The four have journeyed to the very centre of the Elemental Plane of Water, to the place where all water is channeled to other planes. They’ve traversed the treacherous caverns and defeated a sea-hag that had been blocking their path.
They bed down for the night, each agreeing to take watch in turn. The last are Firuzeh then Diafani, and as they transfer their shift, they speak briefly on relationships, awkwardness, and the frightening task ahead. Uzi’s eyes close, and Diafani’s fix upon Vi’s bag with the mask inside.
In the morning, and with a night’s rest in them, the four set out to the very heart of the complex they’re in. Scouting ahead, Vi finds it to be a huge whirlpool; the streams they’d been following all swirling and coalescing into the source for every plane in existence.
A plan is formed: they’ll bring the cask with the herbs for the tea to a rock in a stream on the whirlpool’s edge. They’ll brew the tea up there, so if anything is broken, it still drains into the source.
The three begin working on the spell, after wading through the waters. The fourth, Diafani, stays back in the tunnel to guard any possible ambush.
Vi begins reciting the spell… and finds she cannot remember it.
She stops, gather her thoughts, remembers; begins again. And again the words of the spell slip through rapidly spreading cracks in her mind.
Something is keeping her from casting the spell.
Uzi immediately sprints back to Diafani, to see if she’s ok. Cranzalar resists the urge to head off to the possible threat, instead staying to guard over Vi’s spellwork.
Diafani tells Uzi she hasn’t seen any threats, but Uzi insists that the Mind Spider itself is here, somehow keeping them from achieving their goal. Diafani dismisses it.
But Uzi is persistent. Diafani sighs. ‘Why must you be so distracting?’ She casts Dominate Person, but not before Uzi looses a lightning bolt. When Diafani recovers from the blast, there’s a smirking mask upon her face.
‘How long have you been controlling her?’ asks Uzi.
She doesn’t get an answer.
The two head back towards the rest of the group. ‘We’re going to kill those other two,’ says the Mind Spider. ‘You’re to do everything in your power to assist me.’
Cranzalar, having heard something back in the tunnel, has his weapon at the ready. He’s prepared a cloud of magical darkness – if anything approaches, he’ll blot out the light and destroy anything within it.
What comes out first is Uzi’ voice, pushing against the Mind Spider’s control. ‘OKAY,’ screams Uzi, her voice a deafening audio eye-roll. ‘LET’S GO KILL OUR FRIENDS, MIND SPIDER DIAFANI!’
Cranzalar collapses the tunnel exit with a Shatter spell.
Vi, having nearly completed the spell, splits her attention and fills a flask with the tea… just in case.
Inside the tunnel, and having been commanded to clear rocks, Uzi is picking up pebbles and wondering aloud why getting through the collapsed tunnel is taking so long.
Finally, the Mind Spider loses its patience and taps into Diafani’s power; she erupts with a fiery blast of power and nearly evaporates the rocks. Cranzalar’s darkness ripples out, but the Weaver homes in on his mind and the two clash as if in broad daylight.
When the darkness dissipates, Uzi is ready, lining up a lightning bolt at one of her friends (if it happens to hit the Mind Spider, then that’s a necessary sacrifice for Uzi’s assistance).
Cranzalar and Diafani are crossing swords, with the latter’s armor progressively decaying with each strike of the corrosive greatsword. Realising it’s fighting a losing battle, the Mind Spider switches tactics and goes Vi.
Vi can’t do a lot to defend herself without losing the progress on the tea spell – but she isn’t the target. Another fiery strike from Diafani’s sunblade destroys the cask and evaporates its contents.
Vi keeps on channeling the spell as the Spider gloats. And then Vi throws her flask of the remaining tea into the whirlpool, spreading the brewed erasure of the Mind Spider to every drop of water in the multiverse.
Uzi tackles her at the Spider’s command, but not so quickly that she’d ruin the throw’s trajectory. Vi has been preparing a greater restoration to use on Diafani – to loosen the mask from her face – but instead she uses it now, freeing Uzi from the Dominate.
As the Mind Spider moves in for an attack, the two grapple with Diafani – holding her arms and tearing the mask from her face.
Without its host, nothing is left to remember the Mind Spider. Cranzalar brings his sword down on the fallen mask, and crushes it to dust.
Diafani apologies for putting on the mask – she was so afraid and it offered her a deal – but she and Uzi hug it out.
The spirit of Ban appears briefly, freed from the Spider, before passing on to somewhere else.
And the party decides to just teleport back to Sigil, leaving the nice boat Zelena made just fuckin’ floating in the sea.
Roll History 