The Bellerophon

"The Bellerophon" is episode 55 of SuperQuest Saga. Echo, Persephone, and Sebastian venture deeper into the belly of The Bellerophon in search of the Soul Eater.

Sponsor
This episode of SuperQuest Saga is sponsored by RPG Sounds on Steam.

Introduction

 * Will Stark shall be your masticating dungeon master for this evening.
 * Josh Freeland is playing Sebastian Crenshaw, half-orc paladin Oathbreaker/Hexblade.
 * Your Special Guest Jake is playing Persephone Goldpetal, the galactic firbolg druid.
 * Brian is playing Codename: Echo, part wizard, part rogue, no longer part fighter.

Recap
Last time a lot of stuff happened. The party arrived at the Crucible of Khullnar where they saw an enormous ship graveyard. They found a couple scrappers trying to get into a goblinoid dreadnaught. The Bellerophon showed up and started eating people, including the scrappers, but the party got away. They decided to get into The Bellerophon and entered in a scrap pod during the ship's next dive. Inside The Bellerophon they saw all the souls get sucked out of the corpses and were attacked by boneclaw janitors.

Can We Rest, Please?
Echo, Persephone, and Sebastian stand in victory upon this landscape of heaped ships, bodies and darkness. Persephone is bleeding out of all orifices and asks if they can rest for a little bit. Sebastian and Echo suggest finding a safer place to rest. Echo thinks she should hang back as they move forward to let Sebastian tank some damage if needed. Sebastian took some damage in the fight but he is okay, and Echo only got hit once. They decide to explore further with Echo and Sebastian doing their best to protect Percy.

Echo scouts ahead to look for access while Sebastian and Persephone check the bodies for something to open the door. As Echo approaches the door it automatically opens and he calls the others through. They find themselves in a large antechamber that is caked with blood and viscera. There are two doors, one large door on the south wall and a smaller door on the western wall, both equipped with full airlock devices. Echo casts Prestidigitation to clear the space around him. Persephone looks around the room and discerns that the carnage is the result of stuff that has been dragged through the room over, and over, and over, for years.

Sebastian heads towards the smaller door first and tries to open it. The door is locked with a heavy-duty mechanical lock. Echo examines the lock and is able to open it. Beyond the door is a much smaller room with a computer interface and an open door on the western wall. They discuss whether this space is safe enough to rest; Persephone suggests that maybe Jhank can do some patrolling, and Jhank appears on Echo’s shoulder. Echo can set a watch, he can set up an Alarm if needed, and can turn them invisible if anyone turns up.

After thirty minutes, Jhank sees something moving down the hall. Echo checks it out and sees a floating phantom moving quickly towards Jhank and into the room. He quickly casts Invisibility and they all become invisible. The phantom heads directly to the computer monitor and enters a command to close the door the party entered. The airlock engages and the phantom leaves the room, and they hear a sound of gears turning as the mouth of The Bellerophon expels its contents. Echo searches for info on the phantom and determines it could be a specter or a ghost. They are able to safely complete a short rest.

I Could Try to Eat Someone for Breakfast
Echo sends Jhank to peek his head around the corner to check if the coast is clear. Jhank sees a hallway with a large room, and Echo goes to investigate further. He finds three specters manning computer stations with their backs to the entrance. Echo relays this info to Percy and Sebastian with the Message cantrip. They decide to sneak through the room invisibly to make it to the next area. Persephone steps loudly and the sound echoes across the room, but the specters do not react. Echo finds a big, heavy door with red lights on it that is clearly meant to be opened in only extreme circumstances. He warns the others to hold off because they need to go a different way, and he investigates the door. The lock requires a spell or some heavy-duty tools to break open. Echo asks Percy and Sebastian where they’d like to go; he could try to break this door or they could explore another hallway. They opt for the hallway and Echo scouts it out.

