An all-inclusive stay

The heroes congregate around the sacrificial pillars and wells. The village elders, after the little show by Hobbes, ask the gang how long they are staying because they want them to leave. Sora says like a week. The elders say OK, 300gp plus 100gp for security deposit.

Maybe they can stay on the outskirts? Sure, but you can’t come to the village at night.

Livius (neutral sneaky) says Sora pay the man and winks at Sora (chaotic fuck you pay me) who agrees to cough up the cash with the expectation of stealing it back.

Nahk has a bad sandwich and is out of commission for most of the day. Sorry bud.

Owlicious (lawful hoot) does a quick recon of the pillar, which reveals not much at all (dried blood, worn top where people probably stood).

Nature walk

KB and Rho take a walk past a pasture of yaks and reach the woods. Rho communes with nature and asks:

Is there any motivation besides malice driving the yak spirits?

“No.”

Can the spirits be cast out?

“Yes.”

Is there a single person behind their summoning?

“No.”

y’all trying to live deliciously or what?

KB and Rho inform the gang that there is a pasture with yaks and a farmhouse! They go check it out. KB is the one who knocks this time. They go in, step on some glass, find a butchered goat. Rho blocks the cellar door (and meets three goats).

Livius and Cas check out door number 1: dusty kids’ room, unoccupied, loose floorboard which Cas investigates. Livius’s goatstaff starts glowing (and paying off!)

Sora and KB investigate door number 2: just ashes everywhere, femurs, loose floor.

Hobbes feels a rumbling under his feet as the creature whose thoughts Sora heard bursts through the floor, attacking Sora and KB.

Hobbes and Livius hop in as Sora hops out. The changeling striking at the not-a-dragon-but a goat chimera beast as big as the room that is crawling through the floor. Everyone gets to the kitchen to help.

50% of the time it works every time

Casimir (chaotic oops) lasser les bontemps roulet by throwing the fairy mushroom from The Damage Sluts Adventures in Wonderland into the monster’s mouth.

It works! The monster eats it! Now there’s just a 50/50 chance of it enlarging it or shrinking it.

And of course the beast is enlarged to fill up the room and cellar space below. Livius and Hobbes are pressed against the walls as KB falls to into the wet-ass cellar.

Good news: The goat monster is restrained by the confines of the room. Bad news: Livius and Hobbes are also restrained and no one can see them!

The gargantuan creature spews acid at Sora, Cas, and Rho. With their uncanny dodge, the rogues avoid all of the spray while Rho goes down.

With their proximity, Hobbes and Livius are able to have an OK go of it while KB gets stomped out. Hobbes (chaotic grossed out) has a real time of it, stabbing the beast and getting black blood all over him and in his eyes and its just a rough time. Livius just touches the monster to drain it of its health.

Not knowing that the cellar was barred by Rho, KB has a time of it busting through the door, arriving just in time to save the day–I mean, for Cas to cut the goat’s eye out and kill it as it bleats in horror. Sora dusts Rho off and Livius splashes some healing potion on her brow.

Even after going down, Rho (neutral nice) flings out some healing spells to her pals.

Ee er!

After the goat beast is destroyed, the beast shrinks down to the size of a normal goat! The heroes pick apart the house and discover

• An unadorned pine boxwith a keyhole but no hinges (which Cas found under the floorboards earlier)
• Another identical box but inside the goat that was previously the chimera (which Sora, Hobbes, and Livius take turns searching)
• No boxes inside the goats outside (or scars that would indicate as such) or in the butchered goat (which everyone goes outside to examine)
• A key ring with seven keys that each have teeth going up to seven (1 key with 1 tooth, another with 2 teeth, etc, up to 7) (which KB finds in the cellar)
• A disturbed summoning circle drawn in chalk (which KB finds upstairs): goat’s head inscribed in a seven pointed star with each of the seven points containing a number of dots in clockwise order: 2, 4, 5, 3, 1, 7, 6

Sora tries thieves tools on the clean box: Zapped! One-tooth key on the clean box: Zapped! Knock: Box opened!

Oh man what a box. Unlocked it is an object that bends space around it, enters in and out of dimensional space, draws objects toward it, flashes with strobing lights, emits a terrible deafening noise, inflicts psychic damage after sustained exposure, shocks anyone reaching into it.

Sora reaches into it and extracts a black marble(tm). They all fuck off out of the house for a minute before deciding to throw the marble back in there and let the knock spell wear off to seal that thing back up.

Rho tries to place the dirty box on the chalk circle: the 1 point and opens it with the 1 key: Zapped!

pep in my step, pepto when I step to

The heroes all have a nice short rest and find outside the door a group of villagers. KB (lawful not on my watch) goes on down there and tries to reason with the villagers. The elder says, “What have you done?” and KB says, “We killed a big not-dragon!” The elder banishes him.

A cry comes from behind the mob: “Nahk nahk, mother fucker!” Nahk (chaotic foodie) returns, full of pepto, ready to fuck up the villagers who have come to attack his pals.

It is dusk on day 28 since the Battle of Aurochs Island, the first engagement in the Argoti-Mineosi War.

The heroes are on Iskos, having dissipated the white wall, in the village of the valley, at the mysterious farmhouse.

Four islands left: Iskos, Nistora, Dorost, and Charatos.

One beast left: The Skyswimmer.

You are on a demiplane, and Zulon is arriving on the material plane in three days.

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