Session 28 — Bugs Cleared, the Forge Lord's Cupboard, and a Funeral in the Deep

Session Recap

Picking up on last session's cliffhanger, the party makes short work of the giant-wasp swarm that poured out of Malifax's pipe rooms — a one-sided slaughter (the caged thief Keith shoved out front as bait, every player rolling hot) that the GM cheerfully admits was just a "garbo encounter" to burn off good dice. With the bugs gone, Malifax leads the group on a long, fussy "safe route" through the under-prison to retrieve the prisoner-moving staff the party needs to re-cage the Queen Grabbler — detouring to visit his old friend the Ghoul Tamer, threading past the Watchers with the Woodling Den sigil-staff, and coaxing a giant crab out of a secret doorway (Lash feeds it her own severed finger rather than fight it).

The heart of the session is the Forge Lord's cupboard — a treasury behind a key he keeps dangling in his ribcage. As the party "searches" (i.e. paws through an immortal's hoard), each member turns up an oddity: a loot chest that yields a different interior every time it opens, a hand mirror that shows a fixed snapshot of the past, a torso-sized pulsing crystal "egg," an object so enchanted everyone keeps forgetting it exists, and the Forge Lord's life's-work twin swords. Amid the loot sits a black meteorite that long ago crashed through the ceiling and crushed three people — and Malifax, who will part with nothing else, gifts it to the party on one condition: the dead must be given a proper funeral. Valmora obliges, turning the three skeletons to ash with a Ceremony and committing them to the "Evermind," and earns lore on one of her lantern's dead gods. The session winds down with Thalia exposing and re-caging the thieving Keith, a new plan to evict Malifax's estranged immortal clique and use their room as the Queen's cell, and a long rest so Lash can finish her hammer.

Key Events

• The bug swarm, exterminated. The giant wasps that burst from the pipe-room door go down in a single, lopsided fight (see Combat). Malifax sends Keith in with a borrowed short sword as a meat-shield; afterward Keith demands his freedom and is told he still owes "one more fight."
• The Forge Lord's "safe route." Refusing the party's shorter way back (he fears the Watchers and "doesn't like that chasm"), Malifax insists on leading them the long way to his cupboard to fetch the staff — repeatedly fretting "Keith, did you shut the door?" at every threshold.
• The Ghoul Tamer. Behind a door marked "Please knock" / "Ghoul tamer" lives another of Malifax's immortal kind — a 30%-flesh undead creation who keeps caged, ravenous ghouls ("they make great pets — you just have to feed them flesh"). Malifax stops to visit his old friend; the two trade a few words in their dead tongue.
• Past the Watchers, by the staff. The eye-stalk Watchers are warded off exactly as before — Silithane holds up the Woodling Den sigil-staff (painted side out) and each Watcher glides to a halt and turns away. Malifax watches enviously, having spent millennia simply waiting for them to look elsewhere.
• The crab at the secret door. A large, non-aggressive crab blocks a hidden door. Rather than fight it, Lash takes the severed finger she carries (meant for her own pet crab) and lures it aside, feeding it the finger — to Malifax's bafflement that "she fed it" rather than swinging a sword.
• The weapon dump. Prompted to find a light weapon for the unarmed Keith-fight, the party piles its spare blades on Silithane — a Silvered Short Sword, the Wiggly Dagger, a torch-sword, a long sword — sparking Malifax's tale of the "Wam" man.
• The Wam (the "Womman"). Malifax describes a one-of-a-kind craftsman who "wams" two identical items into a single greater item held in both hands. His own masterpiece twin swords are finished but for this: "They need the one man to make them one." Bring that craftsman here, he says, and the party may have his prized mirror as reward.
• The cupboard, opened. Malifax unlocks his treasury with the key dangling inside his ribcage, revolving a wall aside. The party rummages, each finding something (see Loot), while Silithane (nat 20) locates the actual prisoner-moving staff.
• The meteorite, and the three dead. A black, cracked meteorite sits in the room's center, ringed by three crushed skeletons — people who died carrying something heavy when it punched through the ceiling. Malifax offers it to the party (the only thing he'll give up) on the condition that the fallen be tended by a professional.
• Valmora's funeral. Valmora — a worshipper of Vanitas and the dead gods — performs Ceremony with 25 gold of powdered silver scooped from Malifax's chest, reorganises and lays the bones to rest, and turns all three to ash, committing them to the "Evermind" (the collective knowledge of the willing dead). The meteorite settles two inches into the gap left behind.
• The Silph god. Examining Valmora's lantern of dead-god amulets, Malifax recognises one — a plant symbol of a god of restraint / population control (the "Sylphites"), whose non-violent clerics kept communities from having "too much life" or too much death. He returns it to her for her dead-gods quest.
• The steak, the wine, and a memory. Malifax feeds Silithane salted steak and ancient wine conjured by name from his chest, asking only to be told what they taste like. Silithane gifts him a fresh memory-coin of the meal; the sensation Malifax most savours is the draft against skin and hair, prompting his musing that the Ghoul Tamer keeps his flesh for a reason and that he himself bleached his own bones white (their natural colour unsettled him).
• Keith exposed and re-caged. Thalia thorn-whips and Ensnaring-Strikes Keith, revealing he had been pocketing Malifax's treasures and plotting to have the party kill the Forge Lord for a "50/50/50" split. Malifax shakes the loot out of him and floats him back to his cell with the staff. Thalia whispers that he ought to "actually enter a contract with a fey" — revealing she is one.
• The shortcut home. The party returns via the crack the digging golem carved — which Malifax slowly realises he himself requested, "a shortcut home" past the Watchers and the chasm. He returns to his throne-room and the staff is set on his anvil for the party to borrow.
• A new plan for the Queen. Rather than dig a fresh giant cell, Malifax proposes killing his estranged immortal clique ("Malifax and the others," the "garbage skeletal cucks" in the other room) and converting their space — six beds, a kitchen, a wide tunnel and big door — into the Queen Grabbler's cell. The party agrees to scout it.
• Long rest and word sent. The group beds down in Malifax's quarters so Lash can spend a day finishing her hammer in his workshop. Silithane Sends a tight, coded 25-word spy report to Dominus in Gwyndinas — flagging a caravan ambush near Ponterford, an agent dead with a replacement needed, and the cave / old smuggler den / ancient temple with the escaped Queen Grabbler marked as a danger (the GM praises how much intel he packed into the word limit); Valmora Sends a message to her dead husband (no reply).

