Head in, ass out, that’s the way I like to meowth

The heroes subdue the rakshasas and save Bulotros from certain doom. They gain plus one rakshasa captive. They head down to the pit of darkness once more to do an experiment. Abe goes into the darkness and wrestles the rakshasa in, with the intention of figuring out whether the rakshasa can cross back out (since the other rakshasas down here and the beast Kaldred could not escape via this passage.)

The rakshasa breaks free of the manacles which for metal manacles seem a little easy to break out of, not gonna lie. Anyway, he does so and the heroes have to fend him off. Livius pops his head in and realizes that the crown of stars he put on earlier from the fight with the rakshasas breaks through the magical darkness of this pit! Oh boy is it not a pretty sight though. Just a lot of goop and slimy stuff, white cave matter, slimy boys crawling toward them. Hate to see it.

Pretty much everyone clambers in and starts trying to finish the experiment, and they do! The rakshasa is able to return through the portal. Oh no? I guess. I don’t know, I am just running it, I don’t know what conclusions you guys came to from that but that’s what you’ve learned. It’s not like I’m just inventing it as I go or something.

I am never going to financially recover from this

Kaldred shows up, lured by that cat smell. He tried to go after Cas for a second, but everyone convinced him that Cas was a snack and that the rakshasa was the whole entree (though everyone knows that’s not the case). Kaldred was visible in all his glory but all anyone could focus on was his belt of skulls. Everyone kept talking about skull dicks and stuff, but I can’t in good conscience say who and commit it to the eternity of the web, so let’s just say we were all complicit in the skull dick jokes.

Someone did the People’s Elbow at some point. Can’t remember who but that was fun.

If they die in hell, they die in real life

Anyway, Hobbes uses his changeling powers, with a dash of anime rules, to morph into a maitre d’ he met at once at one of Argot’s finest restaurants (which aren’t really a thing in this time period) and escorted Kaldred to the table Sora set with the rakshasa on it, an apple in his mouth. The rakshasa cries out before dying, “Why are you doing this to us? I thought we had a deal!”

As soon as Kaldred bit the rakshasa’s head off (“The head’s the best part!” and “The key to a good meal is eating the meal while it is still alive!”), the rest of the rakshasa turned to dust. Unlike his companions above who turned to dust and the dust stayed, this dust completely evaporated, leading the heroes to believe that Hespero carved a little bit of hell in this demiplane for the rakshasas to regenerate in.

Whales of the Damned

The heroes sit down and try to figure out what to do. Bulotros ends up forgiving them, imagining the better future ahead and putting all his eggs in the Damage Sluts basket.

The heroes get Final Fantasy Tactics with it (or I think just Final Fantasy with it) and come up with a plan to get out of the tunnels and begin a guerilla campaign against each of the rakshasa bands, split them up and conquer. KB-180 transforms into a radio transmitter (whatever that is) once more and relays a message from the increasingly impatient kodama, insisting that the heroes destroy the rakshasas and clear them from the islands. It seems that curing the water supply was not enough, and no matter what, the kodama were not going to be satisfied with the rakshasas making it to the other side.

First step of the guerilla campaign: get out of the mine. Bulotros suggests one escape route, but that takes the heroes into the harbor where the rakshasa ships are. The way they came in however is guarded by a pack of rakshasas and two villagers seemingly acting as human shields.

Owlicious reports back, “Hootie hoo! Tight like hallways, smoked out always! The rakshasas are outside and they have two miners! Hootie hoo!”

It’s 8:30p. You guys got a bit of a short rest in there maybe, but basically you pushed ahead. Hobbes came out disguised as Bulotros and try to lure the rakshasas into the net, but the beasts weren’t biting and they sent in the miners instead.

Realizing that the plan hadn’t worked as well as it could have, Livius dashed out and blasted the rakshasas with a cone of cold. We will return to the heroes in the middle of combat as they realize that the war against the rakshasas has only begun.

It is evening on day 34 since the Battle of Aurochs Island, the first engagement in the Argoti-Mineosi War.

The heroes are in the entrance of the Bakasura’s mine, fighting the rakshasa guards.

Three islands left: Nistora, Dorost, and Charatos.

All three keys have been retrieved.

The dogs are on the ship.

Malory is on the material plane with Hespero

Rho is with Paloma and the Skyswimmer.

You have four solid cubes with keyholes and a ring of seven keys:

• KB has one of the pine wood cubes
• Livius has the cube made of bone found in Iskos Valley Village’s elders’ hut
• The Alchemist has one of the pine wood cubes, the obsidian cube found at Natalya’s tomb, and the ring of seven keys

You are on a demiplane, and Zulon has been on the material plane for three full days.

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