Murder Hobo Squad: A Lost Mine of Phandelver/Dragon of Icespire Peak & Beyond D&D 5E record (Beware Spoilers!)

We had everyone but Araloth in attendance this week, which is great.  His character is hanging around and just being ignored by the world until the player turns up.

They came up with a plan to open the North eastern doors of the sub-basement with Talindra throwing in a web immediately before anything could act.  They headed down there, everyone took up positions reading attack actions.  Talindra was ready to cast Web the moment Melandrach called out.  Mel tried to open the doors, but they were locked, and appeared to be reinforced extra strength doors.  They decided to open the only other doors down here first instead of try and pick the lock or beat down the doors.

They took up similar positions around the North Western doors, and Melandrach swung them both open.  Inside, the room was filled with dry rotted wooden furniture, rusty medical equipment, and filthy, desecrated texts.  A few old rotten trolley beds were pressed up against the walls.  On two of these beds they could see people strapped down and unconscious.  This was Bilba and Reidoth!  There were four other stationary figures around the room, dressed in old nurse uniforms, heads hung low, with their hands rested inside the opposite sleeves.  They did not react in any way to the intrusion and remained motionless, like statues.  Melandrach told the group what he could see.  Ramond pointed out that they had seen evidence that people tied to beds round here got tortured so they needed to go get their friends now.

Ramond went in to the room first and disturbed a rat near the doorway.  It ran towards the back of the room past one of the motionless nurse figures.  There was a flash of movement and the rat was diced and cubed in a splash of blood.  The nurse’s head was raised revealing pupil-less milky white eyes, and her hands were out, revealing elongated figures with long razor sharp claws.  After a moment she slowly reverted to her resting pose, not reacting to anyone else.  Ramond moved towards the nurse and attacked her with his spear.  Talindra stepped in to the doorway and took in the scene.  She cast Hypnotic Pattern covering the other three nurses, Bilba and Reidoth, but could feel no feedback through the upkeep of the concentration spell. (DM: We couldn’t tell if the caster knows if the spell has worked or not but its concentration so she’s still connected to it.  We made a call) She backed up saying her spell was useless.  The shouting appeared to wake Bilba, who looked around her and tried to reach for a dagger from her belt to cut herself loose from the old leather restraints.  The Nurse lashed out at Ramond, but he got his shield up in time.  The others remained at rest for now.  Thorivor put four arrows in to it over his shoulders.  Seeing this, Melandrach couldn’t control himself.  Laughter rose up through him, making him incapable of doing anything else.  Karson ran in to beside Ramond and attacked the same nurse.  The nurse behind him sprang to life and dragged her claws down his back so hard there was a shower of blood and he continued to bleed badly.

Ramond hit and Smote his nurse twice and then Talindra threw an Eldritch blast at each active nurse, killing Ramonds target.  Bilba was able to reach her dagger and started to cut on her straps.  The nurse took another swing at Karson and left him bleeding out on the floor.

Thorivor moved behind Talindra and put two arrows in to the active nurse while Melandrach continued to laugh uncontrollably nearby.  Ramond dragged the unconscious Karson out of the room, dropping him in the corridor behind the laughing Melandrach.  He then called out to see if the enemy reacted to purely ranged attacks as there had been some chat about this.  Talindra cast mage Hand and sent it to undo the buckles holding Bilba in place.  She jumped out of the bed and tried to Disengage from the nurse to join the others, but it lashed out anyway, missing her.  Bilba put an arrow in to the nurse on her way out of the room.  Talindra also put a minor heal in to Karson as this happened.  The injured nurse ran forwards and attacked Bilba, ignoring the more accessible target in front of her.  Her claws cut so hard blood spurted out of her, the blood loss doing more damage and she continued to bleed.  The other nurses moved 20 feet towards Bilba before stopping and seeming to eyelessly study the room around them.  Thorivor put two arrows in to this Nurse.  With all the shouting and screaming Reidoth finally woke up, took one long around him and Wildshaped in to a small spider.  He ran up the wall, along the celling and then Misty Stepped to behind the party.

