Intruders Have Entered the Building

Okay, so this session of Pathfinder Strange Aeons was another game where I was tired and not quite with it, which led to me making a tactical blunder towards the end (I thought a spell was a single target, when it actually had a 30ft radius). At least nobody died, and it made for an amusing ending to the fight. Last week we had fought a shoggoth, now we were to head off to find more shoggoths.

Diary of Costian, continued…

I’ve lost track of the days in this place, but I think it must be coming up towards the end of Gozran, 4716. We rested in the library for the night, and the weather began to deteriorate, with high winds and snow descending on the city. Erasmus headed out at one point in the night to answer the call of nature, and whilst he was there the frozen corpse of an albino penguin sailed past him, smashing into the wall of the pyramid,

There were howls on the wind, a keening sound that sent shivers running down our spines. It may have been a Wendigo, filling our minds with thoughts of hunger and cannibalism. According to the two Librarians, this weather is most unusual for the city, so something special must be happening to cause it.

After we got our night of rest, we headed to the Mutate Lab, where the Star Stelae and ‘Mutate’ shoggoth could be found. The Lab consisted of two pentagonal structures connected by a long walkway. A shimmering wall of force surrounded it, preventing entry except via a single door which protruded through the force wall. The Librarians had told us that the way in was an ‘airlock’ that had sterilising defences to prevent contamination.

Sheena led the way inside, into a room filled with strange surfaces covered with buttons and blinking lights. An inner door had a pentagonal slot, but no other signs of locks or handles. On the door, in Aklo, had been scratched the words “The death we created is now our ruin, and it waits”.

Searching the room, we found a small pentagonal coin-like object, with the number 7 (in Aklo) inscribed upon it. It didn’t fit into the door slot, so we left it to Ray to try and open the door. He worked out that there was a fire trap set upon the door, but with help from the rest of us pushing buttons in the room he would be able to open it safely.

A short while later we were through the door and into a corridor, which led to a balcony around a 20ft pit. Passages led out from below, so Sheena dropped down and had a look around. Blocking one exit was a door with a pentagon on it, with the number 19 (in Aklo) written there.

On each side and vertex of the pentagon were indentations which would fit the small coin that we found. Possible this is some sort of complex mechanism, but before we could figure out what, Sheena had wandered into another room where she came across an Elder Thing. This one seemed slightly out of its mind, and also dead.

It gave out a cry of “Intruders!”, and threw a small bomb at her, which exploded in a crackle of electricity. She stabbed back, and a second undead Elder came tearing through the rooms towards her, completely ignoring Catiana and Gregor.

There was the flash of more bombs, so Catiana and Erasmus went towards Sheena to help, whilst Gregor stood back and provided ranged support. A small shoggoth, about the size of a person, flew into the room – this we assumed was the Mutate.

One of the Elders jumped at Catiana, attaching to her face, and the Mutate reached out with long tentacles, grasping at Sheena and Erasmus, hurting Erasmus badly. In the confusion I tried to take out the Mutate with an Ectoplasmic Eruption, trying to pin it down and rip it apart with ethereal energy. This was a new spell to me though, and I’d only used it at range before, so forgot that it had a large blast radius.

All of us except for Gregor were caught in the blast, and it injured Erasmus enough that when the Mutate struck at him he collapsed bleeding on the floor.

Catiana, still with the Elder Thing grasped to her head, walked into the nearby wall, dragging it along with her. That cleared the corridor for Gregor to shoot the Mutate, and to finish off the Elder Thing, and also for myself to rush to Erasmus and help Sheena provide him with some much needed healing.