Session 18 — Eldrich's Errand and the Mushroom Massacre

Session Recap

Still weighing the offer surfaced last session, the party debates whether Eldrich the Elder is honest or "trying to manipulate us for his own gains," and decides he "seems like a guy that's got the heart in the right place" — they take the job. Rather than the arena audition first floated, the task is now an errand into the Gwyndinas sewers: find a "mad scientist" and purchase some kind of blood-soaked experiment for Eldrich, which would make the old man "a player in the game" — and, by extension, advance the party toward killing one of Laewendas's inner circle. Before descending, the party redeems Dominus's stamped discount buckle at the wasteful alchemist west of the Colosseum, where Silithane blows ~300 gold on a confusing bandolier of experimental potions-or-poisons — bright-green poison vials warned not to be mixed with the pink ones, or they explode — while Thalia buys a minor healing potion for everyone (six) and Silithane a standard one for everyone (six) besides. With the rain making a basement entry easier than waiting for clear weather, they go in at night — Eldrich himself accompanying, and two of the Rivalonian squires from last session's arena draw — the cursed-armor knight Braille and the mithril knight Jallic — fighting alongside as part of the strike group (the blind Elgamaia and budget-iron Grisel sat this one out).

The back half is one long sewer combat. Past the big gate — where a dark-green liquid drains through a filter cube into the ocean — the frontline spots a horde of hunched, clawed mushroom men: feral fungal drones with no language and an INT of 0, sent out as the "limbs of a greater creature" to scout and seed spore pods. Thalia's Speak with Plant is useless (they're fungi, not plants), and the moment Draak rounds the corner the screeching swarm charges. What follows is a grinding, hilarious slaughter of roughly sixty-five of them: Drak the immovable "roadblock" soaking nearly every bite (each carrying a fungal-infection CON save), Magra's metronomic two-shots-one-kill, Silithane dancing all but untouched the entire fight (a single 7-damage hit all combat), Thalia's whip-drag "boom" AoEs (one Hail-of-Thorns crit for 153), Ashlyn death-gripping mushrooms across the room (and getting bitten for the first time in her undeath), and Lash propping everyone up with cookies, hammer-rerolls and a save-boosting aura. Several mushrooms get shoved into the sewer water; two wash downstream into the city as someone else's problem. The session ends mid-sewer, the mad scientist still unfound, on the 14th of Spring's End.

Key Events

• Accepting Eldrich's job: the party deliberates over whether Eldrich the Elder is trustworthy or self-serving, lands on trusting him, and agrees to his errand. The plan firms up: go into the sewers at night, in the rain ("easier to get with someone's basement than to hope for better weather"), find a mad scientist, and buy a blood-related "experiment" for the old man — a deal that would make Eldrich "a player in the game."
• The alchemist run: using Dominus's discount buckle/token (from Session 17), the party visits the capable-but-wasteful alchemist ~10 minutes west of the Colosseum. Silithane spends up to 300 gold on experimental potions/poisons — bright-green vials (poison) and pink ones — never quite sure which to drink and which to apply (the alchemist's wares blur potion and poison), and is warned the green and pink must never be mixed or they explode. Thalia buys a minor healing potion for everyone (six); Silithane adds a standard healing potion for everyone (six; he keeps Cure Wounds for himself). Draak shops the premixed potions too.
• Assembling the party: the expedition is the six PCs (Drak, Silithane, Thalia, Ashlyn, Lash, Magra) plus Eldrich the Elder himself and two allied squires — Braille (the living spiked-armor knight) and Jallic (the mithril one) — recovered as allies after Session 17's honorable arena draw. The blind Elgamaia and Grisel were not brought.
• Cookies and the gate: after a break and roll call, everyone eats Lash's cookies (pale blue with green spots, seaweed-based; now 6 temp HP, twice her proficiency bonus — up from 4/5). They form a marching order at the big sewer gate, where a dark-green liquid pours from a pipe through a filter cube into the ocean, and head in.
• Scouting the dark: the frontline (Fenric, Silithane, Ashlyn, Drak) is ~50 ft ahead of the backline. Fenric counts 8–10 hunched humanoid figures and a Nature check reads them as feral plant/fungal drones — limbs of a greater creature, scouting for spots to seed spore pods. Silithane (a 27) feels an unexplained draft from rebuilt brickwork implying a hidden passage / secret sewer entrance ~30–50 ft off; a perception sweep also finds a crushed-through natural cave off the mapped route. The intended path: straight on, take the second right. Ashlyn hears another ~10 skittering somewhere ahead.
• "That is incredibly racist": Thalia shuffles to the front to Speak with Plant — only to learn they're fungi, a wholly different species ("You're saying they're plants? That is incredibly racist." / "Those are fungi"), so diplomacy is off the table. Draak rounds the corner anyway; three mushroom men turn, vibrate their exposed brains, screech, and charge, kicking off combat.
• The grind: a long fight against a swarm that swells to ~65 mushroom men. Bites deal a little piercing plus a CON save against fungal infection / transformation ("turning into a mushroom man"). The party carves through them — Drak the "roadblock" eating most of the bites, Magra's two-shot kills, Silithane's near-untouched dance, Thalia's AoE booms, Ashlyn's blasts and death-grips, Lash's buffs, Fenric's crit streak — with the two squires (Braille, Jallic) chipping in.
• Drak's feminism: a slightly larger "mushroom woman" (10% bigger, no special abilities — "the same as a man, but bigger") is spotted watching the fight "as a learning exercise" to take back to its central fungal core. Drak fixates on it ("A woman?"), the dice make her bizarrely hard to hit, and he, Ashlyn and Magra spend turns hunting her down — Drak insisting he's "pro-feminist, equal rights."
• Crowd control by sewage: the party works out they can shove mushrooms into the sewer water to be carried off — but the GM warns each one becomes "the city's problem," and too many would overwhelm whatever guard gets summoned. Two mushroom men wash downstream into Gwyndinas before the party stops doing it. Drak also takes to picking mushroom men up and hurling them (Athletics) for fun.
• End of the swarm: the last mushroom man falls. Final tally per the GM: ~64 mushroom men and one "worman" slain, two escaped downstream. The party hasn't yet reached the mad scientist; the session ends here, 14th of Spring's End, to continue deeper into the sewers next week.

