![[Publish/Assets/Session Headers/2026-09-10 — Jeremy Wakes the Hatchery.png]] # 2026-09-10 — Jeremy Wakes the Hatchery > [!quote] Session Hook > The party dropped quietly into a chamber full of sleeping, ichor-fed demons, and then [[The Party|Lilly Pallywally]] stabbed one. --- ## Overview The hezrou ambush from last time is over. The party beat it soundly [[2026-09-03 — Five Jeremys Down & the Curse in the Flesh|last session]] and came out standing at the lip of the Demon Nest's open maw. Demons were half-emerged from the walls around them, and a slow mechanical beat was rising from somewhere below. The *"magically intelligent people"* in the group had also worked out that the War-Slough's flesh warps can be undone with **Remove Curse**. Nobody had it prepared yet. [[The Party|Tahara Rahma]] belly-crawled to the edge and scouted the floor below: four hezrou and two barlgura, motionless, with hose-like vessels running out of the walls and floor into their bodies and pumping ichor in time with the beat. The party chose not to loiter at the mouth and dropped down, using a centaur long-jump, Feather Fall and a pair of flesh-grown ear-wings. They could have crept past. Instead, Lilly landed and drove Longinus into the nearest hezrou, a demon she had already named **Jeremy**. Every hose in the cavern popped loose, ichor sprayed across the floor in pools, and the whole **hatchery** woke up. The fight that followed was the hardest the party has taken in weeks. Barlgura and hezrou battered the front line, and a hezrou called up *another* hezrou. [[The Party|Ara-Ara Avannatto]] was driven down to two hit points. Tahara's **Antilife Shell** turned the battle by shoving demons back to its edge while [[The Party|Unit-NULL]], as a warforged, swung freely through it. The session ended mid-fight with a flood of mass healing. No demons have died yet. --- ## Key Events ### 1. Previously The DM picked up where [[2026-09-03 — Five Jeremys Down & the Curse in the Flesh|last session]] left off: > [!important] The DM > **"You guys thoroughly trouncing the hezrou demons that popped up and tried to take you by surprise, but to no avail… which leaves you staring down into this open maw with demons kind of coming out of the walls in various stages."** Lilly was absent last time and was played as an NPC, spending most of the fight riding Celeste. She came back to find her mount's bones had gone brittle, which became a running joke all night. The party had long-rested and renewed **Death Ward**. Celeste also relayed the good news about the warps: > [!important] Celeste Valentin > **"The magically intelligent people find that our maladies could be taken care of by using Remove Curse."** Tahara: *"Unfortunately, none of us have them."* Not yet, anyway. The DM also offered them a way out of lingering at the mouth: *"You guys gonna, you know, loaf around in the maw of this demon nest and wait around?"* They were not. ### 2. The Maw The pit drops about twenty feet on its north side and tapers to ten elsewhere. Its walls are overgrown with fat, fleshy growths that the table immediately named **"the aloe."** The growths sway in time with the sound from below. > [!important] The DM > **"They're undulating back and forth to the like low beat. You hear machinery sounds… coming from down the tunnels."** Lee asked whether it was a throb. The DM, firmly: *"I would not describe it as a throb. It is definitely a slow undulation."* On the far side of the chamber, past a hezrou grown half out of the wall, the party could see an opening into branching tunnels and caverns: the way deeper into the nest. ### 3. Tahara Looks Over the Edge Tahara went flat on his belly and slid up to the lip for a look. > [!important] The DM > **"They're covered in, like, almost like blood vessels or hoses, even sticking into them, pumping ichor. You can see it going through the hoses to the beat of it that you hear… coming out of the walls and floors, and going into the demons."