The Hyoshigi

"The Hyoshigi" is episode 58 of SuperQuest Saga. Echo, Persephone, and Sebastian head into the "icky labs" with The Needlemaster reluctantly in tow.

Introduction

 * Will Stark shall be your icky dungeon master for this evening.
 * Josh Freeland is playing Sebastian Crenshaw, The Forsaken.
 * Your Special Guest Jake is playing Persephone Goldpetal the firbolg druid.
 * Brian is playing Echo the space wizard/rogue.

Recap
Last episode a lot of things happened, Echo, Persephone, and Sebastian made it to the second level of The Bellerophon where they immediately ended up on the run from a giant robotic spider monster. They found several live devil dioramas, taxidermy style devil figures that were still alive but unable to move. Then they found the dude who was doing that, The Needlemaster. They noted that north of the area they were exploring there is a hallway quarantined with plastic partitions and beyond that the floor and walls are covered in blood. The Needlemaster said that beyond these “icky labs” is where the Masked Ones are. With The Needlemaster in tow, the party now stands before the quarantined hallway.

Needlejuice
Echo decides to call The Needlemaster “Needlejuice,” which The Needlemaster agrees to since “needle” in the name is his thing. Persephone questions why they’re bringing The Needlemaster along since he isn’t familiar with this part of the ship since he doesn’t leave his room. She’s concerned he will try to betray them. Sebastian listens for any activity behind the partition, but does not hear anything.

Persephone casts Pass without Trace so they can explore stealthily. The partition is not open, they have to unzip it to enter the area. Echo continues to keep Needlejuice at swordpoint and passes him roughly to Sebastian before examining the sheet. It is a pretty standard plastic used to prevent cross-contamination, mostly to keep the mess contained inside, but not to keep contagions from spreading. Echo makes sure his armored suit is on to keep his atmosphere clean and silently unzips the plastic.

Beyond is a bloody hallway that extends 30-ft forward to another partition with a clean hallway on the other side. Echo can see that the bloody hallway hangs right and the mess continues that direction, and there is a big steel door to their immediate left with a push button. Sebastian asks Needlejuice to confirm he’s never been in this area, and Needlejuice emphasizes that it is gross up here. Persephone asks if the Masked Ones are in the “icky labs” or somewhere else. Needlejuice says they are past the “icky labs,” you can usually hear them playing their song. Echo wants to push the button and asks what Persephone and Sebastian think. Sebastian says go for it, Persephone is hesitant but Echo presses the button before she can finish her thought.

The heavy steel door slides away and from inside a cold fog comes wafting out and inside is a large freezer room filled with humanoid body parts; heads, torsos, legs, arms, all organized and on different shelves. Sebastian thinks they found the meat locker, and Echo enters and investigates the room. He is fairly confident there is not much here of use, the only thing that wasn’t visible from the doorway is that there are pull-down doors along the walls that seem to be attached to chutes from where the body parts are sent from.

They hear the sound of a door opening from further down the bloody hallway followed by the squeaking of wheels of a cart and some goblinesque voices shouting “Hurry, it’s time! We gotta go get some!” Echo tells Needlejuice to send his boys up and hides as a lab cart comes careening around the corner. Aboard are two impish looking creatures, one blue and one yellow quasit, a third quasit pushes the cart from the side and a big green quasit pushes the cart from the back. The quasits see Persephone and Sebastian but completely ignore them and dash into the freezer room.

Echo The Intern
The big green one starts barking out orders and spots Echo. “Who the hell are you?!” Echo introduces himself and asks what they’re doing. The green one tells him they’re getting dinner. Echo tells them not to mind him, he’s just checking out the area. The green one says “Whatever.” The quasits start piling the body parts on the cart. Echo tells them they seem cool and asks who is hungry. The yellow one speaks up and says they usually eat around this time, Legius is hungry so they came to fetch the food for him. Echo asks if they need help. The red one eyes him suspiciously and asks if he’s planning on stealing some food. Echo tells them he is an intern. The blue one speaks up and suggests that Echo could be Quado’s replacement. Echo says they didn’t tell him who he was replacing, they wanted to try him out so here he is.

