Privateers of Lssthp II [IC]

[zylodrizzt]

Nibum rides past the modron politely and carefully and as politely as possible. Triceratool carefully picks its way toward the mindflayer with as much speed as possible. With all the moving parts nibum just manages to score a hit. He hits a button on triceratool and he spits out a small device that will activate if the mindflayer moves from that spot.

[TriciaOso]

As you approach the distorted mind flayer, you can see that he is just concluding a spell of some kind directed up through the gears. As Triceratool bears down on him, he turns to face you, but can't stop the glancing blow that plants the little proximity mine on his polygonal armor.

His tentacles writhe in a strange way; angular, blocky and jerky, as if the organic rubberiness of his tentacles is at odd with the progressive pixellation overtaking him. It makes them hard to dodge, and one wraps around your throat and squeezes, lifting you from the back of Triceratool. You feel a crushing weight of information rush through your mind as it makes physical contact, but you're able to process it all without being incapacitated.

Spoiler: OOC

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You gain advantage on Religion checks for 24 hours.

Up on the armature, the spell hits the algorith dwarf. Red lights blink and flash on his torso, and the cables and hoses attaching the brain-in-a-jar to the construct begin to pop free. The construct turns and attacks the nonaton modron with his radical axe; the modron, screaming, undergoes the painful process of being rooted. The nonaton splits apart into three tridone modrons. One of the tridrones is instantly destroyed by the axe.



The other two jab wildly at the algorith dwarf. Only one of the spear attacks manages to go home, causing the brain-in-a-jar to wobble on the construct's shoulders; it bobbles, but does not fall off. You feel a wave of willpower emanate from the brain, and the construct slumps over. The hoses and cables begin to snake up and re-attach, but it is slower to restore them than to detach, and looks as if the dwarf is out of the fight for now.

Cauda rears up, her hood expanding and glowing with the constellation of the Archer. She fires two bolts of light down at the mind flayer; one that glances off his armor and one that hits, burning his flesh and wreathing him in a glowing light.

Spoiler: Summary

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The polygonal mind flayer makes three tentacle attacks against Nibum; one hits. Nibum is grappled (Escape DC 17) and makes an Intelligence saving throw against being incapacitated by Information Overflow. He makes the save and is not incapacitate, instead gaining advantage on Religion checks for 24 hours.

The mind flayers lifts Nibum off Triceratool's back in a successful contested Athletics check, untrained on both sides.

Before he was spotted, the mind flayer cast a spell on the Algorith dwarf. It takes effect on the dwarf's turn, causing the brain of the dwarf to lose control of the construct and be in danger of falling off. The construct body attacks the nonaton modron three times, hitting once. The nonaton fails a constitution check and is rooted, splitting into three tridrones. The tridrones attack the dwarf ineffectually, making only one hit. The Brain makes the dex save to stay aboard the construct.

At the end of its turn, the brain attempts to regain control of the construct. The construct fails a save to resist. The construct is incapacitated for one turn as the brain re-establishes control.

Cauda uses her Wild Shape to take on Starry Form: Archer. Her bonus action attack misses, but her Guiding Bolt against the mind flayer hits. The next attack on him has advantage.

DAMAGE:
Nibum - 19 dmg (grappled)

Mind Flayer - 44 dmg
Algorith Dwarf - 5 dmg (incapacitated)

INITIATIVE:
22 - Fork
20 - Nibum
19 - Algorith Dwarves / Tridrones
15 - Cauda
8 - Servius
3 - Ttharg

[J-H]

Servius Calventius Pamphilius Yuan-ti Evoker AC: 17, 18 if within 5 miles of White Cliff HP: 42/50 PPer: 11 PInv: 19 PIst: 11 Conditions: -- Concentrating: --

Servius casts a spell, calling down to the illithid. "There's better food up here. You should come closer so you can enjoy it."

Spoiler

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Suggestion (racial) so Wis DC is only 12.
Illithid (1d20)[16] + ??
Hoping it'll put Nibum down and try to come over...doubt it has 40' move speed!
edit blah, no effect

[The Commander]

Ttharg Krixkrux

Ttharg looks down at the strange mind flayer grappling with Nibum and begins to summon one of Bahamut's flails. It appears and moves to attack the creature. After it strikes, Ttharg attempts to call Bahamut's bell inside the flayer's head.

Spoiler

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Move up to the edge of our current gear.
Bonus Action to cast Spiritual Weapon (2nd Level) and direct it to attack the Mind Flayer: (1d20+7)[21] for (1d8+3)[9] Force Damage.
Main Action to cast Toll the Dead (Cantrip) at the Mind Flayer. Wisdom save from the Flayer DC 15: (1d20)[13]+mods for (2d8)[6] Necrotic OR (2d12)[18] if it is missing any HP. Save negates all damage.

