Picking things up in the aftermath of the big fight, Lirael Silverhand let Jarlaxle and his three drow go, knowing they’d just escape anyway, and then left the rest of us to guard the other prisoners (at this point just a handful of zhentarim and the traitor) while she went off to speak to the dragon. We attempted to interrogate them, but the only thing of significance we learned was when Lirael came back and discovered that the traitor’s brain had been replaced by an intellect devourer. She drew it from his body, taking it for further interrogation as the city watch arrived, but leaving his brain-less body collapsed on the ground in the process. An attempt was made to revive him later, but it failed.
We left the prisoners to the watch and returned to the Goblin’s Mug, Parvus lugging along the traitor’s fancy battleaxe, which, as it turned out, was sentient. It also turned out to have a profoundly lawful sentience, which came into direct conflict with the other sentient item he was attuned to, the aboleth stone. Long story short, he ended up returning the axe to the Blackstaff because it refused to work with him for collaborating with the aboleth, and throwing the stone into the sea because the aboleth possessed him to do so after he seriously considered destroying it to appease the axe. So now he has no sentient items at all.
Meanwhile, while this was happening, Droop asked me if I could compost things. I said I could give it a shot, so he dumped a bunch of rubbish in my outdoors area. My experiments resulted in a sprouting of mushrooms, which I spent the next four days cultivating, so now the entire outside area of the Goblin’s Mug is a mushroom, fungus and mould-covered paradise. It also resulted in Mercenary having to explain to me the concept of money, after she suggested I could sell some of the more useful of the mushrooms, such as the poisonous ones.
At the same time, Mercenary learned from the Blackstaff that the intellect devourer was a product of the illithid the party ran into way back, and was instructed to ensure it stopped creating creatures that were destroying and replacing the brains of important Waterdhavians. Merc was told of a former Xanathar’s Guild member who could lead us to the Guild’s headquarters, eventually found him, and got the information we needed. Thusly informed and ready for action, we headed for the sewers.
We found the entrance exactly where we expected it to be, without any issue whatsoever. Heading down a winding stair, we emerged into a large chamber. Parvus spotted a weird, ethereal eyestalk guarding one door, a second door (behind which were five beholders or beholder-like creatures – when we opened it, we did so stealthily enough that they did notice us, assuming they were real creatures and not illusions or anything like that, so we quickly noped back out of there again), and a third, secret, door. We settled on the secret door.
Through it, we found a corridor full of statues (read: petrified former non-statue humanoids) and a strange, jester costume-wearing gnome. He offered us guidance in exchange for correctly answering a riddle, and started cartwheeling away, showing us each room and explaining what it was. Luckily, we had arrived on a day when everyone was in ‘the arena’, to watch ‘the spectacle’, so, aside from the gnome, the place was empty.
Empty, but for a circle of scrying dwarves that acted as Xanathar’s security system, and another dwarf in another room, an engineer being watched by a gazer. He subtly asked for our help, so Mercenary and Parvus killed the Gazer. Explaining that he was more or less a prisoner, the engineer told us of a way to raze the entire underground complex, by blowing it up with black powder. He explained that the drow wizard we encountered in the big fight wanted out, was probably working for another faction, and had a massive stash of black powder hidden in his office. We agreed to the plan, so he became our new guide. The gnome kept following us for a while, however, since he was completely nuts.
Our first task was to disable the scrying dwarves’ communication to Xanathar, so they wouldn’t raise a warning. They were just sending an intruder alert as we returned to them, but Airina blasted their communication device, a large bell, to pieces. Hopefully it happened in time. The dwarves themselves were completely docile, so we didn’t worry about killing them.
The engineer led us to the drow’s office, explaining the plan and the various places we would need to place the powder along the way. We did encounter one other room full of bad guys, but he warned us about them in advance, so we managed to surprise them. I kicked things off with a tidal wave, killing all but four in a single, massive hit. The others killed two more, before the final two surrendered. We tied them up and knocked them out, then continued on our way.
The drow’s office was near the illithid’s workplace, and since the engineer explained that the illithid itself was creating the intellect devourers, we decided we needed to deal with it directly, on top of blowing the place up. Since we could only set off the explosions one at a time, we went to take care of the illithid first, as the first explosion would alert everyone in the arena that something was going on and we figured that would make our job that much harder. We reached a corner around which we knew there were fish people guarding the illithid, but Parvus rolled poorly on his Stealth check when he tried to take a peek, and they spotted him. All chance of stealthing gone, we prepared for combat.
That’s where we ended. We decided to stop the session before the fight, since they sometimes can drag on, and it was already almost getting late.
All in all, it was a solid session to come back to. Combat-lite, mostly because of my tidal wave, but considering last session ended with a fight and next session will start with one, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Beginning to build my fungus garden was a personal highlight, as was my subsequent visit to the alchemist next door where I learned what a greenhouse was (I had quite the reaction to being outside and yet inside at the same time, let me tell you). Moist is still incredibly fun to play, and I can’t wait for next week, where, if things go according to plan, we will destroy Xanathar’s lair in a violent and catastrophic series of awesome explosions.
If things go according to plan.