DnD Episode 9
The group emerges into Footprint’s lab. They find that the clown Heyou is tied into a body bed, connected to all kinds of wires and flashy bits. There is also another figure in a body bed, this one has a collar and IV’s attaching him to various machines linked to a monitoring station. The group sees six other beds, with five individual packs/belongings all next to each one, as if they had been in the beds too before swapping planes.
They disconnect Heyou and the new person. The new person is nicknamed Roger as he is badly ill/exhausted from whatever vision he was experiencing. He seems to be badly poisoned with the purple stuff and seems to have been put in the contraption as a form of stasis to prevent additional sickness.
Siork finds a hidden control panel and mainframe room connecting the lab to a complex arrangement of power sources and magical artifacts. He sees that one of the power sources seems to be using a Simic Deepwell as some kind of tidal wave energy and the water is rising, as if something was pushing/pulling it up or the tides were changing. The water starts flooding into the room itself.
Lyle grabs a spellbook and casts Fireball on the whole room. Great damage was done. Many healing potions were used. Rogues.
The group disarms the trap/protective devices on the door and makes their way into the University Complex. They disable the Happy Room and immediately here shouting and explosions, someone seems particularly upset that some sort of ‘blister coil’ has been disabled and beings shouting for someone named Melissa. The group finds a map of the complex and makes their way to Footprint’s main lab and control center near the middle of the complex. It’s a giant, circular room completely encased in some kind of transparent, reinforced glass. The material shimmers slightly as if it has a buttload of protective magic on it that is so strong that it can be seen with the naked eye. They can see that within is chaos. Assistants are running everywhere, random explosions are popping up and quickly doused with fire suppressant, there are alarms and loud noises going off everywhere.
A dwarf with blonde pigtails is sitting at one of the control desks with a giant, ever shifting map of Ravnica up on a huge screen. The images show all of the infrastructure the Izzt manage. One by one, every system lights up red and another alarm goes off as the dwarf gives instructions frantically to the other assistants and gives magical commands through the various communications devices around her. Toilets explode and electricity flickers/fails in the lab and the vague, dull roar of a riot outside permeates down into the complex and Melissa is about a step away from a heart attack as the complex loses containment on all kinds of things and dull vibrations of explosions and failing experiments rattle the superstructure.
The group goes up to talk to her.
She’s annoyed.
They persist and tell her that they have shut down the Happy Room. Immediately, everyone freezes and a powerful rumble shakes the complex. She freaks out and tells them that the Happy Room was the only thing keeping Niv Mizzet calm and that if he does the same thing as last time, he’ll go on a rage bender and destroy the complex and probably the City.
She hits a big red button next to her desk and pulls on a gas mask. Immediately, blaring klaxons go off and every Izzt in the complex shoves on a mask or portals to another dimension, including Siork, who goes to the Astral Plane. Melissa has activated sleepy gas emergency discharge systems to try and weaken Niv before he gets to them and kills everyone.
The group gets ready as the thunderous steps of the dragon come up from his lair, where Footprint had been keeping him safe.
Niv is obviously poisoned with the Shimmer. Raged, incoherent, and obviously being influenced to do mega-damage, he shows up, immediately smashes the protections to nothing, knocks Nit unconscious with one hit, and lets out a roar that terrifies everything in the room.
Siork manages to avoid the first round, pops out of the Astral plane to slap a hand on the dragon and cast Lesser Restoration, drawing out the drug and letting the sleepy juice take effect. The big guy takes a nap and crisis is averted.
Melissa contemplates her career choices, but gets everything organized to clean up the place.
She takes the psychopath Heyou back to the Happy Room, since they don’t want to kill him, but there’s no way that he can be around people and they can’t return him to the Rakdos without getting their own people killed and she has several Guildmembers levitate Niv back down to his lair and immediately starts reinstalling the control devices, in case he wakes up pissed again.
The group assures her that the Lesser Restoration spell is easy and any healer could do it, but she informs them that all of the biological mages are dead or disappeared and that very few Izzt have any healing capabilities or know how to use any bio-mancy. They depend on the druids or clerics for that and there don’t seem to be many of those around anymore - as if someone is deliberately killing off healers and bio-mancers in general.
The group compares notes. It seems that the Guildmasters for Golgari, Simic, Izzt have all disappeared and the Azorius and Boros leaders may be in danger. No one knows much about the Orzoff or Dimir.
After a couple days of resting, the party heads back to check on Niv. He’s fine. Normal. No more drugged rage. The Izzt HEPA filters are humming along nicely. Nit takes a sample from one of them to conduct some experiments and finds blood magic, genetically altered pollen from the World Tree. Niv tells the party some history about the first Pact. Says that he will go try to find the Felidar to see if a new Pact can be struck and that in the meantime, the group should probably try to find/save their respective guildmasters and find the elusive Donatello that is probably a key player in all the disappearances.
He tells them that the Golgari have probably hidden themselves away in the outreaches and wildernesses on the edge of the City. The Simic must be hiding under the waves, deep below the sea and that the Azorius may be dead - they do not have anywhere to hide and their honor usually won’t let them, so whatever is after them has likely found many. Manus and Lyle try to send a message/warning to Ludmilla, in UnderCity, through the Dmir. They do not receive a response, but the message is sent.
The party takes a trip through the gift shop and gets many useful and wondrous things. Because they will need all of it.