[zylodrizzt]

Still reeling from the overload nibum attempts to fight back but is too distracted to do anything. Minicliff detaches flying at the mindflayers face distracting from the main body if triceratool ramming hard into its side causing nibum to be dropped from its grasp. Nibum quickly scrambles onto triceratools back and they both move back into melee with the creature.

[Dirty]

Rumble glided down, wings outstretched but not flapping. Ready to attack and claw the creature as Fork kept on raining bolts down.

Spoiler: Actions

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1st attack: 16 to hit; for 22 damage
2nd attack: 22 to hit for 10 damage
Bonus attack: rumble attacks 9 to hit (miss)

[TriciaOso]

The mindflayer staggers away from Triceratool, allowing the momentum of the push to carry him beneath the revolving gear and out of line of sight from above. It allows Rumble to claw at him, but it shelters him from the possibility of a counterspell. Struggling to let go of his fixation on consuming Nibum's brain, he embraces Servius's suggestion.

"Yes," it hisses. "I will come up there." He vanishes from before Nibum and Rumble's eyes and reappears up on the armature.

With a shriek, he unleashes his mutated Mind Blast on the group. All of you feel your mind flooded with information, overwhelming you; Cauda and Servius crumple, incapacitated by the blast, but Ttharg and Fork weather it intact, although their minds are flooded with a barrage of data. Both tridrones are vaporized by the blast, and the dwarf construct's error lights begin to flash erratically once more. It staggers towards the mind flayer, but as it tries to raise its axe, it flails helplessly and babbles intensely in dwarvish. The Mindflayer reaches out and smashes through the glass jar, ripping out the dwarf brain and shoving it into his maw.

Cauda's high, dazed voice pipes out as she recalls an ancient poem about the White Hunter:

I ha' seen them 'mid the clouds on the heather. And the white wind breaks the morn. ''Tis the white stag, Fame, we're a-hunting, Bid the world's hounds come to horn!

Her voice is trembling; blood trickles from an ear hole. She fires another bolt of light at the mindflayer from her bow nonetheless, and it sizzles home. The mind flayer looks very much the worse for wear, but as he finishes gobbling down the dwarf's brain, you can see the fresh cerebral tissue healing his wounds. It snarls and fires three darts of Magic Missile at Cauda, and she collapses to the ground.

Spoiler: Summary

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Mindflayer uses a bonus action to Misty Step up to the armature and uses his altered Mind Blast. Fork gains advantage on Arcana checks for 24 hours. Ttharg gains advantage on History checks for 24 hours. Servius gains advantage on History checks for 24 hours. Cauda gains advantage on Religion checks for 24 hours.

Fork and Ttharg make the save and take 13 damage, and can act normally. Servius, Cauda and the dwarf fail the save; they take 26 damage, and can only use their action to make Intelligence checks in their highlighted skills. They can move or take bonus actions normally.

The Algorith dwarf moves to attack, but is forced to use its action to make a Religion check. The mindflayer uses two legendary actions to Extract Brain on the Algorith Dwarf and devours its brain.

Cauda uses her action to make a Religion check, then uses her bonus action to fire her Archer attack, doing 8 damage.

The mindflayer uses his last legendary action to cast a magic missile at Cauda.

DAMAGE:
Nibum - 19 dmg
Servius - 26 dmg
Ttharg - 13 dmg
Fork - 13 dmg

Cauda - 26 dmg

Mindflayer - 97 dmg + ??? healing

INITIATIVE:
22 - Fork
20 - Nibum
19 - Mindflayer
15 - Cauda
8 - Servius
3 - Ttharg

[zylodrizzt]

Nibum quickly clocks the squid head spurring triceratool to give chase. He tosses a contraption that appears to be a form of robotic arm with a shield over to cauda for protection. He discounts triceratool to get into melee with the mindflayer and slashes and stabs furiously trying to take the creature down before it can kill anymore while pteradactool fires a nail at the squid.

[J-H]

Servius Calventius Pamphilius Yuan-ti Evoker AC: 17, 18 if within 5 miles of White Cliff HP: 16/50 PPer: 11 PInv: 19 PIst: 11 Conditions: -- Concentrating: --

Servius manages to disrupt the illithid's Magic Missile spell, but that's all he does. "Counterspell is a name given to a family of spells, which all share the common function of disrupting the arcane flow of energies, and thus dissipating a nascent spell. It requires line of sight, but not identifying the specific spell being cast. It is said that, at some point in the past, the predominant technique was to counter-cast the exact spell being disrupted, but in an opposite direction. However, thanks to our draconic patrons, a more generalized version of the technique has been developed into the 'counter-spell', which functions well against almost any type of magic, although not psionics."

