In this session, we focus on Lord Cornelius, Professor Quigley, and Dave the Average.
Corny follows mokrab into her workshop. It is full of beakers and test tubes and a mess of papers and books. In one corner is a pile of metal objects which Corny recognizes. On a table in the center of the room, sitting on a dissecting dish is a flickering green plant. Mokrab tells Corny that this is what he is here to help her with. Corny tries to get Mokrab to promise that his friends will go free if he helps her. This conversation goes...somewhere, and at some point Mokrab tries to surprise Corny and he trips a bit and grabs the table for support, coming into contact with the plant (seriously, I have no memory of what happened here). The plant's roots begin winding their way around Corny's arm. Reaching within himself, Corny makes the table glow a reddish-purple, causing the plant to screech and release him. Mokrab is impressed, asking him to teach her how to conjure up this purple magic.
Meanwhile, Quiggers, pomin, and stol are walking down the hall when Pomin notices a sign posted outside an office. Pomin can read it: it is a list of names, each with a time next to them. The names of the entire party are on the list! Pomin infers that this is their execution schedule, and loostiun's execution is soon! Pomin (with enthusiastic help from Stol) convinces Quiggers to help her save him, and they begin heading to level 1 section 83, the site of the executions.
Dave the Average is already there, however. After stopping by his mom's living quarters and office, they decide to join hundreds of other orcs in watching the execution. The room the executions are held in is a massive colosseum-like space, extending down three levels of Folendemkar. Dave and Danid sit in the bleachers eating orcish popcorn as Loostiun sits shackled to a chair on a wooden platform in the center of the auditorium. A guard stands beside him, holding a black cloth hood in one hand. Surrounding the platform are four more guards, two armed with maces and the other two with swords.
Quiggers and crew arrive at the entrance to the chamber on the highest level. A short corridor leads out to the main body of the colosseum and the top row of seats. An orc sits bored at a table at the end of the corridor, waiting to check bags, but as the party does not have any bags with them, he waves them past. The party runs down the aisle between columns of seats, trying to reach the guard rail at the bottom. Dave sees them as they pass, hands his popshrooms to Danid, and runs down after them.
Not long after Corny fends off the plant with magic, the door to the workshop swings open and a guard stands in the doorway. "Blight! Blight in the dungeons!" he yells, and then promptly faints. Corny and Mokrab rush out into the hallway to see a blight spore in the shape of ken standing to their left. They are walking towards it when a second one appears in the workshop doorway (did the first one attack before this???), this one in the form of Corny himself! The pair stands back to back, Mokrab attempting to defend herself with a small white light glowing in her hand. This light does nothing to ward off the Corny spore, however, and it appears suddenly closer with its hand in her chest, bringing her to her knees. Slightly panicked, the two retreat back into the workshop, closing the door behind them. The spores phase through the door.
Dave meanwhile is having no luck convincing the trio to stay put and give up on saving Loostiun. Stol keeps trying to climb over the railing, and Dave keeps picking him up and putting him back down. Eventually, Dave gives up and rejoins his mother as the three climb down and make their way towards the platform Loostiun is sitting on.
The guards take notice and start heading their way. Quiggers deftly disarms one and stabs him with his own sword. Pomin duels hand-to-sword with a second before taking him out. Stol stands at a distance making punching motions in the air. The two remaining, both with maces, get closer. By this point, the executioner has placed the hood on Loostiun's head, and is beginning to strike fire to it using flint and steel.
Quiggers launches one of the remaining guards with a blast of earth, but is seriously injured by the other one. This guard slowly approaches Quiggers, his mace at the ready. Just then, however, something happens.
Dave watches the scene unfolding on the platform. The hood has just caught, and Loostiun's head is enveloped in flames. But then Dave blinks, and it is the executioner shackled in the chair, and Loostiun standing next to him, a slight smirk on his face. He blinks again, and Loostiun's stuffy, academic outfit is gone, replaced by a dark black robe and hood raised over his head. The guard standing over Quiggers suddenly falls dead, collapsing on top of him. The mage in the robe looks directly at Dave, picking him out from the entire audience.
Dave stands up and begins making his way down to the ground. The guard Quiggers wounded with his own sword goes limp as if dead, but then suddenly reaches out and grabs Dave by the ankle as he passes. Dave shakes him off and makes his way to Quiggers, helping him out from under the dead orc. The executioner is screaming now, still shackled on the platform. As the hood burns, it becomes increasingly transparent, only to reveal the orc's face does not match his screams. His face under the hood is calm, placid even, his mouth closed and unmoving, while his voice yells out louder than ever.
Dave blinks, and the mage who was Loostiun is only a few feet in front of him. "Hello Dave," he says. "Long time no see." Dave recognizes him as one of the necromancers he used to travel with, who he left long ago. The remaining dead orc guards rise to their feet and approach the party. The Necromancer says he needs to see a wizard friend of theirs, they blink, and he's vanished.
The screams of the executioner slowly fade. His hood is gone now, leaving just a calm, blank-faced orc shackled to a chair, bearing no marks of the flames. As the crowd rushes to leave and the undead orcs shamble their way towards the party, Dave, Pomin, and Stol help the injured Quiggers out of the chamber towards Danid's office, where they patch him up and then reroute to Mokrab's workshop to confront the Necromancer.
Corny and Mokrab, meanwhile, are shut in the workshop with two spores which just phased through the door. Thinking fast, Corny grabs a metal tube off the table against the wall. It is mostly cylindrical, with an opening on one end and a flattened section on the other. Corny points the opening towards the spores and flips a mechanism. A burst of purple light shoots out of the tube and hits the spores. After the ensuing flash fades from their eyes, only one remains.
By the time Dave, Quiggers, and crew arrive at the workshop, the Necromancer is already inside. Dave kicks down the door, taking out the one remaining blight spore. The Necromancer demands Corny send him back to where Corny came from. Quiggers dashes at him to fight, but he blinks and the Necromancer has his hand around his neck. He squeezes, and everything goes black.
But then he can suddenly see again. He's still in his body, but he no longer has any control. He died, and has been reanimated by the Necromancer. The Necromancer looks at Dave and smiles. "There are many paths to freedom," he says. Then Dave blinks, and he, Pomin, and Stol are outside the workshop with the door closed. All Dave's weapons and armor are back with him. But try as he might, he cannot open the door or find out what is happening inside.