Vesperscale grits her teeth and crawls towards the nearest crystal which she tries to break.
Tenpot once again ignores the shadow near him, moving back toward the crystal in the back of the room as he reloads, then fires.
Pistol: unloaded
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Tenpots fires into the crystal, but the bullet seems to just barely scratch the surface. Meanwhile Toadclobber finishes cutting Vesperscale free and applying goblin CPR to get her breathing once more. Noone knows what goblin CPR is but is probably involves something oily, crayons, and fire.
Aegis chips away at once of the crystals as Vesperscale completely shatters the one closest to her. As the crystal breaks the red shadow shrieks and blows away into small tattered wisps as it too is destroyed.
The remaining shadow continues to claw at Aegis and the still confident Mother Mitera looks down at Toadclobber. "It will all be over soon."
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
➤ Vesperscale
➤ Aegis
Shadow (Green 2)
Mother Mitera
➤ Tenpot
➤ Toadclobber
Crystal 1 (Top Left)
Crystal 2 (Top Right)
Crystal 3 (Lower Left)
Toad moves to Aegis and heals him.
Vesperscale stands and hits themselves with a haste spell.
Not having any better options, Tenpot reloads, fires again, and then reloads again.
Pistol: loaded
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Tenpots creates a weak point in the crystal as his bullet slowly chips away at the harder exterior.
Toad continues is assessments offering goblin medicine to make your injures numb again. This consists of squishing beetle juices onto Aegis' mouth.
Vesperscale grows faster to try and help take care of these crystals as quickly as possible. Aegis manages to destroy a second crystal leaving only once more left to destroy. With the crystals destruction so too is the shadow as it melts back into the ground.
Mother Mitera feezes Aegis hand as it continues to toss stones.
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
➤ Vesperscale
➤ Aegis
Mother Mitera
➤ Tenpot
➤ Toadclobber
Crystal 3 (Lower Left)
Vesperscale picks up their sword and uses warp step to once again shorten the distance as she heads around the entangle.
Once in position she uses haste to try and break the crystal.
Tenpot aims for the same spot as he fires, reloads, and fires again.
Pistol: unloaded
Toad picks up his tome, uses his healers gloves to heal himself, and moves alongside Mother.
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Toadclobber heals himself as the rest of the group assaults the remaining crystal, A large cracks goes down the center of it as the crystal nearly breaks.
Stepping around her dais, Mother Mitera holds an outstretched hand. "That will be enough of that." The sky darkens as a lightning bolt from above leaps down into her hand and flings across the air into Toad and Aegis.
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
➤ Vesperscale
➤ Aegis
Mother Mitera
➤ Tenpot
➤ Toadclobber
Crystal 3 (Lower Left)
I'll heal your brain!
[spoielr=When vesper is <= 30']Toad drops his toadslicer and pulls out a scroll.
Vesperscale once again warps the ground, while taking advantage of haste to close the distance.
Once there Vesperscale takes a defensive strike to get her shield up!
"Finally!" Tenpots, tired of his shots ricocheting mostly harmlessly off the hard crystal, takes a moment to examine Mother Mitera as he reloads his weapon.
Feeling like he has a sense of how to attack her, he takes aim and fires!
Pistol: unloaded
Your implement sings out abruptly, disrupting your foe. The piece played depends on whether the trigger was a Strike or Spell, and it applies to the triggering Strike or Spell, except where noted otherwise.
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Aegis destroys the crystal as Tenpots is unable to find a weakness to exploit in Mother Mitera. Tenpot's hits his target as she lurches back in pain, clutching her shoulder as a large amount of blood begins to seep from the wound.
Vesperscale warps the ground, closing the distance to get around the grasping vines as Toadclobber soothes her wounds. Mother Mitera tries to cast another spell to get her followers to join but is met with a shield that breaks her nose. Instead she grabs a dagger and stabs at Vesperscale.
Mother Mitera weeps as she her dagger is blocked. "You...you can't stop my ascension. I have worked too hard for this moment."
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
➤ Vesperscale
➤ Aegis
Mother Mitera
➤ Tenpot
➤ Toadclobber
Toad picks up his Toadslicer. I just wanted people to love me and tell me what to do with my life, why does everyone want me to explode?!
Toad stabs Mother with his petal-colored toadslicer!
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Aegis is weary of hippie cult good vibrations: he unleashes Bad Vibrations and sends them Mother's way.
You send powerful sound waves through an opponent's body, vibrating its bones and internal organs painfully. The creature takes 8d6 sonic damage and must attempt a Fortitude save.
Critical Success The target is unaffected.
Success The target takes half damage.
Failure The target takes full damage, is sickened 1, and is deafened for 1 round.
Critical Failure The target takes double damage, is sickened 2, and is deafened for 1 minute.
Then he raises an arcane shield.
Vesperscale uses haste to manuever into a flank with Toadclobber and brings the focus as she closes her eyes and then channels power through hew sword and strikes!
"At who's expense, huh?"
Tenpot moves forward as he reloads, taking aim just past Vesperscale as he fires again.
Pistol: unloaded
Your implement sings out abruptly, disrupting your foe. The piece played depends on whether the trigger was a Strike or Spell, and it applies to the triggering Strike or Spell, except where noted otherwise.
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"Any that it takes." She sneers until Tenpots realizes he has little other choice and puts the cult leader down witha well-aimed bullet. She collapses silently to the ground. As she does so the followers all seem to look around disoriented. "What happened? Where am I?" You hear all around you.
