Bruce (Grenville d'Tharashk) convinces everyone else that the ideal lunch after watching Constantine is fast food, because then he can be obsessive and disposition problem lots while he eats. Chris (Thaiphong) grouses, "And then you're going to tell us that you're going to go to a homeowners' board meeting at three too, heh?" Bruce looks bashful. Chris goes on to reassure everyone else, "Nobody ever wins when a woman runs away crying." Ernest (Kurgash d'Tharashk) dreamily reminisces, "Unless she's a stripper. Those were the days..." Tim (Silharath) perks up to point out, "Remember Rachel Weisz? She got interviewed on the Daily Show and made Christina Ricci look smart!" Chuck (Xim) just tells funny stories about bad things happening to people in the military. Most of these seem to revolve around pawnshops, strip clubs and used car lots, which form the Holy Trinity of the military economic food chain.
And then Paul steps through the door. Eventually. Bringing Billy (Secheck) in tow. He is very late. And then Bruce leaves for an HOA board meeting.
The session opens with Kurgash doing pull-ups in the rafters of the Jovial Jackal. Near as Grenville d'Tharashk can tell, he has been doing them all night long. Grenville yawns and makes a note not to lace his midnight beer with ground-up khat leaves any more.
Thaiphong walks into the common room of the bar and announces, "Okay, I really tried to sell those cursed Flare pebbles but I couldn't find any buyers. It turns out that orcs, goblins and bugbears are all not that interested in a magical weapon that will upset them more than the folks they're fighting. Who knew?"
Kurgash drops down from the rafters to suggest, "YoucouldgivethemtoGrenvillehedoesn'tdoanythingincombatbutsingsohewouldprobablyreallyappreciateit. ManohmanIamsohighbutIdon'tunderstandwhyatallI'vebeenlikethiseversinceIdrankmynormalmidnightbeerIgottaslowdownormyheartisgoingtoburstcouldoneofyoupleasehelpme?"
Silharath translates for Kurgash, who by now is exhibiting cardiac-style twitches, "I think our over-stimulated orc wants to give them over to Grenville. Sounds good to me."
Thaiphong hands fifteen of the Flare pebbles to Grenville, keeping five for himself. Secheck grumbles and quietly suggests that Thaiphong hide a Flare pebble in an unmentionable location.
Silharath tells the others that he is claiming the Orb of Sight because it matches his tentacle. Nobody makes any effort to challenge this rather strange claim.
Secheck simply doesn't mention that he's still got the Demon Eye, so nobody challenges his right to keep it.
By midmorning Kurgash has calmed down enough to be allowed out in public, so the characters go shopping. Thaiphong's first stop is at Lugnasa's mask shop. He is an older hobgoblin, and plainly takes a no-nonsense attitude towards shoplifters: there are a half-dozen well-armed guards prowling the shop at all times. Thaiphong ignores them while he buys first a gorilla mask, and then a pile of other masks from the discount rack. Grenville almost asks why Thaiphong wants a Nixon mask, but then thinks better of it.
The next stop is at the potion display. Thaiphong buys a potion of Remove Fear. Silharath buys a potion of Jump. And then Thaiphong spots a whole basket of backstock potions and goes nuts, picking up potions of Cure Moderate Wounds, Barkskin and Cure Light Wounds.
And then Thaiphong notices a small jade statuette of a duck with opal eyes. He recognizes it as an item recently stolen by the known serial killer Olaras Vinsins. Lugnasa is more than willing to demonstrate the power of the duck: he throws it to the floor and whispers a command word (quietly enough that Thaiphong can't hear it). The statuette instantly transforms into an eight-foot green duck. She offers to sell the statuette for 10,000 gold.
The party discusses the possible uses of a giant magical duck. Then Lugnasa happens to mention that the authorities in Sharn are offering a reward of 15,000 gold for whoever can bring Vinsins back alive to stand trial. The characters are all ears.