The big green one speaks and says Quado was mouthy, so she ate him. Echo pulls out the materials card he crafted and asks if the quasits know what it is. The green one looks and tells him it’s a materials card for downstairs and asks how he got it. Echo tells her the boss gave it to her and puts a leg on the cart. She asks if he wants the card and offers to buy it from him for the choice head. Echo tells her that he thinks he needs to use it but he’ll make the trade when he’s done, and he asks her where he needs to go to use it. She tells him it’s used downstairs but the Lady Kamisa might have a use for it upstairs. The quasits don’t really go up there so she’s not sure. She asks if all the quasits are ready and they get ready to go.

As the quasits leave, they point at Persephone, Sebastian, and Needlejuice, asking Echo if they’re with him. Echo says he found them and asks who they are again. The big quasit introduces herself as Una, and her brothers as Secundus, Tertius, and Quintus. Sebastian says they’re with Needlejuice, The Needlemaster. The quasits are excited to see The Needlemaster, and he seems less excited to see the quartet. From behind the quasits, Echo makes an intimidating gesture at The Needlemaster, who starts making small talk. Persephone tells The Needlemaster he has some cool friends, and The Needlemaster quickly whispers back that they’re not friends, he thinks these guys suck. The quasits leave for dinner time and follow the trail of blood down the hallway.

Cadaverific!
Echo commits to the bit and follows the quasits. Persephone, Sebastian, and The Needlemaster follow as well. Echo asks Una about the crying robot princess and she has no clue what he’s talking about. He asks them how long they’ve been on the ship, and the quasits think they’ve been there for about a century. They assist Lady Kamisa with her experiments.

The quasits lead the group into a large room that is akin to a coroner's lab, if a coroner was a psychopath. There are cadavers that have been dissected and amputated covering the tables, a strong smell of formaldehyde fills the air, and the chalkboard lined walls are filled with detailed lab notes. The quasits head towards a door on the east side, preparing to enter the next room. Echo follows with Sebastian, Persephone, and The Needlemaster trailing behind.

The quasits enter the next room; the party can tell that it was once a laboratory but is now just a terrible mess. It is littered with mostly rotted viscera and entrails so it smells horrible, some tables have been pushed together into the center of the room to form a long feast table, and the rest of the tables and equipment have been pushed to the side and are covered in dust and blood. On the other side of the table looms a large monstrosity; 11-ft tall, standing on spiny devilish legs, one pale white and one green, one of the arms is bright red and ends in a big, meaty claw, the other is black and covered in long frills ending in a three-fingered hand. Its head looks similar to that of the quasits but much larger, with two long black horns curling from the brow. Where it should have a mouth, it instead has a long worm-like appendage about 5-ft long and ending in a tooth sphincter. It is absolutely horrific to behold and it lets out a very gross sound.

The quasits immediately start piling body parts on the table and this big, lumbering, fiendish monstrosity gets its worm mouth thing and starts eating. The quasits start eating as well and it’s really gross. The Needlemaster is disgusted and Percy agrees. Echo starts looking around the room and sends a Whisper to Persephone to see if she wants to check out the previous area while the quasits and the fiend are occupied with dinner.

Echo finds a lot of equipment from the medical field and a large titanium door on the south side of the eastern wall connected to a computer apparatus. When Echo pokes around he finds that it seems to have a retinal scanner and voice password option for opening the door. As he’s fiddling with it, Una looks up and tells him not to mess with it, Lady Kamisa doesn’t let anyone back there. Echo asks if he should know what’s back there if he’s going to be involved. Una doesn’t know what the Lady does.

Echo asks what the Lady has been up to lately, the red quasit speaks up and informs Echo that they haven’t seen Lady Kamisa in a few months. She usually hangs out on the third floor. Echo asks what they do while she’s away, and they tell him they just hang out and eat. Echo asks what’s on the third floor, the quasits don’t know since that’s her private lab. This area is the Necro-Lab where she does a lot of body work, the other stuff she does upstairs. Echo asks if Lady Kamisa stitches stuff together like Needlejuice, the blue one speaks up and says Legius, pointing at the monstrous fiend, is Lady Kamisa’s creation. Echo asks Legius how it’s going, and Legius turns to look at him, makes a horrible noise from the end of his mouth sphincter, and goes back to eating. Echo asks whose eye is needed for the scanner and Una tells him it’s Lady Kamisa, this is her lab.

