Episode 6 "Brain in a Jar"

Session #:6 12/20/2020

5th of Dalian 2350 of the 5th Age

Recap

 * The session began as the party descended into the dwarven crypt to find a small room of stone with a single sarcophagus inside. The room was full of dust but upon further investigation, the party found the dust seemed to have been placed deliberately to hide footsteps.
 * Roxie lit the torches with her hair as Quirkell and Opal investigated the room.
 * Akhom and Roxie opened the sarcophagus and found a lever inside which they pulled. The lever released a gas that knocked Quirkell and Roxie unconcious.
 * Akhom and Opal worked to wake their party members as two dwarfs appeared behind a murder hole in the wall and began firing at them.
 * After a short fight, the party descended down a hidden set of stairs to find a bizarre underground complex made of a strange organic looking stone and membrain doors.
 * The party found evidence that a group was living in the complex, however other than the guards they mostly went about their search unabated.
 * The party found Gedan's room in a strange room in the ceiling, Opal and Akhom were able to open the chest WITHOUT throwing it 50ft to the floor. Inside they found some gems, papers, a coded journal, and a gas trap.
 * In the next room, the party found a massive, dead, brain floating beneath a glass dome filled with viscous fluid.
 * Akhom cracked open the dome and proceeded to eat a large portion of the brain as a tribute to his patron.
 * As Akhom chowed down, the party was suprised to find themselves face to face with an illithid wearing thieves leathers, accompanied by the floating corpse of Gedan.
 * The illithid forced its tentacles down its own throat to create a strange facsimile of a mouth turned up in a strange smile and introduced itself to the party, asking why they had come.
 * The party imparted to Mr. Smile the information that the Cutbeards were refining their sharpsugar beneath the temple of Hermes. Mr. Smile spared the party but warned them not to speak a word about him or the complex they were in.
 * As a threat he took them to a room full of brains in jars. He pointed to one jar with a particularly fresh brain and used his psionic abilities to open the parties minds to the fact that the brain was Gedan's and that it was still alive and screaming.
 * The party quickly took their leave and returned to the inn to discuss what to do next.
 * The next morning, Akhom and Roxie headed down to the tavern for breakfast. While eating, a rate with an exposed brain appeared to them and gave them a message from Mr. Smile, offering them a job.
 * Akhom and Roxie headed up to Quirk and Opal and told them about the message, which was written in strange runes that imparted a garbled  telepathic message when touched.
 * The party decided that before leaving Durador, they should earn some coin and that they should at least hear Mr. Smile out. They went to meet him at the edge of the graveyard that evening.
 * Mr. Smile told the party that he needed them to steal a sealed metallic jar filled with liquid from the court mage of the Rowangan, the ruling family of the dwarvish mafia that rules durador. In exchange he would get them passports into the city proper, and pay them 200gp.