Xim begs Lugnasa to tell him where he got the statuette. She refuses. Secheck tries to bribe him. He fails as well. Then Silharath offers Lugnasa the ridiculous sum of twenty platinum. Lugnasa decides that he should show pity in the face of such ham-handedly incompetent bribery and tells the characters that he bought the statuette from Krungthep of the Noorba clan. The Noorba clan are mixed orc and human swamp dwellers, and probably just acted as go-betweens on the sale.
The characters bid Lugnasa goodbye and head back to the Jovial Jackal to prepare for a trip to the swamps. They compensate Silharath for his over-enthusiastic bribe, all the while complaining about the terrible injustice of it all.
Thaiphong busies himself making a sackful of nutria sandwiches. Xim suggests, "Perhaps you should make nutria jerky instead? It doesn't spoil as fast."
Thaiphong demurs, "I still don't understand why you think that my sandwiches go bad. They're an evolving food, sort of like wine. Age just makes them more interesting."
Xim shudders and heads off to find his own provisions. He runs into Kurgash. The big orc is sprawled across a bench, sharpening his axe with unsettling gusto. He roars, "This needs to be plenty sharp! We might run into another chuul! Hah! That last one was nothing! You know some of those things use weapons? They steal them from dead ogres! But I'm not worried, not a bit of it! Hahaha!"
The other characters in the room all look aghast.
The group heads into the swamp to visit the Noorba Clan. They leave Grenville a note. It doesn't take too long before Silharath sees something moving the bushes ahead. He warns the others, "I think there's something in the undergrowth... You should be careful."
Secheck turns around to make some scornful remark about how he was born and raised in the swamps and hardly needs the advice of some trumped-up psychic twitch-monkey who calls a multi-ocular floaty octopus "Daddy!" on how to survive when a vine wraps around him and drags him into the darkness.
Silharath muses, "I thought something was wrong: Secheck doesn't normally make such florid insults. Ah well, I guess it won't be a problem after that vine craps out what's left of him."
By this time, all the local plant life has started to grab at the characters, slowing them to a quarter-move. Secheck opens fire with bow, heedless of the fact that he's been designated as Miracle-Gro. Thaiphong shows better sense: he grabs Secheck and heads out of the entangle area. Kurgash roars and rips through the under growth with his mighty strength, stopping in his rampage only barely before stepping right into a patch of quicksand. And Grenville sings!
Silharath observes the way his compatriots are being schooled by vegetation and thinks back to his time at ranger school. He yells out, "Guys! This thing is an assassin vine! Be careful!"
Thaiphong decides that 'being careful' must mean hurling alchemist's fire around. He lets fly as the vine latches onto Kurgash and starts to drag him back towards the quicksand.
Then the assassin vine uproots itself and moves toward the characters. Grenville squeaks out, "I didn't know they could do that!"
Thaiphong howls, "It's just like Day of the Triffids!"
Grenville screams, "Cover your eyes!"
Thaiphong looks over at the bard, "What? What the hell have you been smoking, Grenville?"
Secheck, Silharath and Kurgash fill the assassin vine full of arrows while Grenville continues singing inspiring military tunes. Eventually, the vine ceases to move and starts to sink into the quicksand. Thaiphong yells, "Stop it from sinking! There might be something valuable caught up in its roots!"
Grenville attempts to locate the nearest gold with Locate Object. He confirms that there is gold underneath the quicksand. Secheck tells the others, "See? He is just like Councilor Troi! He's very good at telling the other characters when they're right! I'm going to swim for it!"
Kurgash disagrees, "No, I'm going to swim for it!"
Silharath offers, "This is going to be creepy, but I have a better idea. Observe as I send my fifteen-foot tentacle-whip to fish for gold!" He comes back with the heavily-digested corpse of an elf in a chain shirt. With a masterwork rapier. And twenty gold coins in a pouch. The rapier hilt is decorated with little ivory skulls because all elves in Eberron are strangely fascinated with death. The only other things Silharath is able to find are animal corpses, which aren't worth anything.