** > [!important] Tahara Rahma > **"Four hezrou, two barlgura, and whatever these aloe plants are, they appear to be pumping some sort of strange ichor into the beasts. I don't know if it's some sort of like a drug or steroid or what, but they look a little preoccupied with the ritual, whatever it may be."** [[The Party|Dr. Herbert Who]] flew out over the drop and confirmed it. ### 4. The Descent The party went down in style. - **Celeste** swaddled Tahara, who let her, and made a running long jump off the ledge. - **Lilly** cast **Feather Fall** on them, and they floated down past the wall-grown hezrou for a close look at it. - **Unit-NULL** ran and launched off the edge on her **ear-wings**, flapping slowly down. The DM described them: *"You can distinctly feel the ear wings and how they differ from the rest of your body… You can feel like the breeze and the heat, and it's weird."* - **Ara-Ara** jumped with **Mirthful Leaps** and drifted down on a second Feather Fall: *"Fall straight down, Acme style, slowly."* - **Casanova** cast **Fly** on himself and, with **Herbert** on his wings, took to the air above the pit. They stayed there. For a moment the whole party was on the floor of a chamber full of sleeping demons. Tommy said later what everyone had been thinking: *"I think we're all sneaking past them until you hit it, Lee."* ### 5. Jeremy Lilly dismounted, stepped up to the nearest hezrou, and put Longinus into it twice. The first thrust missed; the second hit, with a **Smite for 16**. > [!important] Lilly Pallywally > **"This is Big Lizard. He looks just like Jeremy… They're all Jeremy. He's a quantum being."** Tahara later explained the name, which comes from Beatrix Potter's *"Mr. Jeremy Fisher, an optimistic frog who lives in a damp, slippy, sloppy house at the edge of a pond."* It stuck: every hezrou is a Jeremy from here on, and the one Lilly stabbed is Jeremy proper. > [!important] The DM > **"So as you hit… all of the hoses on all of the demons down here in the caves start popping off and spilling ichor… in a five-foot radius around them."** The demons woke. Lilly sealed it with **Hexblade's Curse** on Jeremy, the first time she has used it with this character. The DM let slip the word for what they had walked into: *"Luckily for you, the **hatchery** was not fully awake at that point in time."* Tahara: *"Step right up, step right up. Get your demon ichor sprayed right in the face for fifteen dollars."* ### 6. The Ichor Wants In [[The Party|Celeste Valentin]] declared *"I don't give a shit about the ichor,"* stepped straight into a pool, and punched a hezrou. The ichor responded, and she had to make a **Constitution save** to avoid another flesh warp. She passed. > [!important] The DM > **"The ichor does not seem to have an effect, but you do feel it continuing to try to work its way into your flesh."** She stepped back out of it. ### 7. The Horde Hits Back The barlgura and hezrou came off their hoses swinging. - A **barlgura** bit and punched **Ara-Ara**. She answered with a reaction swing from **Bob** for **28**, which visibly staggered it and sent it backing away. - Two more barlgura mauled **Celeste**, one biting deep and another landing a 22-point fist. - A hezrou stumbled out of Tahara's **Spirit Guardians** for 20 radiant: *"Feel the radiant burn of Osiris."* The DM: *"He visibly staggers back, because he's just waking up too."* Tahara: *"Like I'm his mom opening the goddamn curtains in his bedroom."* It clawed Ara-Ara anyway. - A second hezrou tore into **Tahara** with bite and claws for 36, which cost him his Spirit Guardians. - A third hezrou went straight for Lilly, since she had been *"poking him with a stick."