The hallway extends 40-ft north before turning towards the east; he cannot see around the corner but can hear the sound of heavy machinery and the occasional sound of pressure releasing. Echo peeks around the corner and finds a closed door. Persephone and Sebastian sneak over to join him. Echo pushes the button to open the door and they see a very cold, dark room lined with 12-ft tall, 10-ft wide pods or tanks made of thick metal and connected to the walls with hoses; each seems to have a small viewing window on its front door. Across the room is another door.

Echo enters and is plunged into dangerously cold temperatures. In the first tank he sees a white, gaunt, humanoid face with white hair. Its eyes are closed and it appears to be in some sort of stasis. Persephone casts Pass without Trace to give Echo an extra stealth boost as he continues to check out the next door. Echo opens the door and finds a hallway that seems to lead to a larger room and he calls Persephone and Sebastian to join him. The next room is similar but smaller and there are more tanks of these humanoids, so far there are eighteen total, and another door. Percy and Sebastian join Echo as he opens the next door. Echo asks Persephone if she’s familiar with these creatures and she sees they are some undead creature.

Through the next door the temperature rises back up. The hallway continues before turning to the south. They follow the hall until it turns towards the west. Echo checks to make sure it’s clear and they continue winding their way down the long hall until they reach a fork. They decide to take the first door on the west.

Looking around the corner they notice the air feels more chill and they can hear a sound further down, around another bend in the hall. Echo, Persephone, and Sebastian peek around and see a line of waiting specters; they seem to be queued up at a teller station. The specter at the head of the line passes something to the teller specter, after a moment the teller passes something back, and the specter moves on towards the west. Echo can’t tell what they’re passing back and forth so he sends Jhank to get a closer look. Jhank sneaks along the ceiling and observes the specters passing plastic cards to the teller, who inspects it before passing it back.

A specter enters the hall from behind Persephone and Sebastian and starts heading towards them. Persephone reaches for Sebastian and pushes him against the wall to hide from the specter, Echo hears the noise and Persephone’s warning. Echo gets a closer look at the specter as it passes and determines the card is stored somewhere in its ectoplasm. They also see a specter come from the western room carrying some electronic components. Sebastian notes that it's carrying stuff for maintenance of network servers and CPUs.

Persephone suggests backtracking and going down the other hallway. As the Invisibility spell ends, Echo moves ahead to scout. He sees a lightly glowing green light emanating from the end of the hall and notices the horrifyingly strong smell of acid as he discovers a room with an acid pool. Echo reports that there is a lot of acid and continues on to find two more rooms of acid pits; as he watches, he sees debris fall into the pools from trash chutes above. Sebastian uses Mage Hand to collect some acid in a vial. As the vial floats back towards him, he sees movement from the acid vat as three bizarre, skeletal ooze monsters emerge and attack.

The Fixers Fight The Ans
The first ooze monster moves towards Sebastian and reaches out with its nasty hands to attack him, but it misses. Echo moves into the hallway and casts Lightning Lure and pulls one of the ooze monsters towards him with a lash of lightning. He moves in to attack with his sword and bloodies the monster, but takes some damage as he gets close to it. Persephone puts out her hand and casts Frostbite and the creature freezes then bursts into small acid chunks. Sebastian fires the Needler at the monster who attacked him and three darts sink into it and do some damage. The third ooze monster hits Sebastian with a melee attack.

Ooze 1 moves up on Persephone, and Sebastian hits it with an opportunity attack as it passes him. The ooze hits Percy for some bludgeoning damage and infects her with the Seeping Death. Echo boots up the new circuit on his Particle Guard armor, causing a chime sound and turning the highlights of his armor blue, and fires on the ooze attacking Persephone hitting it with his laser gun then following it up with a Firebolt. The ooze freezes, falls, and shatters. Persephone fires another Frostbite at the final ooze but the spell has no effect. Sebastian takes two swings with his club, taking necrotic damage each time he makes contact, and kills the ooze by cracking it over the skull and causing it to dissolve back into the pool of acid.