Grenville curses, "You people are all mocking me! I'm going to sing a song to make all of you sweaty and bad-smelling!"
Thaiphong defends himself, "Dude! I just got finished getting myself poodled!"
Xim shudders and tells the bugbear, "I do not want to hear about your decadent social practices."
Secheck observes Thaiphong's coiffure, "Someone does this to you? That's terrible."
Thaiphong stamps his foot, "I pay for this! They shampoo me, and groom me, and perfume my personal parts. Oh, and they also de-scent my anal gland."
Secheck twitches. And then he twitches again.
A blessedly short time later the characters arrive at the Noorba Clan-Home. The Clan-Home is a large longhouse built on stilts with a long high pier and a retractable ramp down to the water. Some young goblins come out to stare until the adults arrive and shoo them away. One of them calls out, "Hello, strangers! What is your business?"
Thaiphong, "We are here to stalk to... err... talk to your clansman Krungthep."
The clansman tells Thaiphong that Krungthep is present, and that the elders have invited the characters to dinner. Both Xim and Grenville try to figure out if the Clansman is lying. They aren't all that sure.
There are a lot of canoes and rowboats up on the dock and a few dozen orcs and humans inside the longhouse. Nonthaburee, a Clan elder, greets the characters. Grenville replies, "We are happy to accept your hospitality!" He whispers sotto voce to the others, "Hand me the rapier!"
Kurgash sputters, "What? Hand you the ranger?" Grenville gives the elder the rapier to thank him for his hospitality.
Kurgash comments, "I'm beginning to think of Grenville as being a George W. Bush kinda guy. He doesn't make the best decisions, and a lot of what he says is technically gibberish, but an awful lot of people seem to like him a lot."
Krungthep claims that he just found the Jade Duck in the swamp. And he can't find the way back to the place he found it. He insists that the characters might want to go to the West. The characters interpret this as a request for them to go leap off a cliff.
Secheck talks to the children. One boy, Bongsu, mentions that Krungthep trades with the Ghost Orcs. He has seen Krungthep talking to them and exchanging money and goods with them. Secheck lays it on thick, "You must be an amazing tracker! Are you better that Wallymargius Snobwagger? Can you track a chuul? Wow!" His efforts are rewarded with a description of the place where Krungthep met the Ghost Orcs, and roughly how to get there.
The characters know that the Ghost Orcs are a rather scattered tribe that paints phosphorescent skulls on their faces. At least twice in the last hundred years they have come into conflict with the Gatekeepers because they try to interfere with Gatekeeper sacred sites.
Grenville really gives his all in trying to threaten Krungthep, until Secheck walks up and says, "Gee, he must be telling the truth! Anyone who wasn't would have cracked long ago under all that pressure!" And the other characters watch as all of Grenville's credibility evaporates.
The main dish at dinner is a sort of a crawfish-and-waterfowl gumbo with rice, plus a very strong herbal tea drink that only Kurgash can drink. It's supposed to be very good for you, and to ward off swamp diseases. Thaiphong sniffs it and observes, "If this doesn't kill you, nothing can."
Much of the characters' time is taken up talking with the elders Nonthaburee and Somgoon. Xim guides the conversation around to the Ghost Orcs. Nonthaburee admits that they have heard something about the Hurthec tribe.
Kurgash jokes, "That means 'gore-puddle' in orcish!"
Grenville reminds him, "We all speak orcish. We know what it means."
Kurgash offers, "I've heard that the paint they use causes their skin to break out and crack horribly."
Thaiphong asks Nonthaburee, "Have you had any trouble with the Hurthec recently?"
Nonthaburee replies, "Not really. They don't bother us, we don't bother them. There are many folk who think that the daelkyr and their remnants will grant them some sort of power. But history shows that to be a lie."
