Episode 55: Of Pistachios and Kings

It finally worked.

The Shiv of Healing, crafted from the blue crystal that was harvested from the disintegrated hallway deep within Chang Kai Eel's fortress during what had to be one of the Weirder Sessions (granted, there have been many... how do you begin to rank them?) of the entire campaign, finally saved a life.

The corpulent sack of flesh that was Captain Bonkers rose and thanked the Gods that he'd been spared. He'd been saved from an ignominious death at the hands of Inglorious Gravity, and longed to fight and pillage and maim and burn and kill once more.

(15 minutes later. I shit you not.)

With a click, the secret door locked behind the Captain and Stonehenge, and a vile green gas filled the hallway. While Stonehenge melded with the hallway to escape the poison, Captain Bonkers decided he'd had just about enough of living on this goddamned planet and inhaled deeply the miasmic vapours that would certainly bring him to his inevitable doom.

Outside the chamber, Koresh was busy trying to reduce to slag the statues in the temple foyer. His barrage of superheated steam had not only reduced a third of the statues to rubble, but had vaporized the poisonous coating of said statue, creating a Sinkhole of Lethality in the foyer, just outside the Hallway of Imminent Peril, where the Captain was throwing his last hit points away like a drunken, giggling septagenarian throwing her last few nickels into a sordid slot machine.

With his last bit of dying psychic energy, Bonkers reached out and connected with The Enigma, and with his last bit of will managed to whisper in the faintest of breaths: "Need help. (Just you)." Responding quickly to his fallen comrade, The Enigma raced into the Sinkhole, threw open the door, just managed to reach the Captain, throw his foot into the closing trap door, and pull him out of the hallway... before he died.

The Jade Scarab managed to race into the Sinkhole, fail a saving throw, and take 36 points of damage.

Dolorous, it must be said, watched most of the goings on with a detached wisdom that can only come from nearly dying once too many times.

Perhaps the others will learn.