Cranzalar dreamt of a deep sun fathoms below the ocean, boiling away the brine. A voice not entirely unlike Eadro’s came to him as he watched, and offered him a different kind of power. Cranzalar accepted, and awoke to find a greatsword rammed through his chest. He’d become a warlock. So now he was an undead dragonborn warlock/cleric with a cursed sword and a pact blade. This guy just keeps stacking up the modifiers!

Firuzeh dreamt of Aurifar running Cranzalar through before he vanished. And they spoke of the nature of their deal; how Firuzeh only swore she’d retrieve the deity’s power – she didn’t necessarily have to kill for it. Lilla was still there, and still mad.

Lilla’s presence in this dream sparked something in the back of Firuzeh’s mind: if, when a Royal is killed, their soul is pulled to this place with Aurifar, then where was Shallows, the exiled Tiefling running Dry Land’s smuggling operation from just beyond the City of Brass?

Vi’s dream of a giant dancing Moss was interrupted by the Mind Spider. It insisted that, since they were working together, it would offer a gift to help her preserve herself. After all, it didn’t want to be packed up in another crate. The Spider could lift some of the safety locks from Vi’s mind, and allow her to cast her Moonbeam spell more often – no strings attached. It also warned her that if she didn’t at least consider its offer, then she may never sleep again.

It wasn’t a very restful night for anyone.

Around coffee/hot brown morning potion, the three and Bailiff went through their next steps. It was agreed that their next target should be Argat, as they were reasonably sure of his location – his Hospital on the Fourth Tier – and of the nature of his power – Abjuration.

But before that, Firuzeh wanted to investigate the remains of Shallows, which meant getting back to the Plane of Fire. The Archive informed them that Shallows’ body had been completely destroyed, and his soul was converted to pure data: the rune left on the floor. To revive him, as Uzi was planning, would only be possible through the Wish or True Resurrection spells. As it stood, there was just one person capable of casting True Resurrection in all of Floodwall:

The Divine Royal, Diafani.

When last we left off, the party – we could really do with a better group name for them – were exploring the labyrinth beneath the city with the Royal Zelena.
They made their way through a series of tunnels, fighting off a Drider on the way, before coming to a locked door with an open hole in the wall beside it. There was a skeleton with a missing arm on the floor by it.

Uzi stuck her tail in and almost had the dang thing ripped off; fortunately, she was able to splash out of there. Zelena then decided she was the one that would deal with it, promptly getting her arm stuck in the wall. Her indestructible nature meant nothing got ripped off, so she eventually just kind of ripped it out of there.

And then she realised she’d lost her ring of three wishes. Seemed it had been pulled off her hand by the mechanism. Zelena went apeshit, smashing the wall and door apart, frantically searching for the ring.

Vi spotted it first, lying in the rubble.

And she immediately gave it back to Zelena. Zelena will remember this.

Zelena explained that she only had one wish left in the ring, and that she’d never been very good at magic. She can Conjure things, but she’s only been able to create a ring like that once. Her first wish with it was a good one which made her immortal, but apparently her second one didn’t work. She’s been saving the third.

The four made their way to the centre spire beneath the city to find a Mind Flayer and its pet Intellect Devourer that lurked there. The Devourer managed to reduce Cranzalar to a complete dumbass, and almost ate his brain, but despite this he still blew the fucking thing to bits. The Mind Flayer was polymorphed into a worm and placed into a jar of mayonnaise.

The central spire didn’t seem to have any shadow-y leviathan things around it. Zelena approached, and upon touching the spire’s surface, her eyes began to burn with sunlight and she seemed to have a fit – when Uzi tried to pull her away, the force seemed to pass through her like a current, and Uzi had a vision.

Aurifar sat in a featureless void. He spoke to Uzi, telling her that the Leviathan, now unchecked by Cranzalar’s belief in Eadro, had sought him out and attempted to take his place. In his weakened state, all Aurifar could do was try to maintain his will as the Leviathan infested him. It wants to unite the planes, to be whole again, but in doing so it’d reduce all of reality to an endless soupy pandemonium.