Whose Job Was It to Close Doors?
Echo, Persephone, and Sebastian take a look at the diseased wound on Percy’s arm. Echo and Percy have never seen anything like it but Sebastian recognizes it as the Seeping Death. Each time she takes a long rest her dexterity will lower even further and if it reaches 0 she will die. Percy looks at the blackened skin around the acid wound and says “Galactic Spirit, please help me” as she casts Lesser Restoration to cure the disease. Echo thinks that magic was pretty cool and he’s glad her disease is cured. Sebastian says he was about to cut her arm off to stop the infection.

They head back into the hallway and approach the heavy duty door so Echo can give it a look. This door is identical to the door that was in the computer room with all the specters; the lock can be broken open with heavy duty tools or a spell like Knock. At this point, all three of them hear the sound of multiple pairs of marching boots coming from the serpentine hallway. Persephone asks for the Galactic Spirit to guide her and she has a flashback to when the phantom closed the door of the first room and Echo said “we should close doors behind us.” She realizes they never closed the doors to the frozen rooms and now things are marching things their way. As soon as she lets everyone know, Echo casts Invisibility and they backtrack into the hallway as they prepare to flee whatever is coming.

Eventually, two cybernetically enhanced undead soldiers with gaunt, white skin and white hair march towards the big door. Two more turn in the direction of the party and head towards them, searching. They can hear at least six more coming down the hallway. Echo presses himself against the wall, Persephone darts into the next room, and Sebastian tries to follow but his armor makes a clinking noise so their pursuers are alerted to their presence. Two undead run into the entrance of the room and start looking around, two more run past them to check the smaller room, and three more enter the room. The five undead soldiers start sweeping the room. Persephone hides up against a vat, Echo hides in the corner and pulls Sebastian towards him so they can hide together. Echo plugs Sebastian’s nostrils with his finger and with Jhank to help make them more stealthy.

The first cyberwight does not notice them. Two more start walking around the room and they both fail to find the party. The remaining two stand in the doorway and intently stare into the room, but they do not see anything either. The cyberwights search the room for five minutes but eventually they move on and retreat out of the area, marching to another part of the ship.

Server Room
Echo reminds the party that the one who is last should close the door. The party discusses their options and decide to use Knock to get through the big door. The spell causes a big boom to echo throughout the hall, and the door mechanism begins to turn and the door swings open towards them. Beyond the door is an enormous room filled with towering stacks of network servers taking up most of the space in the room. Thousands of wires running between the servers and into the walls of the ship add to the claustrophobic atmosphere of the room. A 5-ft wide hallway runs through the middle of the room, and at the room’s center is a cylindrical pedestal with a glowing green orb atop it. Wires from all the server stacks are running into the base of this pedestal.

Echo beckons everyone into the room quickly; they get in and Sebastian closes and locks the door. Echo heads towards the pedestal and recognizes that inside the orb is a humanoid skull wreathed in green flames; the skull does not seem to be aware of the party and they hear it speaking once in a while. “Yes.” “No.” “Reroute Auxiliary Energy from Sector 9A.” “Access Denied.” “Beginning Maintenance Sub-Routine on Disposal.” “Access Granted.” They can see two heavy doors, one to the north and one to the south, and decide to sneak to the south door.

As they head to the door, Echo checks out the room and discerns that it is the main server network for at least this level of the ship, maybe the whole ship. They could attack and kill the skull, but it would disrupt the computer system and everyone aboard would be alerted to their presence.

Sebastian opens the large south door and they find another room full of computers that are manned by specters. Persephone closes the door behind them, but it does not seal. The specters in the room continue working and ignore the party’s presence. Echo checks out a computer to see if he is able to seal the door but he’s unfamiliar with the interface, and he sends a Message to Persephone and Sebastian advising that they should avoid this area in case someone comes to check the door.

Sebastian heads towards a smaller door to the south and it opens automatically as he approaches. He peeks his head around the corner and finds a large, empty room. There is a heavy steel door with glowing red lights on the other side of the room that has a digital setup with a monitor. Echo and Persephone follow him into the new room and Echo closes the door behind them.