* **Unit-NULL** used her aura to take its bite in Lilly's place, and the demon still found an extra claw for 16. Unit-NULL laid a **Compelled Duel** on a hezrou (DC 18, failed). Lilly backed off Jeremy, ate an opportunity bite for 18, put Longinus into him twice more for 12 each, and tucked herself under a swaying aloe tentacle. The DM's rulings kept the fight moving: - Attacking does not end Death Ward. - Monsters here run at **maximum hit points**. - **Exhaustion** imposes disadvantage on ability checks, not saves. ### 8. The Shell Round two turned the fight. [[The Party|Casanova Frankenstein]] burned a barlgura from above; the DM noted it seemed *"a little resistant to that fire damage."* Then Tahara dropped the spell that changed the battlefield. > [!important] Tahara Rahma > **"This is a hell of a team-up for Jess and I, because she can swing through it to hit shit, but shit can't swing back through it to hit her."** **Antilife Shell** moves with Tahara and pushes living creatures back to its edge. Unit-NULL, as a warforged construct, is unaffected by it. She can step through the barrier to attack and step back where the demons can't follow. The hezrou needed an **Intelligence check** just to work out that they couldn't reach her. The DM had once played a character with the same spell: *"It's a good spell. I never could quite use it."* Around the shell: - **Herbert** hit a barlgura with something nasty for 17 and cracked his new tail across it on the way past, with the table's commentary best left unrecorded. He took a hard beating from the same brute in return. Asked about his defences: **"I do not have any shield. I'm no coward."** - **Celeste** ran seventy feet across the cavern, punching, charging, kicking and hoof-stomping as she went. Tahara's assessment: *"Gabe's like a washed-up old boxer… a weird limp and a bit of a glass chin, but you don't want to mess around in a bar fight."* - **Ara-Ara** raised her own **Spirit Guardians**, and Bob added his edge. She took bite after claw after fist and kept concentration every time. ### 9. The Summons Unable to reach Unit-NULL, the hezrou tried something else. > [!important] The DM > **"It's gonna cast a spell and try to summon another demon, and I need you guys to give me a high, medium, or low."** The table chose. One attempt fizzled. The second rolled a hundred: **"So he's going to summon another hezrou. You're welcome."** A fresh, full-health Jeremy joined the fight. Another hezrou charged Celeste and landed a **critical bite** that *"leads straight with his mouth and just tears a big chunk out of your front leg."* Tahara's **Sentinel at Death's Door** turned the crit into a normal hit. Lilly's **Interception** took most of what was left. Celeste walked away with four damage. ### 10. Fuck On Out of Here, Jeremy Round three opened with Lilly. With an unhexed Jeremy standing next to her, she stepped back and fired three **Eldritch Blasts** at the cursed one. **Repelling Blast** hurled him ten feet into the cavern wall. > [!important] Lilly Pallywally > **"Fuck on out of here, Jeremy. You move back off my map… You think about what you did, and I might let you back on the screen."** *"He ain't dead yet."* She climbed back onto Celeste's back. Celeste: *"Oh, my bones! My little bones."* ### 11. Two Hit Points Ara-Ara had been hit by nearly everything in the room and was down to **two hit points**. She disengaged and planted herself inside the party's protection: *"I'll let you guys protect me."* From above, **Casanova** answered with a **Mass Healing Word** across Ara-Ara, Celeste, Tahara and Herbert, which brought everyone back to double digits. He followed it with a **Fire Bolt** at Jeremy. The DM called it there. Tahara took his turn early, before everyone logged off: he walked the Antilife Shell to shove two more demons back, then cast **Mass Cure Wounds** on everyone the first wave had reached, for about twenty more hit points each. --- ## Notable NPCs | NPC | Type | Notes | |-----|------|-------| | **"Jeremy"** | Hezrou | The hezrou Lilly stabbed first and woke the hatchery. Under Lilly's Hexblade's Curse, battered by Longinus, Eldritch Blast and a wall. *"He ain't dead yet."