Orphans & Organizations: session 4

Hate the Flayer

Vivi helped the two goons hold the door shut but got pushed back. Gwen holds the door while Zephyr locks the it. "It was big and grey and frightening. It took out Raj." This sounds familiar to Vivi and I - it sounds like a big, amorphous cubic blob - a grey ooze. We brace the door and prepare for the ooze to slime its way through the door. The ooze breaks through the door and we fire a volley of prepared attacks with underwhelming damage.

After a short battle, Zephyr lands a killing sneak attack on the ooze, which loses its shape and dissolves. After the ooze is gone, the dwarf - who had embiggened himself to giant size - turns and attacked Gwen. The bald human - Krentz - makes a run for it but Vivi stops him. The duergar has 7 gold 5 silver and a war pick. Krentz goes to burn his palm tattoo off but we burn it off with a heated war pick instead. I also gave Krentz a note instructing a Zhent safehouse to get him out of the city.

Krentz tells us that Floon is through the door and down the hall, guarded by a wizard, "the boss' boss' boss" and a walking brain. It was the wizard's idea to get Floon, thinking that he was Renaer but discovering that he wasn't Renaer was the second strike against him. Krentz told us that they use the phrase all eyes are watching as a passphrase. We all dress in black and purple robes as a basic disguise.

Zephyr wasn't able to pick the door's lock but was able to take the hinges off the door.

We follow the hallway into a room with a raised dais containing three figures. One on a rack, one with green-grey skin and moving stuff on his face.

The plan is to make it look like we're Xanathar's Guild members bringing Renaer in as a prisoner so that we can get close enough to the wizard to launch an attack. Renaer has loose ropes around his wrists making it look like he's bound.

The wizard is an orc - Grum'shar - and the mind flayer is Lord Nighilor. The figure on the table is a redhead. The brain creature is four-legged, with a probing probiscus. We "present" Renaer to the mind flayer for inspection. I managed to turn the wizard against the mind flayer by using Awakened Mind to suggest that the mind flayer was going to kill the wizard now. During the fight, Grum'shar threatened Floon and Renaer looses his "bonds" to engage the wizard. Zephyr chases after him and "grabs ahold of him".

Grum'shar uses Flaming Hands to down Gwen and hits both Renaer and Vivi as well. Renaer lands a killing blow on Grum'shar.

Lord Nighilor offers us employment in exchange for taking care of one of their "lesser problems" or that he can take us over.

We violently declined the offer and Lord Nighilor steps through a dimension door after telling the brain creature that it can choose one of us and calling forth another Gazer. The brain downs Gwen again and tries to break into Zephyr's mind. I remind Renaer to actually join the fray, and he finishes off the brain. I blast the main eye of the Gazer, killing it.

Vivi searches Grum'shar's body and finds a book, 10 gold and 10 copper.

• Burning Hands
• Disguise Self
• False Life
• Shield
• Unseen Servant
• Witch Bolt

There is a chest with 18 gold, 82 silver, 182 copper and a silver dagger with For Rosco and Friends inscribed on its hilt.

The room next to the chamber we fought in has a small hole in a pillar in the center of the room. I take a rubbing of the runic inscription around the hole.

We make it out of the sewer via a different entrance than the one we entered: across the street from The Fallen Stars Fish in the North Ward and it's sometime in the night. Renaer suggests taking Floon to The Hospice of St. Laupsin when we wanted to avoid going back to the Yawning Portal or Vivi's family's place. We enter and bring him to a room. Renaer sends a note - in the form of a paper bird - out the nearest window.

Volo doesn't have the liquid funds to pay us right now but is offering the deed to a tavern in the North Ward. He got it as part of research for an upcoming guidebook on spirits. The tavern may or may not be haunted. The tavern is named Trollskull Manor.

We took the deed and will take the gold as Volo can pay it.