Uzi wanted answers. Aurifar promised he’d answer one question.
‘How do we stop the Leviathan?’

‘The method with the highest chance of succeeding is to return my power to me. Each of your Royals has a sliver of it. Well, except for Lilla over there, who’s dead.’
Lilla gives a wave, but it’s an angry one.

But Uzi’s suspicious. She wants him to confirm he’s not going to go all apocalypse if he gets his powers back.

‘I promised one answer,’ says Aurifar.

‘What if I pledge to return your powers to you?’

‘Yeah ok. No, I’m not going to turn evil if my power is returned to me.’

And with that, it’s a deal. Uzi has pledged herself to this weird fused god. She didn’t even ask about her parentage!

When the vision was over, Zelena was looking shaken as all hell. Seems she’d had a less productive meeting. She more or less immediately conjured a ladder out of the depths, and was gone by the time the party got up it.

Things are definitely fine though!

I’ll try and keep it brief, ‘cause I’m condensing three sessions into one post. (Later, Alex will only write recaps when at least 3 sessions have passed)

                In the aftermath of the Masquerade, Cranzalar had come back from the dead. Doing so had a few side effects – he no longer needs to eat or sleep, for example, and he technically doesn’t count as a living creature for certain spells. On the larger scale too, it seems that Cranzalar was the only worshipper of Eadro left, and since his death, his belief no longer shaped the god as it had before.

                Bringing back Cranzalar was Eadro’s last act before succumbing to the prayers of the Cult of the Flood, and fully becoming the Leviathan.

                The party decided it’d be wise to try and deal with what might be lurking underneath Floodwall, as they’d done in the tower on the Plane of Life. Hopefully, they could head off whatever the Cult was planning, and save Cranzalar’s God.

                After taking some time for research and supplies – obtaining information and trinkets from Nico Tippler and her dog-drawn market – they made their way down through the sewers and to one of the old stone doors Firuzeh had passed many times when she was younger.

                Figuring out how to get in, they found their way to an ongoing ritual around a sealed trap door, with hundreds of members of the Cult of the Flood gathering to take part. The three decided they needed to stop this no matter what, and waded in to battle. Vi even ended up using the Scroll of Foresight they’d kept, allowing her to see ghostly fore-images of events a few seconds in the future.

                Unfortunately, they didn’t have an exit strategy, and there were too many cultists to cut down (I really think it would’ve gone smoothly if you hadn’t been dealing with high-level casters to counter stuff).

                Despite putting a stop to the spell, and keeping the seal, well… sealed, the three were overwhelmed by sheer numbers and dogpiled by cultists. As the remaining two ritual leaders approached, knives in hand, Cranzalar mustered up a last-ditch well of divine power, and brought down a Guardian of Faith.

                It swept through those holding the party, and with a combination of their magic, the Vi, Uzi, and Cranzalar fled the chamber with the Cult in pursuit. Out of nowhere, a razor sharp spinning chakram flew over the party – with them only managing to avoid it thanks to Vi’s Foresight – and took out those leading the chase. And another figure entered the fray.

                Zelena, the jacked-as-fuck Royal with the green skin and bull’s horns, had seemingly followed the party down into the underground. But she leapt over them, pulling a greatsword from thin air, and just went to town on the Cult.

                In a gesture that was incredibly important, while watching from the wings, Vi foresaw a massive blast of magic about to slam into Zelena, and despite her being a Royal, she chose to warn her.

                After some shenanigans, and realising that Zelena hadn’t followed the party, she was just dungeon delving, Cranzalar fully utilised the opportunity that Vi’s warning of Zelena had created… by just, sort of, uh… being like ‘Hey, I’m Cranzalar, it’s cool to meet you.’

                And now, the party and Zelena have crashed down through the seal that the Cult were trying to get through, blown up a small horde of Beholders, sailed down an underground waterfall, and spent the night in a conjured caravan.

