Rescues & Rituals
The party rushed back to Gregory to defend him from the pair of Void Champions who unexpectedly shot him in the back. Ellenforma was angry that the people who managed to save her from the depths were being threatened, and she called on her connection to the ruins to rally forces to the party's aid. As they tried to get back in position, Gregory tried to ask them why they were doing this, and they only told him to investigate something called "Forced Fruition" in the afterlife. Before they could finish Gregory off, Treecka leapt into the fray and the battle began. The Void Champions had formidable defenses and enough offense to destroy Treecka in a single round, but Ayala managed to land a powerful Reveal Weakness on the less agile of the two, and the party worked together to focus that one down.
Chort and Diplo took the center stage at dealing damage since their attacks were not deflected by the Null defenses, and Mikolash saved Chort several times from serious danger and critical blows with well-timed barriers. Meanwhile, Ayala released a flood of critical strikes to keep the pressure up. The less agile Void Champion repeatedly drew dangerous bombs and poisonous gases from her pack that disrupted the fight, but the party kept her surrounded so she was unable to escape as her reserves dwindled. Partway through the fight, a squad of fungus golems emerged from the ruins and rushed to join the fray. Their own attacks were largely ineffective, but they helped box in the Void Champions' movement and keep them overwhelmed - before the golems all blew up in a particularly deadly firebomb. With a final barrage of hits delivered through a haze of insanity mist, the party managed to knock out the Void Champion they had been focusing on, and a chorus of angry ooks from the distance indicated more help was coming.
When his partner fell, the other Void Champion immediately beat a hasty retreat, and the party's resources were too depleted to give meaningful pursuit. He exited stage left, pursued by monkeys, and the party turned their attention to the Void Champion they had defeated. Mikolash quickly tended her wounds to prevent her from dying, but before the party could interrogate her, Diplo assassinated the unconscious prisoner. The party was upset, and came closer to properly killing Diplo than they had in some time, but Ellenforma helped defuse the tension by announcing that she expected that she could try to get some answers from the Void Champion's corpse by channeling the magic of the ruins. The party decided that it was worth trying. Before they went back to the ruins, they finished searching the body and found a note:
"G has entered the Ruins with intruders. He will learn too much and must be disposed of. Ensure the intruders do not escape and E continues her work. - M"
The party discussed the note, and Ellenforma was annoyed that someone else was apparently trying to control her. Gregory was also upset that members of the Nullwardens were trying to attack him, though he thought that these two were probably some sort of extremist splinter group that was working against the core tenets of the Nullwardens. Still pondering, the party went back into the ruins once more.
Ellenforma began working on the ritual while Mikolash and Ayala observed and the rest of the party killed time. During the ritual, Ellenforma almost lost control of the magic, but Mikolash and Ayala worked together and successfully kept it going. When the ritual finished, Ellenforma told the party that they could ask two yes or no questions of the partially returned corpse and it would answer truthfully. The party discussed what questions they should ask and learned more about the Nullwarden leadership structure from Gregory. He explained that the Nullwardens were led by the Nullwarden Council, which consisted of five elite Nullwardens. The members of the council were chosen by previous members of the council whenever a replacement was necessary. The council usually announced its decisions unanimously, concealing any internal disagreements and limiting Gregory's ability to meaningfully describe the council members. There were two council members of particular interest: Marevil, whose name began with an M, and Jeb, who was the newest council member and who was interested in differentiating harmful magic from relatively benign magic. Jeb's approach contrasted with the more common Nullwarden opinion that all magic was dangerous. In the end, the party decided to ask the following questions:
- "Are you acting upon the will of the majority of the Nullwarden Council?". The corpse responded "NO."
- "Are you acting under the orders of a member of the Nullwarden Council?". The corpse responded "YES."
- "Are your orders coming from Marevil?". The corpse responded "NO."
Armed with that information, the party went to sleep for the night, with Ellenforma sleeping near them in the cave tunnel so she could use the magic of the ruins to recover from the strain of the ritual. In the morning, Ellenforma told the party that she was not going to travel with them for the rest of their adventures, much to Mikolash's dismay. She was getting too old, and wanted to explore the wilderness like she did when she was a kid. However, she would grant them one last boon using the power of the ruins. The party sat down for one more ritual, and Ellenforma channeled the magic of the ruins into each of them, transforming an item belonging to each person into a Legacy Item with magical power. After the ritual, the party contemplated their next move.
Join us this week to figure out what the heck to do next!
Stupid Awards
Charlie:- It Hurt Someone Else In Its Confusion
- Anti-Anti-Magic
- Hocus-Focus
- Sacrificial Fox II
- Camilla Ex Machina
- Bubble Boy
- Focus Pocus
- Soap Is Not Rope II
- The Barrier Method