Combat & Encounters

• The Sewer Swarm (Gwyndinas sewers) — the session's single long combat. The party of six + Eldrich the Elder + two allied squires (Braille, Jallic) vs. a horde of ~65 mushroom men (and one larger mushroom "woman").
  • Mushroom men — hunched, clawed fungal drones, INT 0, ~30–40 HP and AC ~13 each, no language or real sentience; built as the limbs of a greater fungal creature/core to scout and plant spore pods. Their bite does a few points of piercing and forces a CON save (DC 10) or risk fungal infection / turning into a mushroom man (a failed-enough save would "make you a mushroom man," with the victim's allies then propping them back up). They fight to the death — "they lack the intelligence not to."
  • The mushroom "woman" — a single drone ~10% larger; the table hoped for a special ability, but she has the same stat block, just bigger, and merely watches the fight as a learning exercise for the central fungal core. Improbably hard to hit; finally shot down by Magra.
• Standouts: Draak tanked the bulk of the swarm as the "roadblock," breathed fire (to poor effect, "I'm never breathing fire again"), and threw mushroom men bodily. Magra killed with mechanical regularity (Sharpshooter, "two shots, one kill") all combat. Silithane was all but untouched the entire fight — just 7 damage all combat (AC 18 from his dance/Bladesong plus Shield). Thalia chained Entangle (restraining 5–6 at once), whip-drag "boom" detonations and a Hail of Thorns crit for 153 damage. Ashlyn cast Bane, death-gripped mushrooms 90 ft across the room, and took her first-ever bite ("oh, that's what that feels like"). Lash handed out cookies (6 temp HP), Magic-Hammer rerolls (3/long rest), help-actions with bonus d6s, and a +1-to-all-saves aura within 600 ft. Fenric scouted invisibly, landed his most crits in a session, and nearly failed a fungal-infection save himself. The squires Braille and Jallic traded blows and finishers in the background.
• Outcome: total massacre — ~64 mushroom men and one "worman" killed, two escaped downstream into the city. No party casualties (Silithane near-untouched at 7 damage; Drak repeatedly bitten but never infected). The mad scientist remains unfound.

NPCs & Factions

• Eldrich the Elder — the elderly inner-city patron's job is taken at last, and it is not an arena audition but a sewer errand: retrieve/purchase a blood "experiment" from a hidden mad scientist, which would make Eldrich "a player in the game" (and move the party toward killing one of Laewendas's inner circle). He accompanies the expedition into the sewers (Silithane buffs him; "elder to elder" coordination throughout).
• Braille and Jallic — two of the four Rivalonian Knight squires from Session 17, now allies of the party after the honorable arena draw, fighting alongside in the sewer strike group: Braille the living spiked/cursed-armor knight (with a parry reaction; in-table also rendered "Brael"/"Frey") and Jallic the mithril melee knight (rendered "Jallek"/"Jalec"/"Jallik"/"Jellic"). The blind Elgamaia ("the spinny blind girl") and Grisel were left behind this run. Whether the two are permanent companions or just on loan for Eldrich's job is unclear. (Canonical spellings: Braille, Jallic, Elgaya, Griselle.)
• The wasteful alchemist (west of the Colosseum) — the capable-but-wasteful premixed-potion seller Dominus pointed Silithane to last session; honored the discount buckle, sold a confusing line of experimental potions/poisons (green = poison vials, pink), but evidently did not part with the costly truesight potion (still gated behind the unfinished job). A likely recurring shop. Kept to the session note.
• The mad scientist — Eldrich's quarry, somewhere deeper in the sewers; deals in a blood-related "experiment." Unnamed and unmet this session. (See Canon Questions.)