                Also, Uzi learned some pretty important shit regarding Tieflings – they can’t breed with other species. Zelena had tried before. And interbreeding was definitely off the table. Zelena had attempted other methods, but none of that had worked out.

                And Moss the Weasel is still in the Feywild, but he’s on his way back.

Weeks had passed while the group was in the Feywild, though thanks to some time-dilation bullshit they’d only been there for a few hours.

Immediately upon their return, Bailiff provided formal attire and masks, and they were whisked away to the 6^th Tier for Czerna’s Masquerade.

Flashing the tickets they’d purloined from the Heliodynes’ mansion, the party was nevertheless searched for weapons and such on their way in. Thankfully, Firuzeh was able to dissuade the security guard from wanting to leaf through her book, as a guard being disintegrated would probably cause something of a fuss.

Upon arriving and seeing the spread, the three each noticed a person of particular interest to them. Cranzalar, heading to the bar, made conversation with a somewhat-out-of-his-depth Redford, who was there in an attempt to drum up business.

Vi met Dry Land’s new second in command, a halfling woman named Nicobar Tippler, who was masquerading as a tall person; punching the air, constantly speaking into a sending stone, and announcing her status as ‘that bitch’. Between threatening to dunk on the party, she offered them free gift bags – ‘Containing a free magical gift, and you even get to keep the bag!’

The party obtained an Orb of Slope Detection (when placed on a slope, it will roll in the direction of the incline), a Belt of Disguise Self (the creature wearing the belt can disguise themselves as any creature that’s wearing the belt), and a Flask of Giant Strength (when opened, increases the creature’s STR to 25 (requires STR 26 to open)).

They also received a bag of holding each.

Uzi was very interested in the guy staffing the candyfloss machine. Something about him just set off alarm bells in her head, but she couldn’t get him to confess any wrongdoing. She also covered her whole arm in candyfloss.

And the Royals arrived.

Czerna first, descending a flight of stairs that hadn’t been there a moment ago. Next, Rosso, who came straight to where the party stood at the buffet table. Cranzalar brazenly started chatting with him, but wasn’t able to discern anything they could use against him before he wandered off to the bar.

After this, the candyfloss guy excused himself, before returning with robes and a new mask – Argat, the royal known for his hospital on the 4^th tier. He has something of a fondness for experiments, and it seemed this had been one of them.

Uzi, freaking out just slightly, attempted to hide under the buffet table. She was greeted by Zelena, who sort of nodded in acknowledgement before going back to the stack of pizzas she’d absconded with.

‘There’s fuckin’ Royals everywhere,’ said Uzi, emerging from beneath the tablecloth.

Cranzalar was still all business. He marched up to the throng of admirers around Czerna, and asked if she’d care to dance.

He was immediately escorted from the premises for his audacity ROLLED A NATURAL TWENTY ON HIS PERSUASION CHECK, and with a smile, Czerna accepted.

Unfortunately, Cranzalar had two left feet, both of which having claws on them. Czerna ended up leading the dance, and the dynamic this facilitated meant she was much more closed off with her answers than she might have been.

As this went on, Uzi attempted to apologise to Argat, in an effort to smooth things out later on. He stated that apologising now she knew he was Royal was the worst kind of backpedalling, and the whole reason he performs social experiments like that one. The guy’s just an asshole, y’know?

Cranzalar and Czerna’s dance came to an end with the clichéd dip-and-smooch, but they both had masks on so there weren’t any actual mouths involved. And that was the point when Mavi arrived.

He’d dried off since his last encounter with the party, and had a woman in a white tux and kitsune mask as his +1. Unfortunately his got a crit on his perception check, and recognised Uzi almost immediately. As he spoke in hushed tones with Argat – ‘The ones who murdered Lilla are here’ – the woman in the tux revealed herself to be Diafani.

Her plan was to kill as many royals as she could before her cover was blown. Uzi tried frantically to change her mind, but by this time Vi and Cranzalar had moved to try and pull Uzi out.

