Session 1: Pandemonium Parcel Pickup (Nov 6th, 2024)

The Players

Traugon the hill dwarf forge cleric, played by Hunter
Valhalen Vrocks the paladin, played by Kimble
Shadow the halfling thief, played by Richard
Zachary the high elf invoker, played by Brannon

The Adventure Notes & Stat Blocks

The Void

The party awoke in Prime's Void once more. This time, all but Zachary were seated at a comfortable conference table. Zachary found himself in one of Prime's strange glass tubes. For a moment, they were panicked to be exposed to the open void, but they quickly realized they were suffering no ill effects.

Prime appeared in his window (can he even leave that thing?) and tasked them with another mission. They were to be sent to Pandemonium, the infinite plane of darkness, madness and endless biting wind. There they should seek out Agatha and pickup a parcel. Once they secured the parcel, they would be returned. To ensure they could find their way, Prime gave them a magic compass because, "Pandemonium can be tricky." With that, they were slurped up by portals at their feet and found themselves in the frigid caverns of Pandemonium.

Pandemonium

Pandemonium was even worse than they were told. The wind was unrelenting and maddening. It carried every sound that had ever been made on the plane and echoed many strange sounds to the party. They heard laughter, crying babies, quiet whispers and angry shouts all carried on the wind. The caverns were narrow and winded like insane anthills.

The party clustered close together for safety and comfort, and so that they could hear one another. Past 10 feet, not even their friends' shouts could be heard. Traugon carried the magic compass, which now produced a large glowing green arrow pointing into the distance. The arrow was large (3 feet or so) and dimly shed light for Shadow to see. For once, the darkness was not in Sahdow's favor. Seeing his struggles, Traugon lit the way with a Light spell. As they traveled, they noticed that slowly the arrow was growing smaller. After some experimentation and an Identify spell from Zachary, they were able to determine that the arrow would grow smaller as they approached its target and disappear when they were close. Feeling more confident they continued deeper into Pandemonium.

The Darkness

After a few hours travel through the winding caverns, the party arrived at a wall of utter magical darkness. Zachary attempted to dispel the darkness, which removed a large portion, but unfortunately left even more. With his knowledge of planar lore, Zachary realized that this was a "natural" feature of Pandemonium as a plane of Darkness. The only member unaffected by the darkness was Valhalen. His warlock pact allowed him to see through magical darkness. To avoid being separated, Shadow suggested they tie themselves together with a rope. With that, Valhalen lead them into the magic murkiness and after a few nerve wracking hours, out the other side. At this point they began to hear angry voices ahead, which they realized might not be echoes. They untied the rope, so that they could fight unencumbered.

How's the Weather?

As the party cautiously approached the sound of arguing, they saw two pathetic individuals. They were malnourished and pale with wild windswept hair grown out and tangled. As the party got closer, they realized the two were likely petitioners. (Petitioners are mortal souls who were sent to a plane as their afterlife for the life they lived.)

The two petitioners were arguing over whether the weather would be sunny or rainy tomorrow. They tried to get the party's opinion. Most were confused as it was obvious that there would be no weather but windy and dark in the infinite caverns. However, Zachary said that it was overcast, which made the rainy petitioner pleased. Then Valhalen said he thought it was going to snow which enraged both petitioners. Seeing no point in indulging their obvious madness further, the party left them behind.

Did I Forget Something?

As the party traveled deeper, they realized that over their head ran a deep dark river. This was the point at which they realized that gravity was subjective to the "floor" and that the walls and ceilings of the tunnels were equally valid "floors". With a little bit of planar knowledge, Zachary pointed out that the water might be magical. The Styx was known to flow through many of the lower planes. Traugon wanted a sample of water, which Shadow used his magic climbing slippers to provide. He sealed some of the water in a vial Traugon had Fabricated in the Salt Flats in Episode 1. With the vial sealed, Zachary cast Identify on it and confirmed it was Styx water and would cause memory loss to any splashed or submerged in it.

The party was preparing to move on when a gust of hurricane strength wind whistled through their tunnel. As no one was tethered anymore, Traugon was caught up in the blast of wind and was tumbled around and slammed into the walls. He was so stunned that he was unable to grab hold of anything and was dragged near the river and hit with spray from the wind. He immediately began losing his memories, but was able to resist most of the effect. Unfortunately, the last thing he could remember was arriving at Prime's Void. Brushing himself off and standing up, he realized he was in a strange place with no memory of how he got here and no party members in sight.

