session 14

The Brains of the Outfit¶

We watched, horrified, as the brain-thing began to skitter off across the floor. Velik sent a bolt of fire its way, it sizzled and burped as superheated air escaped its putrescent body. Repeated strikes from Gwen, Stigs, and Gloopwing finally reduced it to an unctious mass of fluid and brain matter, its thin tuberous legs folded up in a curl, like it was attempting to hug itself to death.

None of us had ever seen such a thing before, which given the diversity of experience present in the room was a remarkable fact all of itself. Velik toed the nightmare carefully and remarked that this was the most fun he’d had in quite some time. We hurriedly tried to discern whether this was the actual brain of Pyrrhos, or if it had somehow sprouted from him. There was no sign of any further brain material in the ruins of Pyrrhos’s skull, and it looked like the corpse’s spinal column had been enveloped in a variety of alien-looking dendritic tendrils similar to those that we draped lazily around the now corpse of the bring-thing. So whatever this was, it had been in control of Pyrrhos’s body. Wondering whether Crox had met a similar fate we inspected his body, Gloopwing attempting to probe between his ears with an extended pseudo pod. Velik made a more conclusive examination, by stomping down on Crox’s skull to reveal an entirely mundane looking brain ensconced inside. This was, we supposed, a relief.

We left Velik with an agreement to be on the lookout for any remaining members of Pyrrhos’s crew. Velik seemed happy to supply us with further work. He also left the book in our possession, seemingly happy to disassociate it from himself, at least for the time being.

We had recovered documents from Pyrrhos’s body that indicated some kind of exchange, possibly of kidnapped victims, was going down in just three cycles’ time. We need to find out where, and who, was making the exchange. There was also a cryptic note – “Z is no longer of use to us.” Was this referring to Zerrenia? We needed to find and talk with her as well.

But first we really, really, needed to take a long night’s rest. We decided a change of venue would be good for us, and found an inn and tavern in Ward Sophos called the Hidden Muse. It had a very comfy and discrete sort of vibe. It also had an active art house scene – Gwen and Gloopwing seemed particularly excited at the possibility of attending a poetry slam night. We all piled into a room and took a round rest in our beds, feeling renewed and invigorated after the last several night’s events.

We were also all excited to have a bit of time and money to shop for better armor and weapons, and in Gwen’s case, to research and develop new spells. Newly empowered, we started to plot our next steps.