Using  Thaumaturgy and Druidcraft, they began creating ominous tremors and blowing out the lights – this had its intended effect of spurring the Royals into action.

Unfortunately, before moving to investigate, Mavi used Power Word: Stun to take Uzi out of the equation. The encounter that followed quickly became a desperate attempt to escape, as Mavi used Mass Suggestion to have each guest remove their mask.

He, Rosso, and Czerna advanced on Cranzalar and Vi. With Cranzalar blasting them away with thunderous power, and Vi using Confusion, they were able to slow down Mavi and Rosso enough that they couldn’t get close – but Czerna kept going. She flickered, just slightly, whenever she was hit.

She trapped Cranzalar in a whirling Mental Prison of gnashing mouths.

Meanwhile, Uzi had shrugged off the stun, and was pleading with Diafani for backup… but ostensibly she couldn’t get through to her. Diafani was too focused on her cover, and her mission.

Cranzalar had been shouting for Vi and Uzi to escape, and Uzi primed a Dimension Door – she and another creature could teleport away, to safety. But Vi refused, so that Uzi could use it to pull Cranzalar out. She Wild Shaped into a mouse, and with Uzi’s sorcerously-twinned Haste spell she was able to scurry off to their meeting point outside.

With a last ‘Fuck you’ to Diafani, Uzi sprinted to Cranzalar, and grabbed him. With her, he could escape Czerna’s spell.

But unfortunately, Mental prison is internal – it’s not enough to slip between the bars. Cranzalar took massive damage from passing through the walls, and when he and Uzi appeared in the street outside, the cleric tumbled to the ground.

Cranzalar had died.

The following hours were hard for Vi and Firuzeh, as they flew back down to their base, and tried to think of ways to reverse Cranzalar’s death.

Bailiff suggested placing him somewhere cold, to try and stave off the decay, while they tried to find someone powerful enough to raise the dead. The surviving members of the party kept watch, slumped against the wall.

Cranzalar’s soul, though, had encountered his god, Eadro. Eadro was warping, changing into something monstrous. His only worshippers left in Floodwall just knew him as the Leviathan. Cranzalar would need to fight his way back.

When almost a day had passed in the cold basement room of the Regicider Hideout, Cranzalar’s eyes snapped open.

BAD RECAP BECAUSE THE DM FORGOT TO DO IT RIGHT AWAY

Went to feywild – find dragonborn hatchlings, find a way to cure Edsel (Vi bro)

Upon arrivng and meeting with Granny Hestia, Vi’s druid teacher, they found that Edsel’s weird link to the Kraken was preventing the healing working on him. They’d need to figure things out with the source of hat.

That meant heading to the ocean. Brief Eladrin diversion. Uzi’s birthday.

Upon arriving, Cranzalar saw a tower in the distance: another floodwall.

They learned here was one of these towers in each known plane, and that theirs was the plane of water.

They decided they needed to investigate the tower and what was within, but before she left, Vi showed mask to Hestia. Hestia was like ‘guess you’ll die’

Cranzalar communed with Eadro to ask for answers – what is the tower? What is the Kraken? What is the weaver?

Learned that the tower was built to seal something. That there’s no such entity as the ‘kraken’. And that the Weaver is only present at turning points in history, stealing vessels and taking over.

They went to the tower, and found where Edsel had stashed the hatchlings.

Then they went to the bottom, and found a tiefling woman -Diafani – wrestling ssome weird shadow creature, pinned down by the tower’s centre spire.

It escaped, in the form of a weird little spider.

Diafani was quite unhappy, and said ‘gotta hunt that shit’. She told everyone about Tieflings having slivers of Aurifar’s power, and that they were supposed to pass them down. That it was her burden to be the immortal watcher of the towers, and the parts of the thing that they sealed.

That she planned to go to Floodwall and ensure the shards of Aurifar were properly inherited (via murder of Royals)

The shadowy thing’s escape broke its connection with Edsel, who seemed to have recovered. He told them of the books he’d been reading that led him to the creature – that when the planes were all one it helped bind them together.