Locations

• Gwyndinas Sewers — new note: the extensive sewer/waterworks system beneath the Palisade city (its blueprints noted back in Session 14). A big outflow gate vents dark-green liquid through a filter cube into the ocean; inside are branching pipe halls, knee-deep "sludge" channels, glowing light-mushrooms, crushed-through natural caverns, and at least one hidden/rebuilt secret entrance (a draft Silithane felt). Currently infested with a colony of fungal "mushroom men" answering to a greater fungal core, and home (somewhere) to a mad scientist the party is hunting.
• The alchemist's shop (west of the Colosseum, Gwyndinas) — the wasteful experimental-potions alchemist tied to Dominus's discount buckle; sells premixed potions and poisons of uncertain effect.

Loot, Items & Rewards

• Experimental potions/poisons — Silithane bought up to 300 gold of the alchemist's bright-green (poison) vials and pink ones, effects unidentified (drink-vs-apply unclear); the green and pink must never be mixed or they explode.
• Healing potions all round — a minor healing potion for each of the six party members (Thalia) plus a standard one each (Silithane).
• Lash's cookies — upgraded to 6 temp HP each (twice Lash's proficiency bonus).
• Lash's Magic Hammer — its reroll property saw heavy use: 3 grantable rerolls per long rest that Lash can hand to allies (used repeatedly to save CON saves vs. mushroom infection).
• No combat loot — the mushroom men dropped nothing but spores (the table joke-billed "65 pips, one per man").

Decisions & Open Threads

• The mad scientist's experiment: the party must still find the mad scientist deeper in the sewers and buy his blood "experiment" for Eldrich the Elder — the throughline into killing one of Laewendas's inner circle. Unresolved; continues next session.
• Two squires in the fold: Braille and Jallic are now fighting with the party. Whether they stay on as companions (and what that means for Eldrich's "4–8 fighter" group) is open.
• Hidden sewer routes: Silithane flagged a secret rebuilt entrance and a crushed-through natural cave off the mapped path — possible side-routes (or someone's private way in/out of the sewers).
• Two mushrooms loose in the city: two drones washed downstream into Gwyndinas alive — a small problem dumped on whatever guard finds them.
• Carryover threads: the Smiling Sam case and blood mage Rhys Wengler beyond the wall; the Ponterford abductions job effectively conceded to another of Dominus's spies; Lash's in-progress auricalcum crafting hammer (and its possible curse from the Prehistoric Longsword); the three leaving-signatures still being assembled (arena official, Eldrich the Elder, Malcolm Locke's wife); Magra's mother bound somewhere snowy; the Prince Lon letter; Professor Wind Douglas's standing dhampir-subject request; Ankley Island the sealed prison.

Memorable Moments

• Draak flatly unable to whisper when Fenric asks the group to stealth: "I don't know how to whisper. They didn't teach me that spell." — then loudly, as Bael'Drakkor: "Why? Earthworm."
• Silithane: "I can smell a secret door." / Drak: "What does it smell like?" / "Oh, it's in the wind."
• Thalia discovering the enemy: "You're saying they're plants? That is incredibly racist." — and the GM: "Those are fungi."
• Silithane pulling his Shadow Blade from the portal again — reaching in to find a 100-year-old Silithane in a nursing-home wheelchair, who recognizes the beauty of his younger self and hands the sword over like an offering.
• Draak's "overt feminism": fixating on hunting down the lone mushroom woman — "Yeah, I'm pro-feminist, equal rights" — while the GM points out fungi have no gender at all ("we do it anyway").
• Drak scooping up mushroom men and chucking them across the sewer for fun ("How heavy does this mushroom man look?"), some surviving the throw to chomp onward.
• Ashlyn getting bitten for the very first time in her long undeath: "Oh, that's what that feels like."
• The cookie interrogation — four fingers, light-blue, "however many cookies as there are people" — and the GM's quiet horror: "I didn't think she was baking her fingers into cookies. I hate that the math adds up as well."
• Drak whiffing his fire breath round after round: "I'm never breathing fire again."
• The closing accounting: "Can we have about 65 pips then, please?" / "1 pip per man." / "64 mushroom men and one worman." Two of them washed off into the city: "God help them."