Karson drank a healing potion as Ramond stabbed the nurse twice.  Talindra was now face to face with the nurse and was realising that it seemed to be completely focused on Bilba and possibly ignoring everyone else, and the others seemed to have been chasing her.  She took her chances and Blasted her, hitting with one and missing with the other.  She reacted to the impact and turned to face towards Talindra.  Her milky white eyes appeared to be looking over her left ear, but were hard to read precisely.  Bilba tried to back up while aiming her bow, but the nurse lashed out and left her unconscious and bleeding on the floor.  The two nurses in the room moved to where spider-Reidoth had last been and made attacks towards the ceiling.  The other one tried to head towards Bilba, but bumped in to the wall and Talindra and slashed out at the wall, leaving marks in the stone.  Thorivor put two arrows in to the confused nurse, as Melandrach, composure regained, killed her with a borrowed Longsword.  He then stepped over her corpse to defend the doorway.  Reidoth leant over and healed Bilba, as Karson readied his bow to shoot any nurse that advances towards an ally.

“We cannot rest while they remain to threaten us”, said Ramond as he ran in to attack a Nurse who was busy attacking where Reidoth had teleported from.  As he drew near, both nurses’ heads snapped to focus on him.  Talindra spoke up, “I think they’re drawn to movement”.  Talindra joined the fight with a couple of Eldritch Blasts and Bilba got up of the floor at shot Ramond’s nurse too.  The injured nurse swung at Ramond but missed.  The other stepped up and Karson shot at her, but it went wide.  She also swung and missed Ramond.  Thorivor put two more arrows in to the hurt nurse as Melandrach threw four Sunbolts in to the room, missing three times but hurting the nurse once.  He moved in to engage the uninjured nurse, ready to provide flanking later.  Reidoth moved over to heal Karson, who thanked him saying he was getting ready to “commit stupid”, and Reidoth begged him not to.  Karson walked in to engage the nearest nurse and sent out his sword Talon to provide flanking against both nurses in its Hawk form.  He swung his axe at the uninjured nurse and had Talon attack the other.  He injured both, but then the healthier nurse spun around and killed Talon, who quickly reappeared as a sword in Karson’s hand.

Ramond killed his nurse and the other one swung at him, missing again (DM Ramond has got lucky a lot today).  He stepped over to flank the final nurse, making his five foot step as over pronounced as possible, trying to draw its attention.  Talindra double Blasted the nurse and Bilba sunk an arrow in to it.  The nurse slashed out at Karson, but he was just out of reach.  Thorivor shot her and Melandrach stabbed her and then “engaged dancing steps” and took the long way around the room to flank her from the other side.  Half way around her head snapped to them and she seemed to focus on him.  Reidoth stepped in to the room and threw a flame at her, but missed.  Karson raised his axe high and brought it town in to her head, splitting the skull open.  She fell to her knees and then flopped on to her face, lifeless on the floor.

(DM: My party the surprised me by going heavy in to IC chat once again.)  They had a catch up, telling Reidoth and Bilba what had happened.  They tried to work out what was wrong with Melandrach causing him to break down laughing.  They wondered if it was a curse, perhaps.  Ramond was convinced he’d seen reference to the god Loviatar, the Maiden of pain earlier in the chapel, and tried to wrack his memory for any curses or anything they are known for that might do this.  He realised the chapel had no icons to Loviatar in it, but couldn’t work out where he’d got that idea (DM: He’d had a short lived memory drain effect last session that the short rest had cleared, but he was RPing up residual effect every chance he got).  Reidoth gave Melandrach a check over, making Religion and perception checks, but could only conclude that he looked tired, sweaty and unwell.  They asked Talindra to ritually cast Detect Magic to see if they could pick up anything on Melandrach.  While he was casting this Karson and Bilba searched the room.  It was full of old medical texts books and journals.  They found one that would work as a Dummies Guide to Medicine (DM: It’s basically a portable trainer.  Sink in a month of downtime or 20 mandays of reading and gain the proficiency), which someone had scribbled in the margins of with suggestions of how to inflict the maximum pain for the minimum damage and other creepy nastiness.  Karson took that for later.  With everyone moving around the room generating an occasional draft, he also noticed a piece of paper on the floor billowing enough to reveal colour crayon on the other side.  He carefully picked it up so as not to look at it, and put it in Thorivor’s Bag of holding.  Talindra’s Detect magic didn’t reveal anything and she huffed out of the room announcing that was a complete waste of her time.  Melandrach went after her to try and raise her spirits.  As a group they explained to Reidoth about Montarthas Manor, as he hadn’t been with them at the time.  Ramond took the lead on some of this and seemed to have some details muddled.  They explained about Gertrude the Hag, the Evil Doll, and about the Montarthas family, all of which they’d seen reference to here.

DM: They spent a long time doing a lot of cracking IC RP here and I can’t remember it all.  They really impressed me today and do so again later after the next scene.