That Aurifar split the planes and himself in the process, passing his power to the tieflings and pinning the thing beneath towers. He wanted the royals to protect the towers, but it ended up that only Diafani was keeping up her emd of the bargain. The rest were chilling on Floodwall.

Returning to the Regicider base after their somewhat harrowing day, Cranzalar, Vi, and Uzi were greeted by an incredibly cheerful Bailiff and a shower of confetti.

’You fuckin’ did it!’ they grin, ‘I’ve put together a bit of a party, to celebrate!’

The party, covered in cuts, bruises, and each having almost died at least once that day, elected to skip the party and get some sleep.

Cranzalar had a fairly ominous dream that night, of a watery abyss filled with statues of people he knows, and a colossal something swimming toward him. He woke in a cold sweat – if Dragonborns can sweat – to find the music still playing and the base seemingly deserted.

Following a trail of clues, the party found that the dragonborn eggs had hatched, but most of the eggs’ contents was similarly absent. They ventured into the depths of the base, gathering more of the hatchlings along the way – and a little glass shark – and eventually found Bailiff, blindfolded and tied to a chair in some kind of panic room. They’d been out to stock up on supplies, and when they came back everything just went dark.

Vi spotted some movement on one of the monitors, of a figure that had appeared in the room with all the hatchlings. It was Vi’s Brother, spiriting the baby dragonborn through a portal to the feywild. The party raced to confront him, and in the ensuing conflict, Cranzalar’s protective rage led to him almost killing Vi’s Brother.

For Vi, her perception of time slowed to a crawl, hours seeminng to pass between each heartbeat. The Mask of the Mind Spider spoke to her.

’I can calm your friend and save your brother,’ it whispered. ‘All I ask in return, is permission to move beyond just this mask.’

Vi refused. The cost – whatever it was – would be too high. She threw herself into the path of Cranzalar’s magic, splitting the harm between herself and her brother. In the struggle, Uzi was able to rescue the last remaing hatchling – a white dragonborn.

Cranzalar came to his senses.

He attempted to heal Vi’s Brother, and was just able to uncloud his mind for a moment – the party learned that Vi’s Brother took the hatchlings for the Leviathan, the entity worshipped by the Cult of the Flood. He said that since Dragonborn are originally of the ocean, the Leviathan is free to lay claim to them.

Then I’m pretty sure Vi just knocked the fucker out.

See, because of Ban being in it, then Lilla, and that snowball swarm and stuff. It’s a clever title, okay?

The session opened up with a brief flashback to Ban’s warning Lilla – who was casually murdering out at the festival on the second tier – about the threat to her backup body. She set off up to the castle, but hit some traffic with the whole sabotaged elevator business in the centre spire. Good move guys.

After the party got split by a trap with steel doors, poisonous gas, mimics, and a few more cryptic encounters with Ban, they eventually found themselves in the room with Lilla’s backup bod. Black stone walls held dozens and dozens of rusted metal drawers; the kind you’d expect to see in some post-apocalyptic morgue. Bathing the room in a soft purple light was a huge, rough crystal, and within it, Lilla’s Clone body was suspended, dormant until it was needed.

Uzi and Cranzalar were able to hit the crystal preserving the body, and the body itself, with enough force to shatter and destroy them. Being extra careful, Cranzalar used the Glass Sword to decapitate the thing.

Luckily for the party, Vi had been keeping watch for any unforseen variables – which arrived in the form of Lilla herself. ‘What the fuck do you think you’re—’ Lilla began, before trailing off mid-sentence. She’d realised what was happening, and what lay mangled on the floor.

Vi raised her middle finger, and in perhaps the most savage gesture in all of Floodwall’s history, flipped a firebolt off towards the backup body, partially incinerating it.

Obviously, Lilla didn’t react too well. The necromantic energy was billowing off her, and when she spoke her words were caustic. ‘You might have ruined that thing for use as a vessel,’ she hissed, ‘But you’ve given me a very special corpse to use. She and I together can raise hell in here.’