Vesperscale sheathes their blade and sits, checking over their wounds to make sure they aren't still bleeding out anywhere.
Uhhh. Toad reaches to show them pictures he's working of what happened but decides he better not.
In the coming days he helps everyone recover, secretly hoping someone can start a new cult that's really about happiness and belonging. What could go wrong?
"You, uh...well, I think you'd be well served to remember that things seem too good to be true usually are. In this case, I think she truly believed all the good things she was promising, they just weren't for anyone but her."
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You begin to gather the startled and confused survivors to set sail back. As you set sail back to Iblydos, you see merfolk follow the boat, eyeing the passengers with a morbid interest as if wondering how they managed to escape the grasp of the island and the one they call Mother. Wordless, they hold their position as you sail away until you are just dots on the dark horizon.
★ -- ★ -- ★ -- ★
As you are sailing a page from the book slides free from your pack.
With its particular confluence of witches and ancient spirits, Irrisen is always a region of interest when discussing curses and pacts. The matter concerning the village of Krasnoprudny in particular is just the latest in a long string of such files, but one that’s managed to catch my eye—while many villages have borne the curse of a winter witch for a slight real or imagined, something feels different about this village. Curse? Enchantment? Geas?
— K.H.W.
Your boat tips and capsizes, tossing you into the water. As the sun hits the surface it sends a rainbow of colors all down below. Unable to surface you find yourselves feeling as if you are being transported to a new location via the somnambulist bridge.
Unlike several previous adventures, the journey through the somnambulist bridge is noticeably turbulent, like a falling nightmare. The portal unceremoniously spits you out into the air about 5 feet above a snowbank by the side of a road a few hours journey from Krasnoprudny.
Toad throws his flower crown into the snow. c-c-c-cooold!
He looks around for any sign of what's going wrong NOW.
Vesperscale scrambles to their feet, trying to get a sense of what's going on now.
"Damn boat is defective!" Tenpot says, sputtering as he scrambles out of the snow.
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Toadclobber knows a thing or two concerning the main sources of curses concerning Irrisen. If there’s a curse in Irrisen, then it must have been cast with the knowledge, or more likely the participation, of Baba Yaga herself.
As Krasnoprudny lies well off the beaten track, you pick yourselves up and dust the snow off before you freeze to death. Soon you hear the bray of a donkey as a cart comes down the path your direction. An old peddler leans over. "You appear to be lost." He says in a thick accent.
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Not trusting anything, anyone, or anydonkey, Aegis lets the other talk while he examines the man's... and the donkey's auras.
Vesperscale nods "Assume we've just fallen off a boat and are completely lost. Any directions would be a kindness."
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"Hop in my wagon. You will freeze before making it anywhere safe." The old peddler holds a welcoming hand out as Aegis observes their auras.
The old peddler seems friendly enough and of good health for his age. The donkey on the other hand seems very obstinate.
"Names Maiksim and this here is Conquerer." He takes a moment to swat at the donkey as it tries to eat Aegis' trailing edge of his cloak. "Hop on and I'll give you a ride into town."
Vesperscale hops on the wagon, much more trusting than Aegis.
"Thank you Maiksim." Tenpot shivers and follows Vesperscale onto the wagon.
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Grand, gloomy pine trees cluster thickly on either side of the slender road, little red berries twinkling from the depths of the snow. From time to time, you spot the tracks of deer and rabbits, or glimpse of an arctic fox going about its business. A few nightingales sing late into the evening.
Finally, the donkey cart turns a corner, and the PCs get their first good look at Krasnoprudny. It’s a modest little village of maybe twenty houses, with sturdy walls made of cut logs and sharply pitched wooden roofs. It’s clearly not a very prosperous place, but it doesn’t look impoverished either—the houses have carved windowsills and cornices, and there are a few barns here and there. As with everything in Irrisen, the village is covered in a layer of fresh-fallen snow.
Before you can get any closer, Conqueror the Donkey decides that this is entirely too much work for one day and stops pulling the cart to nibble on some nearby shrubs (not for the first time on this trip), at which point Maiksim loses his temper and begins swearing, saying “Ah, devil take you, you lazy beast!”
Whereupon a very strange thing happens. Out of the bushes, a pair of diminutive pig-featured imps trot out and begin to abduct Conqueror in a very business-like fashion. One of the imps quickly removes Conqueror’s harness while the other contrives to heft the entire (loudly braying) donkey, despite being the size of a small child.
Toad looks in his book and remembers he's been getting really good at being scary this whole time.That's our ass! He waves a mystery crayon that says "???" on the side — the colors of chaos.
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This all seems to catch Maiksim by surprise just as much as yourselves. As Toadclobber begins yelling at them the imps drop the dronkey and look up, seemingly just now realizing you are also present. "“I’m Moldy-Cheese.” “And
I’m Mosquito-by-Ear.” The creatures introduce themselves. “It’s not your donkey!” Moldy-Cheese says. “We were offered it fair and square.” “He said devil take it,” Mosquito-by-Ear adds, pointing to Maiksim, “so we did!”
Tenpots and Toadclobber recognize these creatures as imps. Though this is very much not standard imp behavior—something or someone is nudging the imps to act this way.
Vesperscale jumps in "Payment is still required, even if he is ready for the ass to be taken, I suggest you find the price before you take delivery."
I'm Toadclobber Pust. Your names are almost as good as mine.
Huh. He tries to think about the situation, wondering if he should just threaten them or stomp on them or what.