Echo checks out the computer to see if he can bypass the scanner and sees that the computer has top notch security like nothing he’s ever seen before. It would take a lot of effort and resources to physically break down the door.

Rapping at My Chamber Door
Persephone doesn’t really find anything in the other room, but as she’s searching she hears a distant sound. It’s a tapping sound with a peculiar pattern; it starts slow, ramps up, then slows again before going silent. Persephone calls Echo as quietly as she can on the bracer jack. The quasits have fulfilled their hunger and lounge about in food comas so Echo can back out without incident and join Percy.

Persephone tells him about the knocking in the distance. She suggests that the party should continue north since this area might be a dead end. Echo removes his helmet and walks over to Sebastian and Needlejuice, pulls his sword from his helmet and points it at The Needlemaster. He asks “What’s the tapping, Needlejuice.” The Needlemaster begs Echo not to hurt him and says it is probably the Masked Ones, they’re the only ones who go in the direction the noise came from. Echo asks Sebastian if he’s good to keep an eye on The Needlemaster, and when Sebastian confirms Echo goes back to the quasits to ask about the tapping.

The quasits reveal the tapping is the hyoshigi, the Masked Ones, and the tapping happens once every ten minutes or so. Echo presses for more details and Una tells him there’s some sort of equipment testing going on up there, Kamisa has it under surveillance. Echo asks about the Masked Ones and Una says she wouldn’t fuck with them. Echo notes that everything here is so strong.

Percy states that even though the Masked Ones are strong it seems like that’s the way their path is leading. She stays ready in case they have to fight. Echo asks what the party thinks of his intern scheme and if it will fly with whatever they find on the upper level. Sebastian thinks it is very smooth, but might not be believable depending on what they run into. They also have the moppets in case a fight breaks out. They venture back out into the bloody hallway and prepare to move through the northern partition to the clean hallways beyond the “icky labs.”

The Guardian Song
The Needlemaster says “icky, icky, icky!” as they step through the blood, Persephone agrees with this sentiment. Echo tells Needlejuice to shut up, but makes a point to agree with Percy. Echo stealthily unzips the partition and scopes out the hallway. He investigates the door on the eastern wall and finds a button to open it. The party decides to move forward, and Echo opens the door.

Beyond is a small T-shaped room with two unmanned computer modules displaying various energy and data readouts. There is a heavy metal door on the eastern wall with a viewing window. Persephone steps up to look into the next room, a large and mostly empty room with a dangling object floating in the center. The object appears to be two long cylindrical blocks of wood connected to each other by a thin string, their faces decorated with purple glass orbs. As Percy watches, the blocks start moving on their own and she hears the same tapping sound from earlier. As soon as the final tap ends, a white energy bursts forth from the objects and forms a glowing, white forcefield that maintains itself for some time.

Echo senses that this is divine energy, and because it is a defensive magic he thinks it could be the Guardian Song. Echo, Persephone, and Sebastian have never seen an instrument like this before. Since Sebastian has the most experience with divine magic as a former follower of Dominion, Echo asks for his opinion. Sebastian steps up to the window to take a look and thinks it reminds him of an Old World magic item, a holy item imbued with divine energy. The party decides they need to somehow bring this item back to The Princess and discuss the best way forward. They notice that as time passes the circular shield around the item seems to be shrinking, and that the computer consoles seem to be recording the energy output from the item. Echo and Sebastian look at the computers; Echo accidentally turns one off and Sebastian has never seen the language on the other one. They decide to just go in and grab it.

Echo doesn’t think he is right for this job and asks Needlejuice’s opinion. Needlejuice does not think it is safe to be here. Echo emphasizes that nothing about what they are doing is safe, and Needlejuice asks why he is even there. He was just doing his job when they barged in and attacked him. Echo tells him to send in the spine devil, wait for the shield to dissipate, then have the devil grab the object to see what happens. As soon as the spine devil wraps its hand around the holy item it explodes and the carnage evaporates. Echo casts Prestidigitation to keep them clean in case any bits fly out into the hallway. The Needlemaster complains that he worked hard on the spine devil, it took him two hours to create. The instrument starts its tapping again and Echo takes a recording.