When they were ready, they headed back to the locked door and got ready to do their readied web SWAT breaching technique.  As Bilba was pulling out her lockpicks Thorivor, far up the back, let out a whelp and a scream as something had landed on him from above and was trying to attack him.  As they spun around they could make out a roughly cat sized shape moving around on his back that they couldn’t get a clear look at.  The shape continued grab hold of him and move around as he tried to grab it.  They heard a small, but angry and ragged voice call out, “Give me back my drawings!  You can’t have them!”  As it ran around on his back slashing and punching, but missing, parts of it came in to view.  They could make out a mess of matted hair, and a porcelain face with multiple spiderweb fractures all over it.  Some of the cracks seemed almost melted like heat had been used to try and fuse them back together.  The evil doll had survived!

Reidoth commanded the doll to Grovel, but she did not react.  He shouted out, “Evil Doll on his back!”  Melandrach took one look at this and burst out in cackling laughter once again.  Realising he couldn’t get a good reach to grab a small moving target from his back, decided to throw himself backwards on the floor and pin her under his weight, which succeeded.  With the doll partially visible from under Thorivor.  The party moved up and began stabbing at her while she continued to demand the return of her drawings.  Ramond pulled his drawing out of a pocket and held it out, still folded.  He offered it to her if she stopped fighting.  She continued to shout out and try and wriggle free.  Bilba and Talindra attacked her again before she could wriggle enough to gain movement.  She stabbed at Thorivor once and vanished entirely under him.  A moment later the lump in his back vanished and he fell to the floor.  The doll had vanished.  Thorivor picked himself up and Ramond asked for the drawing from his Bag of Holding.  They needed more information and he was going to chance a vision.  Karson was behind Thorivor and found the doll had left behind a third drawing under him when she had vanished.

Ramond looked at the drawings one at a time and relayed his experiences to the group.  After each vision he tore the drawing in half, and then Melandrach burned it.  They also did this with the first drawing they’d already “used”.

Nurses Drawing:

Your vision begins to blur and everything feels both immediate and far away as you become aware of a horrific wailing, like the pained cries of childbirth. As you look around, your surroundings begin crumbling to ash, the ashes being pulled up into the sky and revealing the young, blond girl running down a hallway towards closed doors. Screaming can be heard from behind the door. She presses her way through the door, to see a bloody woman lying on the delivery bed, weeping uncontrollably. Two nurses stand at the foot of the bed, one holding the stillborn child.

Gertrude stands next to General Montarthas, who sits in a chair, weeping.  Seeing the girl run into the room, Gertrude steps toward her.

“Carol Anne,” Gertrude says. “You needn’t be in here child. Come. Let’s go.”

Gertrude takes Carol Anne by the hand and begins to lead her out of the room. Carol Anne looks over her shoulder and sees the nurses pass the baby between each other. The baby’s face is a twisted mask of pain and agony, with bulbous black eyes and a smile filled with clusters of needle-like teeth.

Your vision blurs and fills with a blood-red light, rendering you blinded temporarily, before your sight returns to normal and you find yourself back in the room with your allies.

Doll’s Drawing:

Your vision begins to blur and everything feels both immediate and far away as you become aware of a horrific wailing, like the pained cries of childbirth. As you look around, your surroundings begin crumbling to ash, the ashes being pulled up into the sky and revealing Carol Anne playing with the lifeless, inert Evil Doll on the floor of the hallway outside the Sanitarium. Gertrude walks up, carrying a swaddled child. Carol Anne looks at Gertrude with tears in her eyes and asks, “Is that my brother?”

“It is,” Gertrude replies. “He did not survive the birth, but I have ways of fixing such problems.”

With that, Gertrude leans down and lays the blanket on the floor, revealing a baby with empty black eyes and a needle-like sharptoothed grin.

“I promised you a present, didn’t I,” Gertrude asks as she stands up.

Overcome with joy, Carol Anne leans forward and hugs the demon-infant. She then introduces her dolly to the deformed baby while Gertrude watches with a perverse, evil grin.

Your vision blurs and fills with a blood-red light, rendering you blinded temporarily, before your sight returns to normal and you find yourself back in the room with your allies.

Ramond relayed the vision in his own words and they had another long IC chat about what they could mean and how their tied in to their past experiences both here and at Montarthas manor.  Again, Ramond played with the failing memory part and got some older details a little wrong.  Everyone did a cracking job and embraced the spirit of what was going on.  Reidoth asked if they were sure if The Hag Gertrude was definitely dead.

It was late and opening another door would trigger a long scene so everyone agreed to call it for the week.