Carla reaches a hand up and throws it downward. A pillar of light slams through the ceiling, adding to Mittens' electrical field and causing the beast even more inconvenience.

---

Brilliant Beacon v Spitter. Miss(17)

Even blinded, the beast manages to chomp Mits' arm!  BAMF!  Matt punishes the demon!  Then it chomps Mits' other arm!  And both her legs!  And her head!  Pop!  It pulls her apart like a yard sale action figure in the hands of a 4 year old.  But she just re-forms her parts and laughs!
This message was last edited by the player at 04:18, Wed 24 June 2015.

  Matt completely botches his attempts to hit on his turn.

  Good thing he already landed max damage on his AoO and has a damage stance up, otherwise he'd feel downright silly.

Angel fires a couple more bolts into the wound she first made in the encounter. "It clearly doesn't like you being near the portal. I'm guessing the portal will be easy to disturb!"

---

Twin Strike v Spitter. Hit(27)! Hit(38)!
 dmg: 31
 quarry dmg: 12
 total: 43

Spitter HP: 334 - 43 = 291

Mits nods.  "Handy that it's too stupid to realize I'm indestructible.  Taste lightsaber, dummy!"

Woom!  Mits misses the flailing hydra.  Woom!  Another whiff.  Woom!Woom!Woom!Woom!Woom!  Nope.

"Well that was embarrassing."

Maverick stabs the hydra again, causing it to roar in pain. "Don't worry. The demon is the one who won't live it down..."

---

King's Castle v Spitter. Hit(36)!
 dmg: 38
 poison attack hit(28)!

Spitter HP: 291 - 38 = 253

Carla summons some laser swords of her own that then descend on the hydra and hinder its attack movements some!

---

Scourge of Heaven v Spitter. Hit(27)! Yay for mem of 1k lives
 dmg: 19
 -2 to attacks (for total of -8 at the moment)

Spitter HP: 253 - 19 = 234

Frustrated with the perpetually re-appearing Mittens, the hydra multi-chomps at Matt.  Who shrugs off all six attacks.  It then turns it's rage against the stabby boy, taking another massive hit from Matt in the process!

  "Hey, just a thought.  Don't we normally worry about shutting portals in a desperate rush mid fight or something? Or does that only apply to scary hydra things?"

  Crunch, another bad day for the kneecaps of evil.

Angel fires a couple more bolts. One bounces off the hydra's hide, but the other pierces it. "As impossible as it is for the hydra to hurt you or Mittens, I'd almost say just ignore the thing and down the portal. But we'd have to know how and despite it's failure to harm you, it is still somewhat distracting."

---

Twin Strike v Spitter. Miss(22) Hit(38)!
 dmg: 26

Spitter HP: 176 - 26 = 150

"Mittens has a theory.  If we cut off all the heads in rapid succession, it will implode trying to regrow 12 heads.  Let's give it a try, shall we?  DRAGON'S NIGHTMARE!!!"

With a flurry of blazing swordplay and lightning, Mits cuts two of the heads to ribbons!

Maverick winces from the chomping and says, "Grow more heads, you pile sewage! I want to give you as MUCH pain as possible before my friends kill you!"

Upon hearing Mitts use one of his suggested move titles, Maverick gets a cute little genuine smile. And with that, another very painful stab! While the poison doesn't take this time, it hardly matters.

---

Fleeting Spirit Strike v Spitter. Hit(30)!
 dmg: 38

Spitter HP: 74 - 38 = 36

Carla flaps her wings and hovers forward. Even as she hovers forward, a glowing scythe appears in her hands. She swings it and all the rest of the heads get cleaved off!

Also, another kneecap's life is ended by Matt. Just for Matt existing next to it.

"The portal." she telepaths.

---

Angelic Blades v Spitter. Hit(28)!
 dmg: 25

Spitter HP: 36 - 25 = 11

The body of the demon writhes and shrivels as it tries in vain to regrow 12 heads.  It's multi-voiced demonic death-throe screams of agony accompanied by the gory bone-snapping implosion are the stuff that would haunt the nightmares of any normal person for years to come.

Imp raspberries the corpse.  "See that, Maverick!?  It obeyed you!"

Cherub finger-shakes the body.  "You get a very long time-out, you naughty hydra!"

Mits laughs.  "Yeah.  I think I'm liking non-darkside power flavors much more.  Thanks for the suggestions, Mav!"

They all nod to Carla and head for the portal.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:00, Wed 24 June 2015.

  Of course, we all know just how many normal people are in the room right now.  Hint, it's not a positive number.

 "I guess it was a dragon's nightmare because a not hydra has nightmares about not being as cool as a dragon?"

Carla steps up to the portal and begins working on it. It looks like this is child's play to her and she knows exactly what she is doing. Soon, the portal is closed.