[The Commander]

Ttharg Krixkrux

Ttharg was no stranger to headaches, and although the mind flayer's data assault on his brain was painful, he was able to weather it very well. Bahamut's flail was very far from his foe, so instead Ttharg attempted to shatter the space it occupied, but tried to avoid hitting the gears of this place. He moved his Spiritual Weapon closer anyway, and took up a position in front of Servius and the group, making sure his Shield was out and ready.

Spoiler

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Main Action Cast Shatter (2nd Level) at the Mind Flayer, but attempt to do it at a point in space that doesn't damage the local area at all. Con Save DC 15 for Half: (1d20)[10]+Con for (3d8)[13] Thunder damage.
Bonus Action to move Spiritual Weapon 20ft towards the Flayer.
Free Action Draw Shield.

[Dirty]

Almost as soon as the mindflayer appeared, Fork knew where it was. The mystical connection with his prey clueing him in. He managed to get a bolt off just before the wave hit him.

Fork shrugged it off, or so he thought, but as the second bolt clicked into place it fired out of the crossbow wildy off target. This had to do with the fact that Fork was now mumbling incoherent nonsense and drawing air symbols with the tip of one of his bolts, desperately trying to get the extra information out of his mind.

At that exact time though, Rumble slammed into the mindflayer with abandon.

A winged demonic creature with icy claws and razor-sharp teeth. A chaotic force of nature, the world's fiercest guard dog set upon the flayer with a wrath so great it was almost frightening to behold. Clawing and ripping and tearing at the fleshy bits. Scratching and pummelling and pulling at the metal bits.

Spoiler: Actions

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1st attack: 25 to hit, 23 damage
2nd attack: Critical failure

Rumble: critical hit: 15 cold damage

[TriciaOso]

Studded with arrows like a porcupine and ruptured by Ttharg's spell, the mind flayer dribbles ink from his mouth as he tries to stagger forward, driven by his hunger.

At the same time, Triceratool desperately scrambles up the gears to reach the armature. When he gets to the last wall, he can't scramble up, and Nibum has to leap up to the metal platform to slash at the mind flayer.

But the last blow comes from a humble source, as Pteradactool swoops up after Nibum and fires a single nail into the squid's forehead. The mindflayer drops.

Triceratool completes his scramble up onto the armature as Cauda casts a healing spell on Servius. "You saved my life with that counterspell," she says. She also does some healing for Nibum, and puts her remaining spell energy into Synthesis to charge the weapon. I'm afraid that's all the spells I'm good for today," she says ruefully. She also looks about to drop, badly battered by the mind flayer's psionic blast.

Spoiler: OOC

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The hyperfixation stun on Servius and Cauda wears off on their next turns. Based on the earlier Arcana rolls, it will take three rounds for Servius to finish fixing the device, or two rounds if Nibum works with him.

Cauda will also use her once-per-day Suggestion spell to give Nibum two charges for Synthesis. She is completely out of resources (wild shapes, spells) and has 7 hp.

DAMAGE:
Nibum - 11 dmg
Servius - 16 dmg
Ttharg - 13 dmg
Fork - 13 dmg

Cauda - 26 dmg

[zylodrizzt]

Thank you cauda. You should rest now. When we get back you should probabky stay in the tender. Nibum stretches with a loud popping and a groan of an old man trying to stand up from sitting for a long time (second wind). He then goes and examines the equipment and bodies or what could be considered bodies of the deceased.

[J-H]

Servius Calventius Pamphilius Yuan-ti Evoker AC: 17, 18 if within 5 miles of White Cliff HP: 34/50 PPer: 11 PInv: 19 PIst: 11 Conditions: -- Concentrating: --

"Thank you, Cauda. Defeating such creatures is a team effort." He looks around. "Although I had hope to speak further to the modrons. Magic follows laws, so they must have some insight." He joins the others in assessing what may be salvaged before repairing the device.

[The Commander]

Ttharg Krixkrux

Ttharg keeps watch whilst the others work, but asks: "Do we rest here, or back on our native plane? Do we even want to take a rest, or I can patch ye all up now?"

[Dirty]

Fork also keeps an eye out, not at all at ease in this environment. "I don't mind getting out of here." He said with a wary look on his face, half expecting more mind flayers to pop out of the gears here.

[zylodrizzt]

Tho clearly facinated with things here nibum saysIts probably best if we go back. They dont want this rift here it seems he pulls out his anytool to help him fix the rift. If no one else tries to use the armor nibum does and if no one grabs the axes he puts them in the bag of holding I think tegu may like one of these. he says. Before leaving he does check the fish to see how it reacts to being here.