* Every other hezrou is also "a Jeremy" | | **Hezrou of the hatchery** | Toad demons | Ichor-fed through hoses until Lilly's strike tore them loose. One is locked in Unit-NULL's Compelled Duel. They can **summon more of their own kind**, and did | | **The summoned hezrou** | Toad demon | Arrived at full strength mid-fight | | **Barlgura** | Ape-like demons | Brutal reckless brawlers; they mauled Ara-Ara, Celeste, Unit-NULL and Herbert. Resistant to fire | | **The wall-grown hezrou** | Demon | Half-emerged from the cavern wall beside the tunnel entrance. Still embedded | | **Bob** | Sentient blood mace | Two reaction swings for Ara-Ara, including a 28-point answer to a barlgura that hit her | --- ## Locations - **The Maw** — the open pit at the heart of the Demon Nest (W3). About twenty feet deep on the north side, tapering to ten, and overgrown with undulating "aloe." - **The Hatchery floor** — where demons sleep on ichor hoses that run from the walls and floor. The ichor is now spilled across the floor in pools that keep slowly pumping. - **The tunnel entrance** — past the wall-grown hezrou, leading deeper into the nest and toward the sound of the machinery. --- ## Decisions & Consequences | Decision | Consequence | |----------|-------------| | Went down into the maw rather than waiting at the rim | A clean, quiet descent onto the hatchery floor | | Lilly attacked a sleeping hezrou instead of sneaking past | Every hose popped, every demon in the chamber woke, and the party is now in the hardest fight of the arc | | Celeste waded into the ichor to throw a punch | A Constitution save against another flesh warp. She passed, but felt it trying to get in | | Tahara swapped Spirit Guardians for Antilife Shell | The demons were pushed back to the shell's edge, while Unit-NULL could fight from inside it untouched | | The hezrou turned to summoning when they couldn't reach Unit-NULL | One new hezrou, fresh and at full health | | Ara-Ara disengaged at 2 HP instead of fighting on | She survived to be caught by two waves of mass healing | --- ## Open Threads > [!warning] Unresolved > - [ ] **The hatchery fight** — hezrou and barlgura all still standing, plus one summoned hezrou. No demon has died yet > - [ ] **Jeremy** — cursed, bloodied, repelled into a wall, and very much still alive > - [ ] **Remove Curse** — it can cure the flesh warps, but nobody has it prepared yet > - [ ] **The machinery** — the slow beat from the tunnels drives the ichor and the aloe. What is making it? > - [ ] **The hoses and the ichor** — what exactly is the nest feeding its demons, and what does the ichor want with living flesh? > - [ ] **The wall-grown hezrou** — still embedded beside the tunnel mouth > - [ ] **Oruo's phylactery** — still somewhere below, at the bottom of the ichor lake > - [ ] **The horn** — still undelivered to Rex > - [ ] **Damon Charles** — still missing since the Styx --- ## Combat Summary ``` Encounter: The Hatchery — Demon Nest floor (W3) Status: UNRESOLVED — end of round 3; resumes at the top of the order Trigger: Lilly's Longinus + Smite (16) on "Jeremy" → every ichor hose pops, 5-ft ichor pools spill, the chamber wakes Initial foes: 4 hezrou + 2 barlgura seen from the rim (more barlgura joined as the chamber woke) + 1 hezrou summoned mid-fight Round 1 Ara-Ara Mirthful Leaps + Feather Fall descent Tahara Spirit Guardians (DC 18) Herbert Flew and dashed ahead Celeste Punched a hezrou from inside an ichor pool; Con save vs flesh warp — PASSED Unit-NULL Compelled Duel on a hezrou (DC 18) — failed BARLGURA Ara-Ara hit for 12 → Bob reaction for 28; Unit-NULL hit for 10; Celeste bitten (14) and fisted (22) HEZROU One took 20 radiant from