---

+15 arcana and +17 history means Carla can roll a 1 and succeed on the skill challenges. She takes over the entire challenge.

Cherub cheers and flutters over to Carla.  "Huzzah!  High five!"

Imp grins and nods to Matt.  "Or nightmares of heroes tying its heads into knots!"

Mits blows up on her hair looking slightly disappointed.  "So after all that, turns out it was just a random portal opening from the Abyss in a sewer.  Still wonder how dead guy knew to mention us in his will.  And why he felt obligated to bequeath us a gem when by rights it should be the town that pays us for their survival.  Ah well.  I'm fine with never finding these things out."

---

Unless you have chosen to introduce Stromm
to the PCs earlier, this invitation should come as a
surprise. The truth is that Hallomak worried that
some of his more unusual treasures would attract the
attention of powerful demonic beings after his death,
and he hoped that the characters’ presence—as experienced adventurers—might keep things from getting
out of hand.

These creatures are the first wave of a small army of
abyssal denizens sent to recover Stromm’s treasures.

  "Honestly, most of our problems have been 'oh there happened to be some horrible thing along the way'."

Carla smiles at Cherub and high-fives.

Maverick has had nightmares ever since his parents died. Those nightmares got worse ever since that aberrant room with mouths for a floor. Not that he ever admitted this. Then again, the group has likely seen his pained expressions in his sleep.

Maverick says, "We have a town to attend to, and a man to bury."

Carla telepaths, "I will do what I can to cleanse this area before we go topside." sewage or no, this place is still currently tainted with something much more foul.

Angel nods and rests with the group. "Much as I'd like to leave this stinky place and rest topside, I'm sure there are some form of enemies waiting to ambush us the moment we leave the sewer."

Maverick says, "Then we will kill them too."

"I'll help any way I can," Cherub offers.

The taint in the water quickly fades with the portal closed.  Imp grins and thumbs-ups at Mav's declaration.  But no more monsters await the heroes.  Only breathless townsfolk brave enough to be anywhere in sight of the drainage grate, waiting to see if the heroes return unharmed.

"Another day, another demon hoard slain," Mits declares when she heads up.

The people cheer to see the heroes all alive!

  Matt can't think of a non offensive alternative to word how he's pleasantly surprised only one person died, so far as that could ever be considered pleasant.

  "Just to be safe though, you should probably keep some distance from Hallomak's collection until it is looked over."

Maverick climbs up and looks around at the cheering. "..." he gets a crooked smile and waves.

Angel climbs up after and Carla comes up after her. Angel says, "There were demons coming out of a portal from the abyss. Why, we don't know yet. But the portal has been closed and the demons who came through have been dealt with."

Cherub blink-blinks then nods enthusiastically at Matt's suggestion.  "There could very well be a very important connection!  Like maybe the magic items were what the demons were after!"

Imp shrugs.  "Seemed to me they looked more interested in killing people."

Mits nods.  "Well yeah.  Demons.  But now I'm intrigued about these magic items."

Close inspection of the magic items soon reveals that only a few are safe enough to be left in the hands of common folk.  Some bear minor curses and are bequeathed to people the late adventurer wanted to prank.  Most are tainted with abyssal energy and would easily turn a weak-minded townsfolk to evil.  The taint is nowhere near strong enough to budge the strong wills of the heroes, however, and are perfectly safe in their hands.  Given time being used for acts of heroism, the items would soon lose the taint.  And given that they have a lot of value in gold, the mayor humbly asks that the magic items be accepted as payment for saving the town.  The inheritors are perfectly happy with the tainted items being taken away.

---

For once, giving flavor for level-up magic item get.  I was thinking of joke mechanic.  Abyssal taint:  Once per week make an attack of -8 vs the will of the bearer of this tainted magic item.  Natural 20 is not an auto success.  Hit: the target becomes slightly more sinister.  Effects stack over time until you become consumed by the darkside or something.
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:47, Wed 24 June 2015.

  "I'm sure even demons have an appreciation for loot."

  After the investigation confirms the obvious, he says "If we didn't want to keep any of these around, I might be able to disenchant them.  Though that seems to hardly work with just the basics on anything inconvenient."

Carla telepaths, "Given enough time, we'll be able to wipe the taint away by using these items for heroic acts. It shouldn't take long for as often as we use our magical equipment for acts of heroism."

Either way, Carla says some blessings over the burnt skeleton of Bleak before allowing the citizens to arrange his funeral.

After the group sorts out the loot, Angel does her best to visit and console Bleak's family. Should the funeral be within a day or two, Carla will opt to stick around in order to preside over it, what with being an angel of the goddess of the dead and all.

However, if it seems it will take much more than 2 days, Angel will ask the group in private to move on with her so she can find her parents.