Cycle of Millennia 2021 Session 8: Barrel
Here is week 8 of my 2021 Dungeons and Dragons Campaign Cycle of Millennia. Lets go over session 8: Barrel.
Don’t forget that this campaign has been ongoing for over three years. There is a lot of story to cover and I’m writing a book series to document it all. I am adapting this adventure into a book series. The first three are on Amazon.
!!!Trigger Warnings Abound!!!
This campaign takes place in an incredibly unpleasant setting. The party has dealt with Human Traffickers, Sex Slavery, Child Sacrifice, The Apocalypse, Genocide, Wicked Cults, and other related topics.
There is a God of Madness that is fond of causing auditory and visual hallucinations, makes use of psychic gaslighting, commands the literal legions of hell, and all around causes untold suffering in the setting.
Essentially, nothing is off the table in this campaign. If the above ideas are not ones you want to think about, I do not think this blog series is for you. That is not a problem and does not indicate any failings on your part. I am a storyteller that does not shy away from the darkest topics. It would be horrible for me to not warn my audiences of this in advance.
!!!Final Trigger Warning. Past this point there be dark topics!!!
The party made use of the relative calm and even smaller threat of enemies to continue enjoying themselves. With the first floor complete, the inn at the ruins of Mongress would serve as a starting point to rebuild the entire city.
Grez the Monk made use of his free time to once again contemplate how to commit genocide against dwarves. It seemed that nothing could deter him from his goal. Unfortunately an instigator lurked at the same inn. Caetha an extremely dangerous Arch Demon suggested he use alcohol to kill them all.
Why was she allowed to instigate this? Well, who was gonna stop her? She was the reason that Nihilinn, God of Death had not sent its hordes to finish the destruction. Of course, serving a potentially worse God in Kranaak who’s goal included inflicting madness and suffering upon the entire world meant the party couldn’t just ignore her either.
Up to Old Tricks:
Velkora had done her best to stay at arm’s length from the Cult of Orabaras. But after seeing the world get worse, she had slowly relapsed into her old ways. As Orabaras was the Goddess of domination, she decided to kidnap a random nearby soldier named David for sexy happy time.
With one of the party now off doing her own thing, Grez took an oppertunity to put his new deadly plans into motion. The Monk turned invisible using one of his many underutilized skills and stole the closest barrel. A barrel filled with alcohol.
Most of the remaining party were too drunk to take notice of the Monk’s antics. Unfortunately for his plans, Rose, former and possibly current member of the Cult of Orabaras was not one of them. Since she is a Dragon, even when not in her true form, she was able to see him as if he hadn’t vanished at all.
Up to New Tricks:
Grez took the barrel to the only place he could hide it quickly: Lord Death’s Necropolis. While the master of the abode asked what he was doing bringing that aboard and all alone at that, the Monk rebuffed his questions. Finding a nearby room, isolated from the top floor, he hid his weapon of future destruction.
Rose had overheard Caethia suggest to Grez that he should set them on fire with their own booze and warned the rest of the party of his intentions. Hadron and Caic rushed out of the inn, despite the drunken states and ran after him. Rose went with them, the alcohol having far less of an effect on her.
Grez returned to Mongress and fell asleep in the nearby wine tree. Content with his plans, he didn’t care that his companions might try to stop him. Unfortunately for him, he completed his tasks too fast and the rest of the party found him quickly.
Rose flew up to the branches and tried to get Grez to tell where he hid the barrel. Not that this did her any good. He simply denied plausibility. And since he possessed an item that made it impossible for anyone to read his mind, she had few options to get it out of him.
Deadly Mischief:
Caethia appeared once again to cause more trouble said she would tell Rose where it was if she could convince Grez to have consensual sex with her. Then she vanished as quickly as she appeared. Why had she decided to make that request? Only the Demoness knew the answer to that.
Hadron the Barbarian grew impatient and tried to knock Grez out of the tree with magic. Somehow in unexplainable fashion the Monk deflected said spell while remaining asleep.
Artin the Elven Druid sensing danger to tree, came running outside to stop it. Hadron decided not to continue causing harm. He considered her a friend and ally after all.
Instead he asked if she could move tree. The Druid claimed that she lacked the power to move trees. Considering that when the party first met her in what seemed like forever ago, she had attacked them with walking trees, Hadron doubted this statement heavily.
Failure:
Velkora returned, disappointed. As it turned out, kidnapping random men did not lead to the best sexual encounters. She didn’t understand what was going on with Grez, but assumed he was up to something stupid and violent as usual.
Artin returned to the inn knowing that the tree was safe. Meanehile, the reunited Party returned to the necropolis and Rose, frustrated at these events went with them.
Lord Death immediately revealed where the barrel was. Grez probably should have picked a better hiding place.
Furious, the Monk ran to the room with his future weapon and summoned an Earth Elemental to keep others away from the barrel that he claimed was his. Though it was actually Velkora’s
Lord Death explained a strategy to find the Nihilinn Cultists. He Suggested temporarily killing the other Liches despite their ability to return from their phylactery, they seemed to be unable to maintain the barrier while regenerating new bodies.
Best of all, he informed them that according to the scroll, they would be gathered on the next full moon. The group needed to cause some violence when that event occurred. This was the best case scenario.
The Children Open Up:
The others agreed to the plan. Lord Death had a warning though. They would only have one chance to try this and needed and everyone except Hadron went to sleep.
Instead, he spoke with the matron and finally, the kids decided to open up to him. Especially when he mentioned his adventures. Finally revealing their names to him, they asked him to take them to the elves. He reluctantly agreed.
Caic woke up to three orphans treating him like an animal on display. He kindly set the record straight. Despite Hadron’s best efforts to tell them otherwise, they didn’t realize that Dwarves lived in cities that just so happened to be underground.
Meanwhile, Velkora returned to the barrel. Grez ran after her. She asked what he intended to do with that. He claimed that he meant to kill all the Dwarves with fire.
After realizing that Caethia played cruel joke on the Monk, she decided to let him have the barrel. After all, Beer was in that barrel. It didn’t have enough alcohol to even burn much less cause the destruction that the Monk desired.
Grez annoyed decides to return to Mongress to get food. Lord Death pointed out that the dead did not need food. Velkora followed him so she could continue help build.
Hadron, Rose, and Caic decided to go with the orphans to see the Elves at the Northwest Elven Village. Artin was in Mongress, but Hadron feared bringing the children back to where they had seen the Tarrasque might cause them to suffer trauma. He also feared what Caethia might do to their innocent minds.
Wrap Up:
The party is split. Oh no. What might happen to them in this time of weakness?