Fuck That Door
The heavy door is identical to the one that got them into the network server room except that it has a monitor connected to it. Sebastian checks out the computer but is unable to tell what it is. Echo casts Comprehend Languages to help him understand the computer and sees that it requires a passcode. He is able to discern that the lock on this door is very odd; the computer is designed to send a signal to a lock somewhere else on the ship that will then unlock this door. Echo thinks he can make a card, like the time he did with Fred Luo, and can make it match the specter’s card based on what Jhank observed earlier. After he makes the card, Persephone casts Enhance Ability to grant him Fox’s Cunning; both Echo and Jhank grow little fox ears and tails. Echo is able to recall exactly what was on the card and replicates it perfectly.

When he swipes the card, the computer says “Access Granted” but the door behind them locks and from above a green gas starts spraying into the room. Sebastian casts Bless in the split second before the gas fills the room but they all take acid damage before the door ahead of them opens and they all rush forward.

The door opens into the center of an extremely long hallway, they can’t see the end in either direction but they can see a door to the west and a hallway to the east. The acid caused Echo to drop concentration on the Invisibility spell and they hear the door lock behind them. They decide to head to the east and start sneaking over. Echo sees a large door with strange runes, three upside down triangles with a wavy line running from base to point, and recognizes them as a symbol related to certain Infernal entities. Sebastian goes over to see if he recognizes the symbols but he does not.

Echo keeps moving east and finds a smaller door before the hallway turns towards the north. They press the button to open the door and inside is a large custodial room outfitted with cleaning products and tools, what appears to be a zombie in a janitor uniform stands in the room. The minute the door opens, the zombie turns and walks towards them; Echo closes the door. He tells Persephone and Sebastian there is a zombie janitor holding a mop. Percy asks if they need to kill him. Echo asks if they should make friends, but Percy doesn’t want to be friends with a dead guy. Sebastian opens the door, the zombie janitor is now at the door and trying to walk through them, and he uses his Channel Divinity to Control Undead.

The zombie drops its mop and looks at Sebastian with a dumb look in its eyes. Sebastian tells it to continue doing its cleaning job without alerting anyone to their presence. It grunts as if it’s annoyed by the command then picks up its mop and starts cleaning. Echo gets the feeling that the zombie is annoyed because it was told to do something it was already going to do. At this point, all three of them hear a voice that seems to echo all around from the hall itself.

“''Not many make it this far, and none in my memory without alerting half the ship to their presence. Interesting. You seek the Soul Eater, no doubt. Fools and gamblers, ye of mortal blood, the scent of it fills the air. Come attend me, the Near-Ancient, the Knower of Secrets. I might share them with you should the price be paid, should demands be met, should sacrifice be given''.”

And the door with the Infernal symbols opens.

The Party

 * Sebastian Crenshaw: A half-orc paladin/warlock. Gives redundant orders to zombies.
 * Persephone Goldpetal: A firbolg druid. She really needs a rest.
 * Codename: Echo: An elf wizard/rogue. Immediately forgot about closing the doors.

NPCS

 * Specters: Gloating phantoms just doing their jobs.
 * Stan, Dan, and Jan: Acid skeletal oozes. The Ans.
 * Cyberwights: Very good at marching, very bad at searching.
 * Zombie Janitor: Was about to do his job anyway.

Music

 * SuperQuest Saga Theme - by Brian

Mechanics

 * Echo has a new item described in Interlude VI that allows him to change the damage type of his spells and attacks.

Out of Character

 * Echo's armor is called the Particle Guard.

Nat 20's (5 total)

 * Freeland (Perception)
 * Will (Initiative for Ooze Skeleton)
 * Brian (Constitution Save)
 * Special Guest Jake (Stealth)
 * Brian (Intelligence)

Nat 1's (1 total)

 * Will (Perception for Cyberwight)