Spirit Guardians, then clawed Ara-Ara (10); one mauled Tahara (18 + 18, Spirit Guardians lost); one went for Lilly — Unit-NULL took the 13-point bite for her, then an extra claw for 16 Lilly Hexblade's Curse on Jeremy; OA bite taken (18); Longinus ×2 — 12 + 12 Round 2 Ara-Ara Spirit Guardians Casanova Fire attack from above — 15 (resisted) Tahara ANTILIFE SHELL — hezrou shoved to its edge; Unit-NULL (construct) unaffected Herbert Spell on a barlgura, 17 (saved for half) + tail whip Celeste 70 ft of punches, charge and hoof (10) Unit-NULL Claw, 10 BARLGURA Spirit Guardians 8 / 17; Ara-Ara and Herbert pummelled HEZROU Int DC 15 to realise Unit-NULL is untouchable; SUMMON — one new hezrou arrives; CRIT bite on Celeste → Sentinel at Death's Door + Interception → 4 damage Round 3 Lilly Eldritch Blast ×3 at Jeremy (10, miss, 9) + Repelling Blast into the wall (3). Remounts Celeste Ara-Ara At 2 HP — Disengage Casanova Mass Healing Word (Ara-Ara, Celeste, Tahara, Herbert); Fire Bolt at Jeremy — 5 Tahara (taken early) Shell pushes two demons back; Mass Cure Wounds, ~20 each Active at the cut: Antilife Shell — Tahara concentrating Spirit Guardians — Ara-Ara concentrating Hexblade's Curse — Jeremy (Lilly) Compelled Duel — a hezrou (Unit-NULL) Death Ward — carried from the long rest Kills: none yet ``` --- ## Loot & Acquisitions | Item | Who | Notes | |------|-----|-------| | — | — | Nothing gained this session. Everything in the room is still trying to kill the party | | **Remove Curse** (knowledge) | Party | Not an item, but worth recording: the flesh warps can be cured with Remove Curse | > For a full loot breakdown see [[Session Loot]]. --- ## Party This Session | Character | Highlights | |-----------|------------| | [[The Party\|Lilly Pallywally]] | Back after a week away as an NPC, and made it count. Feather Fall ×2 got half the party down safely, then she woke the entire hatchery by stabbing **Jeremy**. First Hexblade's Curse, three Eldritch Blasts, a Repelling Blast into the wall, and an Interception that saved Celeste's leg | | [[The Party\|Tahara Rahma]] | Scouted the pit on his belly and named what was down there. Took 36 from one hezrou and lost Spirit Guardians, then cast **Antilife Shell** and reshaped the fight. Sentinel at Death's Door blunted a crit. Closed with Mass Cure Wounds in the name of Osiris | | [[The Party\|Ara-Ara Avannatto]] | The demons' favourite target. Bob's reaction hit a barlgura for 28, and she held Spirit Guardians through blow after blow until she was down to **2 HP** | | [[The Party\|Unit-NULL]] | Flew down on her ear-wings, locked a hezrou in a Compelled Duel, took a bite meant for Lilly, and turned out to be the one creature the demons couldn't touch inside Tahara's Antilife Shell | | [[The Party\|Celeste Valentin]] | Carried Tahara off a twenty-foot ledge, stepped into the ichor and shrugged off a flesh warp, then ran seventy feet of punches and hoof strikes across the cavern. Survived a critical bite to the leg thanks to two allies' reactions | | [[The Party\|Casanova Frankenstein]] | Cast **Fly** and fought from the air above the pit. Burned a barlgura, and at the end delivered the wave of healing that pulled Ara-Ara back from 2 HP | | [[The Party\|Dr. Herbert Who]] | Scouted from the air, flew ahead of everyone, and took a beating from a barlgura without a Shield: *"I'm no coward."* | *[[The Party|Damon Charles]] did not appear this session.* --- ## Table Notes - The hezrou ambush from 2026-08-19 was resolved in [[2026-09-03 — Five Jeremys Down & the Curse in the Flesh|last session]] (2026-09-03). Lilly was run as an NPC that night. - The session ended at the end of round three. **Next session resumes at the top of the turn order** with Tahara's turn already taken. - The group plays **Thursdays**. --- *Session recorded on Plaud · File ID: `75e114690d8d7c5024bbe776dc9b1f64` · Duration ~2h 22m*