Kurgash glances at Silharath as he comments, "Yeah. You'd think that they'd all have tentacle arms or something."
Nonthaburee replies, "Yes. If anyone were to have something like that, they'd probably keep it well hidden."
Silharath acts very, very innocent. His sleeve twitches.
Grenville tries to figure out if the other members of the Clan like Krungthep or not. He doesn't get far: they don't trust him enough. He is very honest about why he wants to know, and he hopes that if this means that Krungthep tries to knife him in the kidneys later on then maybe either Kurgash or Thaiphong will be there to save him.
Off in the corner, Silharath complains, "Nobody ever remembers the ranger. Sulk."
Thaiphong points out, "But when Grenville sleeps, Silharath is always there to watch."
The next morning, the characters get the child Bongsu to lead them to the meet site. He goes without his parent's permission. He leads them to an island with some nomad shelters on it.
Silharath gets the job of hiding in a blind and watching the island with his telescope eye. He thinks there are less than twenty people on the island. The characters decide to simply attack the place. Secheck is confused, but willing to go along with it anyway.
The two outer sentries are easily suppressed. And then the rest of the Ghost Orcs come storming out throwing spears. The characters make short work of them, then bandage the survivors. Oddly, of a half-dozen orcish males, only the one Kurgash cut in half can't be saved.
The most cooperative interrogation subject is named Guffnagel. Grenville interrogates. Thaiphong and Kurgash help. A lot.
Thaiphong orders Guffnagel to give him some of the luminous paint, and some hide armor and spears. Guffnagel agrees, as he really doesn't have many other options. Thaiphong tells the others, "We're totally gonna put these up on the wall of the bar!"
A quick search of the rest of the camp turns up some evidence of cannibalism and some ritual paraphernalia, but no Dragon Below altars. It looks like the Hurthec tribe doesn't have a real witch doctor or an adept at all, so they're operating at a pretty low spiritual level.
Silharath demonstrates that he has the same sort of attitude towards religious diversity as a 16th century Spanish Catholic priest as he collects up every bit of the orcs' religious paraphernalia and throws it all into the swamp, all the while shouting at the tribesmen, "Bad! Bad!" He feels a little bad after he realizes that he just pitched out their only cooking pot, but he reassures himself that it is all for their spiritual benefit. Besides, the cooking pot was probably cursed anyway.
Kurgash shakes Guffnagel a bit and tells him how he's abandoned his Gatekeeper heritage and needs to reconnect. Guffnagel doesn't seem all that convinced, but isn't going to argue the point with the big orc.
Thaiphong is able to verify that repeated use of glowing face paint has left all of the Ghost Orcs with scarred, pimply skin and terrible complexions.
The characters leave the Hurthec encampment and make their way to the so-called Magic Rock. The thing is actually more of an obelisk and has the look of a Gatekeeper artifact. The human wizard is doing some kind of ritual in front of it, guarded by the orcish chieftain and two orc warriors. Xim thinks he's already sacrificed the other two orcs. Xim is impressed by the fact that the other two orcs are either stupid or loyal enough to still be taking their boss' orders.
Kurgash rushes over at the chieftain and buries his axe in the orc's chest. He howls, "I will break you!" Meanwhile, Xim zaps the wizard with a Ray of Enfeeblement. Secheck uses one of Silharath's magic arrows to miss the chieftain. Silharath shows him how it's done by shooting down the other sentry.
The chieftain responds to all this activity by going berserk. Kurgash is plainly in no state to wonder if he has gotten in over his head, so Grenville worries on his behalf.