Persephone decides to go grab it since she is not fiendish so the divine energy should not harm her. After about seven minutes the shield dissipates and she cautiously grabs it. Nothing seems to happen and she now has the object. As Echo and Sebastian are watching, they see a white mask with red lines around the black eyes appear at eye level and stare at Percy. Then a second mask, this one white with blue lines, appears to stare at her as well. After a second, forms start to appear where the bodies would be, if the masks had bodies. These forms are red and blue robes with exaggerated curved, pointed shoulders; they appear to have no physical body, but the robes are fully animated as if they were being worn. Each figure pulls out a very long katana.

What's the Lifespan of a Firbolg?
The red Masked One steps up to Persephone and swings its katana at her, but does not hit. It walks through her, sending a chill through her spine as it phases through her, and turns around on her other side. Echo moves up towards Percy and casts Lightning Lure, pulling the blue Masked One towards him and dealing some lightning damage. Echo notices that the creature is not as shocked by the lightning as it should be. He activates his Bladesong and hits it with his sword, noting that damage is not as effective either. He warns Percy and Echo that the creatures resist the lightning and slashing damage. The blue Masked One turns towards Sebastian and raises an invisible hand, the sleeves of the robes move, and the mask pops off revealing a black void. Echo, Sebastian, and The Needlemaster feel as if they’re being sucked into the void and they hear a horrific scream like nothing they’ve heard before in their life, but none are affected. Persephone turns around and casts Primal Savagery; with her sharpened claws she slashes out at the blue Masked One, critically hitting it with her acid damage. The Masked One resists the acid damage but its robes look torn and in bad shape. Persephone turns and uses her Hidden Step ability to become invisible and run away. Needlejuice’s bearded devil moves to one side of the blue Masked One and, at Echo’s command, tries to hit the creature. The beard attack misses but the glaive attack makes contact and deals a little damage. Sebastian busts out his BFG and takes a couple shots, hitting the blue Masked One.

The red Masked One moves up to Echo and attacks with its katana but misses, then it turns invisible. Echo moves to flank the blue Masked One and hits it with his sword and uses his chip to switch to ice damage; the cold damage is not effective at all since the creature is immune. Echo follows up the attack with Booming Blade, switching the damage to thunder, and downs the creature. The robes burst off the creature and fall to the ground along with the mask, then both items disappear. Echo disengages as he turns around and warily backs away. Persephone grabs her staff and casts Faerie Fire near the area she last saw the red Masked One. The red Masked One reappears, bathed in the green fire. The bearded devil moves up and hits the Masked One with its beard, dealing some piercing damage, and then strikes it with its glaive. Sebastian enters the room, turns the corner, and pulls out his club for an attack. The necrotic damage from the club does nothing to the Masked One as the weapon passes through it. Sebastian swings again out of frustration, but nothing happens.

The red Masked One goes for Sebastian with an attack, but misses, then enters the Ethereal Plane and vanishes. Echo finds some cover in the hallway and readies a Fire Bolt for when the creature reappears. Persephone moves forward a little bit and preps Primal Savagery. The bearded devil moves to bar the other door and holds his attack action. Sebastian, trying to put some distance between himself and the instrument in case the shield activates, moves towards a corner of the room and pulls out his sword for an attack.

The red Masked One appears in the opposite corner of Sebastian; Echo’s Fire Bolt fires off and hits the creature. After it takes the fire damage, it pops off its mask in an attempt to frighten Echo, Persephone, and The Needlemaster. Echo is unaffected, The Needlemaster is frightened, but Persephone is absolutely horrified by the sound and she is shown a vision beyond the creature’s mask that hurts her to her soul and she ages twenty years in this moment. Echo looks over at Percy in shock and runs up to attack the Masked One with his sword. He hits the creature with force damage and realizes that it does not resist that, so he follows up with a critical strike with Booming Blade. He disengages and moves in front of Persephone. Persephone is frightened. She pulls out her arbalest pistol, hitting it with more force damage, and then cowers behind Echo. The bearded devil runs up and stabs the Masked One with its beard and then hits with its glaive. When the glaive strikes, the robes and mask fall to the ground and fade away.