Shadow seeing Traugon getting flung away immediately ran after him, trying to follow through the twists and turns of the winding caves but quickly lost the trail and lost his way in the dark. The others tried tracking their lost party members but lacked the skills to do so. It was looking dire as the party was split and you never split the party... Fortunately, Traugon was the one with the magic compass. Lacking further clues he decided to follow it and met with Shadow. Following the trail to Agatha further, they were relieved to meet up with the others. The party quickly realized Traugon had been affected by the water and began explaining some of the things that had happened so far. He would remain slightly puzzled for the rest of the adventure by various minor details they left out.

The Voices Ahead

The party heard voices ahead, but as the compass led another way, they chose not to investigate. Only you the readers will know that had they followed the voices, they would have found the timid Waxleaf Gatherer tribe. A tribe of lost souls which travel the caverns in search of the elusive Waxleaf plant which when chewed and inserted into the ears provides temporary relief from the maddening winds. The tribe is eternally hunted by their traditional foes, the Blood Hooves, a seemingly endless herd of Armanites, demonic centaurs, who pursue them through the endless caverns.

Time to Vrock!

As the party traveled on, they came to a portion of the tunnel that was smeared with filth and oily feathers. The floor was covered in bits of bone and the smell was awful. They realized they were in some sort of monster den and were not surprised when three Vrocks, shrieking demon vultures, leapt down from ledges above and tried to surround them. The demons' claws were no match for the heavy armors of the party and with spell and blade they quickly butchered the Vrocks. For their part, the Vrocks fought on in a mad rage. They almost seemed to hope to die, as that would free them from this plane and send their essence back to the Abyss.

The Squig Salesman

The party found that the floor was paved in cracked and ancient stone in this part of the tunnel they were entering. Before long they came to an area that was full of rubble from ruins. There they began to see tiny, strange shadows from the corners of their eyes. When they looked closer they saw that they were some sort of creature that appeared as living charcoal sketches. The type of sketch changed from moment to moment as they raced around, sometimes a man, sometimes a beast. As they went deeper into the ruin filled tunnel they found another mad petitioner. This one was running a food stall made of scraps where he was grilling squigs. They slunk past him, while Shadow snatched one of his grilled squigs. Confused to be missing a squig, he shook his head and said,"MUST HAVE BEEN THE WIND". After Shadow fed the grilled squig to the puppy angel he pupnapped from the Puppy Paradise Planes, they went on.

As they left the ruins they were confronted by a strange figure in a tattered noble's cloak. He wore a happy faced mask and on his hip were two more masks, one sad and one angry. He loudly demanded, "WHAZZZZZZUP?!?". After a few minutes talking with him it became clear that he had multiple personalities, each tied to one of the masks and that they all hated each other. By this point, the party had enough of madness and they rudely shoved past eager to finish their mission and leave.

Agatha

As the light of the compass faded, they party entered a larger cavern. In it was a dark pool of familiar water. Over the pool loomed a rickety stone building built on rotting wooden pylons. The sign over the door read "Agatha's" and beneath it in smaller letters, "Try our kids menu". The party let out a sigh of relief. The end was in sight.

Walking up the creaking wooden steps and into Agatha's they were confronted by a leering hag sitting behind an innkeepers desk. The single room seemed otherwise empty, though there was piles of junk and debris lining the walls. As the hag answered to Agatha, the party politely asked for Prime's parcel. Agatha agreed as long as they paid. She explained he had put in his order but hadn't paid yet. Checking their guts, they believed her, despite hags being known liars. It just seemed like the kind of thing Prime would do. Valhalen asked what the cost was and Agatha replied,"One soul." The party was obviously displeased to hear this and began discussing their options. They considered just attacking her, but feared fighting a hag in her lair. They also briefly considered surrendering the angel puppy's soul, but decided to try negotitiating. After some very smooth talking by Valhalen, they eventually convinced her to accept gold instead. With the parcel in hand, they left Agatha's behind and before long they felt the pull of Prime returning them to the Void.

Prime's Parcel

Back in the Void, Valhalen delivered the parcel and was compensated for the gold he paid after some grumbling by Prime. The party was mostly unsurprised when the parcel contained a foot long sandwich of unknown meats served on baby bone bread with madness mustard. Tearing into the sandwich Prime declared, "You can really taste the madness in the spicy mustard!" And with that they were sent away to their normal lives until Prime's next mission. A simple fetch quest, but when hags and gods of unknown power are involved, is anything as simple as it might seem? Why did Prime want Spelljammer magic? What else might have been in that package? Find out more in the next adventure of Prime's Stellar Troubleshooters!