The wizard turns around and hits Thaiphong with a very painful Scorching Ray. And then something emerges from the altar. Something formless that the characters quickly recognize as a gibbering mouther. Silharath gasps, "Oooh! Oooh! Its an abomination! And it's full of eyes!" Then the mouther starts to gibber. Secheck and Silharath both fall under its influence and start acting under its directions. The cherry on top of the situation is the discovery that it is able to do all this and attack both Kurgash and Thaiphong. It bites Kurgash and fires a Ray of Spittle at Thaiphong. Thaiphong finds that he has been blinded. Kurgash finds that he is not grappled only by the thinnest of margins.
Kurgash yells, "Orc chieftain! Wap!" But his enthusiasm is not matched by results. The chieftain steps out of the path of his strike and gives him a Bronx cheer.
Grenville suddenly realizes that one of his bardic powers is actually useful in this circumstance. He is totally amazed. He commences a countersong and frees Silharath and Secheck from the gibbering mouther's influence. Even with a pathetic roll, he is able to completely neutralize the thing's gibbering powers. Sadly, he is totally useless against its much more potent acid and bite tricks.
The surviving orc sentry takes Thaiphong down.
Secheck takes advantage of his newfound freedom to kill the orcish chieftain. He explains, "He'll be dead as soon as that adrenaline flows out of him." The others watch the adrenaline ooze, but not for very long: there's still a gibbering mouther and a wizard to deal with.
Silharath moves up and throws Entangling Ectoplasm at the wizard, following up with a tentacle-whip attack that draws off four points of the fellow's DEX. The wizard notices this and responds by hitting Silharath with Sleep. Silharath sags to the ground, murmuring drowsy mumbles.
The gibbering mouther spits blinding acid at Kurgash, then engulfs Silharath. Kurgash goes blind. In contrast, Silharath gets bit by four mouths and watches his CON evaporate. Plus he is completely inside the creature and will suffer twelve attacks next round. On the plus side, he is awake now. He wakes up in Hell, being bitten by dozens of tiny mouths all around him as tiny eyes blink against his skin.
The last orc sentry rushes Secheck, but misses. Secheck drops him.
Kurgash feels his way over to the wizard and tries grappling him. The wizard manages to evade his clutching fingers.
Xim decides that he must do something dramatic. He charges the gibbering mouther and spears it. It takes a little bit of damage as he learns that it has damage resistance. He screams, "Not fair! So totally, totally not fair! My kingdom for a bashing weapon!"
Silharath Mindlinks Grenville to scream, "I'm not dead! I'm inside the mouther! And it's eating me alive! Aieee!" This has an effect upon the lyrics and tone of Grenville's song.
Then the mouther attacks. It gets a dozen attacks on Silharath, and a half-dozen on Xim. He loses a CON point and some hit points. He feels pretty faint, but he's still conscious.
The wizard reaches his palsied fingers out to try and attack Kurgash. He misses. Both of them seem to be in a race to the bottom. Xim would laugh except that he's facing a mass of mouths and eyes that is eating Silharath alive.
Xim walks up to Thaiphong with Cure Light Wounds and brings him back up. He assures him, "You're my bugbear wall!"
Thaiphong replies, "But I'm still blind! No wait, I'm better! I can see! You cured my blindness!"
Kurgash gets better too, but nobody notices.
And then the mouther makes six attacks on Thaiphong. Thaiphong feels his CON slurp away, and then collapses into blissful unconsciousness. Secheck asks, "Does it engulf him as well?"
Xim replies, "If it does, I'm casting Invisibility and getting out of here!"
Then the pain comes to Silharath. Five hit points of damage, then three CON damage and three more hit points. He dies after having suffered a total of nine points of CON damage. And now the gibbering mouther has the tentacle whip and the +1 Longsword.
Kurgash hugs the mage, inflicts ghastly amount of injury with his armor spikes, and seems somehow upset that the fellow is still standing afterwards. He protests, "I'm grinding the life out of him!"
Xim decides that he knows nothing about aberrations, but he saw that the thing has a lot of eyes. He's blind, and he doesn't want to be the only one. He casts Obscuring Mist.
