There were a total of 19 armor-skin experiments freed from captivity, and the party instructed them to follow 1 room behind as they continued through the dead wizard’s lair. Hoping to escape with some decent treasure, Carl and Belzanar conferred. They suggested the party visit Sugud’s private offices where his spellbooks and notes were likely stored (but also more protected). They also thought Sugud’s prized display collection of pogs might make for good treasure.
The players avoided several traps so completely that they’re not even worth mentioning here. They reached Sugud’s study, thoroughly looted it (including a hidden draft of a zine Sugud had been working on, detailing the creation of marionette servants.) Now significantly loaded down, Jeb opened a portal from this room, back to the party’s restaurant. He had the armored experiment folk take all of the books and things back through it, and asked them to hang out until the party could get back. The staff was instructed to see to any of the armoed experiment folk’s needs.
Back the way they came, the party encountered a middle aged woman sitting on a toilet. The toilet had been there before, but not the woman. She was dismayed to find people in the private parts of the lair where only she and her husband Sugud were supposed to go. The party and she parleyed for a bit, and it came out that she was not in fact a human woman, but a powerful snake amalgam which had been bound to Sugud’s service because he had taken one of the snakes which made up her soul, and kept it with himself. Now that he was dead she could retreive the snake and finally be free.
Collars were tugged at all through the party.
Being careful to minimize their own responsibility for the death of Sugud’s snake, the party explained that it had been killed, and asked if that had freed her. It did not. She needed that snake’s soul to become part of her again. Fortunately the party were able to get Bal’Urel on the phone, who walked them through the process of luring a simple soul like a snake’s into a body, and the snake lady was reasonably satisfied. She shed her human shell, and slithered away as a great herd of snakes.
Before heading to loot Sugud’s pog collection, the party poked their heads into a set of side rooms where they found a fountain, a mushroom farm, and an empty room with a chalk door drawn on the wall, and a scratching sound without any source. They attempted to ‘open’ the chalk door. It did open. A blackness spread out from the space beyond to draw the party into it.
The party is in darkness.
LOOT:
-A Zine discussing the various merits and types of disintegrations in magic.
-A Draft zine discussing the merits and methods of constructing Marionette servitors
-The contents of Sugud’s magical library. ~100 books.