Dave
All is silent and calm for a moment. Then both figures appear again, side by side with their katanas no longer drawn. They stare at the party before giving them a bow, and they turn into orbs of red and blue light that fly straight at Percy into the instruments. When she looks at the instrument she sees one block has a glowing red stone with a red symbol and the other a blue stone with a blue symbol.

Persephone thinks they did it. Echo stares at her and asks what happened. She says she stared into the abyss, and the abyss stared back. Persephone touches her hands and they start glowing as she casts Greater Restoration, then rubs her hands on her face and through her hair to reverse the aging effect.

The Needlemaster is fidgeting around and asks if he can go back home. He’s afraid of getting in trouble and he just wants to go back home. Sebastian and Persephone shrug and look at Echo. Echo has a sidebar with Percy and Sebastian to ask if they should kill Needlejuice. Persephone says that, yes, at first he tried to kill them, but since then he’s been nothing but helpful. She would feel bad killing him. Echo looks at the bearded devil, nicknamed Dave, and says that he likes this. He wonders if they can keep Dave but send Needlejuice back. Persephone thinks Dave goes where The Needlemaster goes. Echo calls over to ask The Needlemaster if they can have Dave and The Needlemaster says they can keep him, but doesn’t think they’d be able to control him since they’d need four arms.

Percy says she thinks they have the Princess’s song and asks if they should return it. According to the info they have, The Child is ahead to the north. Echo suggests they could split up, but Persephone and Sebastian think it is safer to stick together. Sebastian suggests peeking ahead, and Echo moves forward to scout. He sees a steel door with a large, glass porthole, and peeks inside.

This room is similar to that of the Princess, and there is a child the age of ten embedded into the wall of the ship from the waist down. She is adorned in ornate green robes; the wires and pipes running out of her back splay out along the wall behind her in a fan-like shape vaguely resembling wings. She appears to be asleep. She has blue hair, very long and tied up in twin-tails cascading down to the floor. On her forehead is a small glowing symbol, it looks like two upside down right triangles. Echo shares what he sees, and Percy thinks this is the next soul they need to help.

Echo tries sending a Message to her but gets no response; she is unconscious. He relays that he cannot speak to her, she sleeps like the riddle said. “The Child sleeps so her dreams are gone.” Echo opens the vault door with a loud squeak and enters the room. The Child is at the very back of the room on the wall; Persephone walks up closer to her and calls out to her. The Child doesn’t respond but the symbol on her forehead glows a little brighter. An image is projected out, a hologram that all three can see. There is a woman with long silver hair and glowing red eyes looming over this child. The child holds up a golden scepter with a rose-quartz end to ward the woman off; the scepter begins to emit a light and then suddenly the projection statics out and starts over. It loops over, and over, and over again.

The Party

 * Sebastian Crenshaw: A half-orc paladin/warlock. Has a dope nickname.
 * Persephone Goldpetal: A firbolg druid. She's a woman now.
 * Codename: Echo: An elf wizard/rogue. Intern in a mood.

NPCS

 * The Needlemaster (Needlejuice): A creepy new ally who makes moppets. Doesn't like icky things.
 * The Quartet: Four quasit siblings. Una and her brothers Secundus, Tertius, and Quintus. They're living the good life.
 * Legius: A horrible monstrosity created by the Lady Kamisa. Big. Meaty. Claws.
 * Unnamed Spine Devil: A moppet and a sacrifice.
 * Dave: A bearded devil moppet. Short for Davy Jones.
 * The Child: A ten year old humanoid integrated with the ship. She sleeps but has no dreams.

Music

 * SuperQuest Saga Theme - by Brian
 * Red & Blue Scarin' You - by Brian

Nat 20's (3 total)

 * Brian (Deception)
 * Special Guest Jake (Primal Savagery)
 * Brian (Booming Blade)

Nat 1's (2 total)

 * Brian (Use Computer)
 * Special Guest Jake (Wisdom Save)