Combat & Encounters

• Wasp swarm (the only fight). A room of giant wasps (one renamed "Pitiful Wasp," another "Fearful Wasp") versus the full party plus Squishy the salamander and the bait, Keith. The bugs are trivially weak — "they probably aren't practicing wizardry," Malifax's spell-burning useless against them — and the table rolls a string of crits and one-shots (Thalia's double-crit double-whip, Magra's 29-damage Sharpshooter crit, Silithane's level-5 Booming Blade + sneak attack). Lash turns invisible (via Silithane's spell), pops out to intimidate-taunt the swarm, and Valmora's "Spirit Gourdians" (a mispronounced Spirit Guardians) flail at the bugs to little effect. One wasp escapes off the map; the rest die. No party member is meaningfully threatened.
• The crab and the Ghoul Tamer's ghouls are avoided, not fought — the crab fed and led aside, the caged ghouls left rattling their bars.
• No further combat. Everything else is roleplay, searching, and travel; the threatened raid on the immortal raiders is deferred to next session.

NPCs & Factions

• Malifax — the session's co-star: tour guide, host, and accidental quest-giver. Leads the party the "safe way" to his cupboard, gifts the meteorite (on the condition of a funeral), feeds Silithane steak and wine for the novelty, hands Valmora Silph-god lore, and floats killing his estranged immortal clique so their room can cage the Queen. Naïve and lonely — "Why would you leave? You could stay here and hang out." — and never realises how close Keith came to getting him murdered.
• The Ghoul Tamer (new this session, kept to the note) — another of Malifax's deathless kind, ~30% flesh (a "horror-movie" look Malifax finds gross), who keeps caged ghouls behind a "Please knock / Ghoul tamer" door and offers to sell one. A reclusive resident of the under-prison; not separately noted yet.
• Keith (new note) — Malifax's caged thief, here revealed as "Keith the Thief," an escape artist who steals compulsively, plots to have the party kill his jailer, and is exposed by Thalia and re-caged.
• The Grenkh — briefly present (the lizards have already opened the portcullis for the party; Grank is greeted in passing). Their eggs need cleaning by the freed golem.
• Dominus — recipient of Silithane's end-of-session Sending (the Gwyndinas "leatherworkery" spymaster).
• The other immortal raiders ("Malifax and the others") — Malifax's estranged, scheming clique in the "other room," now marked for eviction (or death) to make space for the Queen.

Locations

• The Prison of Seven Cells — much more of Malifax's domain is walked: the Ghoul Tamer's room, the Watcher corridors, a secret door behind a crab, the central minecart chamber, his cupboard/treasury, and his living quarters (six beds, a kitchen — the "other room" where his immortal clique and their dead are kept). The golem-carved shortcut now links the workshop to the jail side, bypassing the Watchers and the chasm.
• Gwyndinas — reached only by Silithane's Sending to Dominus there.

