks with curiosity.
Lunk plays a tune on his ocarina. A rubber chicken appears in his left hand. He points at it with his right index, his facial expression adding silent emphasis: huhh?? Huhhhh?????
But when Rinika dips her tail into the soup, Lunk’s brows jump like a Super Marco Brother. He casually floats back. His movement is slow and subtle until his released rubber chicken floats into a wall, emitting a SKEE-KOO before it pops into nothingness.
"Uh, right. Thanks, Savi." Nik replies, accepting his crossbow back.
Turning back to Jek he says "Anyway- the soup is people, Jek. It's soul soup! Soup made of souls! Daemons eat souls, I think. Think Glyphimhor eats souls?" Nik asks, getting distracted from uncomfortable facts by uncomfortable possibilities.
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Conor glares at the cauldron at Niks antics and revelations but then looks back confused.
"Aren't you a necromancer, why is this bugging you so much?"
Shrugging he looks around at the group, "Anyone have any ideas how to ... free the souls? My training didn't cover this and my God hasn't talked to me in years."
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Daemons