The charred, broken corpse of the other Lilla dragged itself upright, the severed head hanging above its neck, eyes never opening. Both Royals raised their hands, and their necromantic power lashed out like the collapse of an empire.

Each of the rusted drawers slammed open.

After heading out from the mansion – getting some better disguises along the way, including a heavy helmet for Cranzalar – the party made their way through the Privileged Tier, avoiding an altercation with some Church Guards that didn’t like the look of them with some fairly clever bluffing.

The centre spire was a bit more of a challenge to bypass – there were too many guards to slip by without a sufficient distraction. Vi and Uzi combined their magic to cause some major damage to the central lift mechanism that permits faster travel between the tiers. While the guards ushered the bystanders out of the centre spire, the party slipped away to the door leading upwards. Cranzalar had to kick the door in, leaving some fairly obvious evidence behind that someone had been through that way.

The party sprinted up to the teleportation circle before anyone could find them, and leapt on in.

Once they arrived in the castle, they seemed to be in some kind of cellar, with a big ballet studio style mirror. Reflected in the mirror was Ban, who knew everyone’s names and made a bunch of cryptic comments about what had been going on. He mentioned that Lilla’s backup body was being kept in one of the high towers, and that he’d set up a bunch of traps along the way for a bit of fun. Because, you know, Royal.

Uzi lost her temper and smashed the mirror, finding behind it a treaure chest. Inside the chest were a +2 Shield, a set of Mariner’s Padded Armour, and a Horn of Blasting. These were set aside to divvy up later.

Leaving the mirror room, the party navigated past an illusory pitfall trap, and found themselves in a round room with tracks around the rim – and ostensibly, Ban, snoring away on a chair. Despite Vi’s warnings, Cranzalar attacked, and found it to be a clockwork double, done up to look like the Royal. The attack triggered a trap with a massive rolling steel ball, getting faster and faster. Uzi stomped on the Ban head. Vi worried about her companions’ anger issues.

Cranzalar resorted to using the cursed Glass Sword to cleave out a hole in the path of the boulder, potting it like a golf ball. He took a big hit from it in the process, and the party decided to take a quick rest before proceeding. Traps are fine.

After crashing in the 6th tier, the party made their way into the mansion they’d landed on. The place had an overgrown rooftop garden, and living inside were some feral Displacer Beasts. However, Vi’s affinity for wildlife (and weird abundance of sausages) meant the party was able to avoid a fight and make their way into the mansion proper.

After searching through the place for signs of the owners, Cranzalar found a note from Mavi, thanking the Heliodyne family for their work on a prototype weapon for the church to use. Along with the note were three invites to an upcoming Masquerade Ball, being hosted by the Royal Czerna.

The party decided they needed to find and destroy this weapon, so set about looking for a secret lab. It was found behind a bookcase, and contained the bodies of the three Heliodynes – Victor, Astrid, and Lacrimosa. It seemed that they’d been completely drained of blood, and then had their throats crushed on top of that.

Then the weapon showed up. It was almost like a warforged, but with weird organic components. The party hid, and found blueprints for the thing – it had been made with an unholy melding of souls and blood magic. It couldn’t control the abilities it had been imbued with, and the Heliodynes had paid the price.

Uzi approached it, and tried to talk it down – naming it ‘Buddy’ in the process. She was able to withstand the force of its aura, and kept all her blood in her veins. But there weren’t many options for dealing with the thing. She, along with Cranzalar and Uzi, attempted to dispel the blood magic aura, but all they were able to do was to dispel the magic that created Buddy in the first place. Its form dissolved, and the souls trapped in were able to move on.

This had a pretty heavy effect on Firuzeh. She vowed to make the Royals pay for their part in this. While Vi and Cranzalar made sure to remove any traces of them being there, she fell asleep in the mansion’s kitchen. Also they found a Glutton’s Fork and a Jug of Infinite Mayo, so… you win some, you lose some, I guess?