[TriciaOso]

The fish seems to jump out of your hand, drawn magnetically towards some of the finer-toothed gears. As it meshes back into place it leaps away down an escapement, restored to life now that it is back in its ecosystem.

Triceratool turns its head to the sky, and says:

...

and then

01001001
00100000
01110011
01100101
01100101

and then

I see a flying craft headed this way.
It may be the dwarven reinforcements the nonaton was waiting for.

It looks up at Nibum as if awaiting orders.

[zylodrizzt]

Nibum shrugs his shoulder at dropping the fish. He had thought to study it more and meant to return it anyways. Doubting the arrivals will make anything easier for them considering the circumstances nibum wastes no time stabalizing the cargo from this side. With tool in hand he works furiously but delicately as he canI hate to leave them like this but i doubt this will be friwndly encounter he says huffing in exertion. Triceratool they seem to think you are a native here. If we dont finish with the stabalizing in time perhaps just tell them what happened. Delay them at the least.... if you want to stay...uh... you can... i can make a copy of you... (he says holding back emotion). If you dont then as soon as i say its finished then hurry back as soon as you can. nibum really didn't want to leave any of his companions especially triceratool. They'd been together longest of anyone.

[TriciaOso]

Triceratool says:

I don't want to leave you.

It is hard to read anything beyond bare facts in the immediacy of Axiomatic language, and Triceratool does not have a face to look at, but it shifts its bulk to bump against Nibum with these words.

It only takes a little while to repair the device, and with the rift closed you find yourselves back in the Bridge Cove of Malatra.

Cauda looks around. "If we want to rest before moving forward, this little island seems nice enough," she says. "And then... I think I would be less of a liability if I went and used the tender to retrieve those bodies trapped under the bridge wreckage. I'm sure the Majari would want them back."

About 100 feet to the south, another crate sits in a cloud of steam, as the planar energies around it heat the water.

[J-H]

Servius
Servius coils his body lower to the ground. "We're not in a rush. Let's take some time to prepare before the next one."

Spoiler: Short rest

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Hit dice (2d8+4)[13]

[TriciaOso]

You are able to take about an hour of rest. By now, the sun has fully vanished into the distance of the human world, and the cold has settled in; Cauda builds a fire on the little island.

You are well into the hour of rest when Cauda pauses and looks up as if someone has spoken. She holds up her hand and whispers "Sending spell." She begins to speak to the air, counting on her fingers.

Understood, Kabett. Well, not really, but you know what I mean. We'll be back as soon as we can. I hope everyone is all--

"--right." She frowns. "Oh dear, is 'all right' one word or two?"

[J-H]

Servius Calventius Pamphilius Yuan-ti Evoker AC: 17, 18 if within 5 miles of White Cliff HP: 47/50 PPer: 11 PInv: 19 PIst: 11 Conditions: -- Concentrating: --

"Cauda? What's wrong?"

[TriciaOso]

"I'm not sure. Kabett only had twenty-five words... he said they will meet us in the bay, not in the harbor. He said it was important that we should finish the job, but we should come back as soon as we can once it's finished."

She pauses.

"He said the Captain has been arrested."

[The Commander]

Ttharg Krixkrux

Ttharg growls deeply. "No doubt the family, or families, already allied with Trionyx seeking to weaken us before their arrival. As ye say, we should finish up here as soon as possible an' then head back."

[J-H]

Servius

Servius utters a curse in an obscure dialect of Draconic.

[zylodrizzt]

Once they return Im grateful you stayed triceratool. (Hugs)

During the short rest before the sending nibum makes the devices he has that projects the negniter crest and begins using tools to make that crest permanent on his equipment. He sets up a device that packs some mud or sand into a ball for his assistants to chase and attack as they take turns keeping an eye out.

When the sending is relayed This can wait right? We should go.

[TriciaOso]

Cauda looks torn. "Kabett said we should finish here before we returned," she says. "It's a ten hour journey."

"But if you think we should go back now... I'm worried about Bendeguz, too."

[zylodrizzt]

No... just worried about the captain. Lets finish this as soon as we can and get the captain out of jal. he says as he finishes up the etching. He gets prepared to start working on the shipment

[The Commander]

Ttharg Krixkrux

"I still have the scroll o' Commune. I could ask Bahamut about the Captain, an' who may have arrested her. Maybe if we're suspicious about one family, I can ask if they took her. I can also make sure she won't be executed before we finish here. What do ye think lads? I don't know how long it'll take to stabilize these devices, or how to do it; so I'll just be keepin' watch as usual."