Loot, Items & Rewards

• The prisoner-moving staff (new note) — Malifax's metal stave topped with a floating tetrahedron; it telekinetically moves a prisoner (up to ~8 in a day) and renders their powers inert for transport. Located by Silithane and lent to the party (kept on Malifax's anvil) for the Queen plan.
• The meteorite — a ~180 lb black, cracked space-rock, utterly dense and anti-magic (it "reacts nonplussed" to magic and dulls Lash's chisel; Malifax estimates 6 months to split it once). Gifted to the party, but too heavy and awkward to haul over the chasm this session — left in the cupboard / to be moved to the workshop. A possible future crafting material (cf. the halocite shard from Session 26).
• The hand mirror — identified by Fenric (one-a-day Identify): a chaos-mage pocket dimension that mirrors the world as it was when the mirror was made, so its reflection shows the past (and a tiny creature could climb inside). Not given — Malifax's fourth-most-prized possession; offered only as the reward for finding the Wam.
• The loot chest — found by Jex: opens to a different interior every time (gold, salted steaks, etc.), never repeating; Malifax stores everything not on display inside it and calls items out by name in his own tongue. Stays with Malifax.
• The "egg" crystal — Magra's find: a torso-sized, amber-red pulsing crystal that throbs "as if alive" and shocks anyone who touches it (4 mm reach). Malifax has never figured out what to make of it. Stays with Malifax.
• The galaxy potion — a bottle of rotating purple star-flecked liquid Fenric cannot identify the school of. Stays with Malifax.
• The forget-object — a hand-sized item so enchanted that anyone who looks away forgets it exists, making it unsearchable, unstealable, and unrememberable. Valmora keeps re-finding it; in the end Malifax tosses it back into the gold chest. Stays with Malifax.
• The twin swords — Malifax's masterpiece: two identical left-handed blades (one deliberately broken and reforged to match the other), finished but for being "wammed" into one by the Wam.
• Silph-god amulet — one of Valmora's dead-god amulets, identified by Malifax as the symbol of the god of restraint / the Sylphites; returned to her.
• Memory-coin — Silithane gifts Malifax a fresh memory of eating steak and drinking wine in exchange for his friendship.

Decisions & Open Threads

• The Queen's new cell. The settled plan is now to clear (likely kill) the immortal raiders in the "other room" and re-fit their space — six beds, a kitchen, a wide door and tunnel — as the Queen Grabbler's cell, sparing the four-month dig. The party will scout it next.
• Find the "Wam." A one-of-a-kind craftsman who fuses identical items; if found and brought to Malifax, he will combine his twin swords and gift the party the hand mirror. Name, identity and whereabouts unknown.
• The meteorite, immovable. Gifted but un-hauled this session — too dense to chisel quickly and too awkward to drag over the 30-ft chasm. To be moved to the workshop and worked on (Malifax: ~6 months to split once), or fetched later.
• The Ghoul Tamer and the other Eternals. More of Malifax's deathless kind are confirmed down here — one a flesh-keeping ghoul-breeder, the rest his scheming estranged clique. Standing danger/curiosity.
• Keith's debt. Still caged, still owing Malifax "one more fight," now exposed as a thief and a would-be murderer — but kept alive.
• Carryover: Lash's hammer (final day being forged on the long rest); Otto's undelivered package and Thalia's oath; the red-candle tomb / 14-ft coffin (Session 24) and Valmora's dead-gods quest; the missing mothers; the Veilwood as the longer heading.
• Roster. On-screen: Thalia, Fenric, Silithane, Lash, Magra, Jex, Valmora. Ashlyn remains recalled to the Veilwood; Draak is gone. The party stays level 6 (no level-up). (Mia notes she'll be out next session for her birthday.)

Memorable Moments

• The whole table arming Keith by dumping every spare weapon they own on Silithane — and Malifax's deadpan disappointment when Lash feeds the crab a severed finger instead of fighting it: "That did not count as a combat. She fed it."
• Malifax's account of the Wam: "He would take two things that were the same and he would wam them into one thing that was better."
• Jex opening the loot chest over and over — gold, then steaks, then "meat noise, like a wet plop" — until the table dubs it a literal loot box.
• Valmora stunlocked by the forget-object, finding, losing, and re-finding the same item half a dozen times while everyone watches.
• The funeral for the three crushed strangers — Ceremony, a hymn, and a beat of grace from a death-god cleric for people she never knew ("no one deserves to die without a funeral"), set against the meteorite's silent two-inch settle.
• Malifax savouring Silithane's memory-coin: "the draft against your skin, the way that hair doesn't just sit still… I see now why the Ghoul Tamer keeps his skin."
• Thalia's soft-spoken betrayal of Keith — "such hospitality is rarely seen… which is why I am so sorry to have to do this" — and her parting fey lesson, "you should actually enter a contract before you do anything."
• The Forge Lord's lonely, almost childlike hope that the party might just stay and hang out — "I have food, I have drink, I have entertainment, many books" — and his giddy sleepover energy when they agree to rest in his rooms.