Secheck realizes that he can no longer see the gibbering mouther. He runs up to Thaiphong's body to feed him a Cure Light Wounds potion, then observes as the mouther moves right past him to attack Xim.
The wizard finally manages to touch Kurgash. Kurgash sags under the effects of Touch of Idiocy, losing five points of INT and five points of WIS. Fortunately for everyone else he is still smart enough to use tools. Kurgash continues to squash the wizard.
Grenville is still singing his anti-madness song and hiding behind Xim when Xim suddenly steps back to cast Cure Light Wounds on himself. Grenville gasps in horror when he realizes that he is now completely exposed to the gibbering mouther.
Secheck stuffs a Cure Light Wounds potion down Thaiphong's throat, bringing him back up. Again. Thaiphong asks, "Can I see Silharath's magic sword? Can I grab it and attack?" He grabs the blade and swings wildly at the gibbering mouther. He hits dirt.
The gibbering mouther goes directly for Xim. It fastens two mouths onto him and takes away two CON points. Xim takes a free action to shapechange into a girl so he can scream more effectively.
Kurgash inflicts another nine points of spine-crushing damage on the wizard. The wizard stops wiggling. Kurgash reels around and stares blindly at the big gray cloud.
Secheck shoots arrows into the mouther. He isn't very effective. He mourns, "Magic doesn't hurt it!"
Thaiphong moves back and drinks another potion.
The mouther leaves two mouths attached to Xim, then attacks both Grenville and Secheck. Grenville avoids it, but Secheck doesn't. Xim takes two more CON damage. He says hi to Silharath.
Silharath asks Xim, "Are you an angel?"
Xim responds, "Yes, and you owe me five dollars."
Secheck avoids the acid spray while Kurgash arrives on the scene to not quite save the day and Grenville backs away.
Secheck rips his mouth away. He now has a severed mouth attached to him that will continue to drain blood and CON for several rounds. Thaiphong exclaims, "CR5! This monster is only CR5? Who created this monster? This thing is fantastically dangerous! Did John Wick come up with this thing?"
Thaiphong, Secheck and Kurgash surround the thing as Grenville continues to sing. Thaiphong asks, "Now we have it flanked, right?"
Secheck reminds him, "It can't be flanked."
Thaiphong screams, "Aiiiii! It can't be flanked? I ask again who created this thing?" Thaiphong attacks with an improvised club and crushes a couple of largish eyes. In response, it tries to latch onto Kurgash.
Kurgash mumbles, "Back, mouth! Why for you hurt me!" He misses his counterattack.
Two more arrows from Secheck and another club strike from Thaiphong leave the mouther with only one hit point! And then it continues to attack, hitting Kurgash with a mouth and the acid. He ends up blinded. Again.
Everyone misses. It still attacks.
Kurgash gets slashed by yet another mouth. Thaiphong likewise. Thaiphong also gets spat at, and becomes blind. Again. Thaiphong complains about how this is getting to be ridiculous.
Then Secheck finally manages to land an arrow into the thing and take it out. Thaiphong hugs him and exclaims, "I love you little dog-man!"
Secheck squirms and complains, "Ow! Ow! Ow!"
Kurgash stays an idiot for thirty minutes. He stomps on random eyeballs until Thaiphong gives him a chunk of cheese to calm him down. Thaiphong kicks the wizard's head until Grenville begs him, "Kick him in the body! We need his face to be recognizable!"
Grenville walks around healing everyone, except for the dead characters. He loots them, obtaining:
The human wizard rather remarkably manages to not die. He was carrying a masterwork dagger and 2150 gold (doubtless from selling the Jade Duck). He also had a spellbook and a number of other books stashed nearby. The characters figure out that some of the items in his library are the sorts of thing that are not good things to read if the reader wants to keep their sanity.
The surviving characters gain 900 experience points. Replacement characters for Xim and Silharath will start at the midpoint of 3rd level. Nobody goes up a level, even though lots of people died.