Quick facts
Campaign: Campaign 2 · Session: 79 of 83 · Arc: Coghaven · Where: Coghaven: the lab and Packaging, Shipping & Logistics
Cabba managed only to ask whether Ellery was okay before collapsing. The party freed the vat survivors who were not marked “expired,” including a mermaid, and found a gnome-sized pneumatic tube leading up to Packaging, Shipping & Logistics. Wheelo’s assistant, Dr. Kochin, fled toward his office until Masha cornered him. He bluffed that he had planted a bomb in her head, then begged for mercy as a man of science. He explained that the Velvet Truffle Company was a trade partner that had supplied power sources as Coghaven developed ways to harvest living beings to run its machines. The party sealed him in the pod that had held Cabba.
On the lab’s security screens, the party saw every droid in Coghaven powered down mid-task. Dr. Wheelo had personally taken control of the whole city and stretched himself too thin. At the site of the Black Parade’s distraction, frozen security robots stood around the dead. Bram Briar, Rya Toran, and Mekel Way lay among the rubble, and Gen Way, the only survivor, sat in shock with Franco Yero’s body in her arms.
Kip rode the pneumatic tube up to Packaging, Shipping & Logistics and found schedules of upcoming shipments to the VTC, Shmamazon, and KrawlMart. One was a special expedited VTC shipment labeled “raw materials,” due for pickup from Bay 4 on the 3rd and already sitting in the bay. The party planned to send freed gnomes back down to rescue the people in the tanks, and claimed the CabbAutomaton for themselves. Masha used arcane eye to look inside the crate and saw shimmering green and purple crystals, similar to those from the Feywild but volatile. They were wrapped in five extremely powerful protective spells, which the party realized might be there as much to keep the crystals from exploding as to keep thieves out. Determined not to let the VTC have them, the party noticed that Bay 4 had no entrance other than the one they had used.
Ellery noticed that Cabba’s tail was gone. He had been restrained by it and had torn it off to come to her defense. Cabba explained that he had been searching a ship for something Vegeta sent him to find when he got careless and was caught. His captivity had been an endless cycle of exhaustion and shocks of pain. He had begged for death, but kept hearing echoes of a voice telling him to hold on. It was Ellery’s messages.
The party hid in lockers to ambush whoever came for the crate. Minutes before pickup, the ceiling trembled and a giant, dripping purple worm slithered down through a hole, circled the crate, and shrank into a cloaked humanoid with a beak. The creature recognized the party’s scent and accused them of following him. Wilbur and Escher had seen him before, as the giant bird that carried off the ghost petal wagon after Judge Vellum’s death, and this was the third time he had crossed the party’s path. He admitted that he sometimes does things that benefit the VTC but works for someone else. Masha’s charm person failed against him, and Wilbur’s attempt to bond over his girlfriend Bulma was met with the remark that Bulma sleeps with a lot of short men. One of the crate’s protective spells was dispelled, leaving four. Eager to leave, the creature introduced himself as “the Gnoloo,” announced that he was taking the crate back to the Mistress, and began transforming back into a giant worm.
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