Episode 60: The Fate of Gryzorth Goblinboon Report
General Summary
The far realm purifiers approach the final ledge to the cranial chamber and make a plan to try and reveal the collusion between the far realm and the infernal triumvirate. Nia turns into one of the blue goblins spotted earlier and has Aginnad parbroil her for authenticity, and Spark has an escape rope prepared. Nia pushes into the room to find Of the Blues the Vengeance with an army of goblins, a captured Cabron and Paz, Of the Hope, the Way, and Link Heskiloth.
Changeling Powers Activate
Vengeance asks Nia for a report, and she cries about how powerful the Blackjack officers are, how they will kill everything if they don't get reinforcements from somewhere, anywhere, allies... perhaps. Vengeance mentions his army was assembled for the goblins to get revenge on all those who have wronged his people, first the magisters, then the world. He will defeat these intruders, he then realizes his buddies can't scan Nia's mind and asks for a serial number. Nia fails to fool him, uncharacteristically, then tells Link and Way their fathers are here, and they may need to consider rebellion turning back into the form of the dread admiral as she does.
That was the security phase, and Spark pulls Nia back with the escape rope, and the full crew step forward to Vengeance's army. Spark sees a full army of blues and is like what is this? why are you working for the squiddies? Vengeance says more revengy stuff, but Spark realizes that Way is an imposter, though Link is real, and that the squiddies are manipulating the situation. He pushes through Vengeance's monologue to say, hey, I told those other blues I'm challenging to be the gobbo boss of this army, so let's go. Vengeance is like, you want to duel? it must be as goblins, naked! Spark considers, but thinks it's the best ways to take the gobbos out of the coming fight and agrees.
Duel For the Blue
Vengeance and Spark get naked, but no one notices Spark keeps one of his piercings as his infused ring of protection allowing him to use his artificer magic. They set aside a ring and face off. Vengeance holds his hand out and manifests a powerful mind blade, "we must fight only with our minds," he bullshits, "and this is my mind manifest." Spark takes the bet and pulls Satellite to him with his telekinesis, "I built this with my mind too, and speaking of stuff I built with my own mind and hands," he calls Mekkamutt into the ring to raise the stakes. Vengeance takes the bluff and links minds with all the blue goblins hanging outside the ring, readying them to attack, "I built this army with my mind and words so if that rusty worg counts so do they." Spark relents, "Fine," and waves Mekkamutt back out of the ring and Vengeance unsyncs the other blues and then rushes forward slashing with his psiblade.
Without armor, Spark has almost no defense other than pulling a magic shield only deflecting a single of many blows. Vengeance's blade does use psychic damage and Spark's intellect fortresses resists the attacks. Still, the damage is great even with El quietly absorbing one of the blows, and Lance subtly turning devastating blows into regular ones. Vengeance even speeds himself up with a burst of power to attack even further leaving Spark nearly collapsed before he springs himself back with psionic enhanced flight to the other side of the ring. He lands confident but scorched from a fire shield Spark had placed on himself earlier. Not that it would take much more for Spark to fall, so the artificer summons a force bubble to put the psi warrior in timeout. "Really," Vengeance asks, sitting down with his blade in his lap, "we're doing this?" Spark starts healing himself, and replies "yeah, I had some questions, like what happened, we left you with Malfador's goons."
Vengeance backstories how he was captured and tortured until his new master Gryzorth Goblinboon freed him while Malfador was out and brought him to his far realm buddies to reach his ultimate form so he's ready to take over the world. Spark summons a force dog and says "shit," hoping for another answer. Spark then lifts the force bubble high in the air, intending to drop Vengeance right in front of him for a solid beating, but when the bubble is popped Vengeance just continues to sit in the air. Spark is surprised, but just prepares for the coming assault. The psiwarrior prepares himself then flies downward to assault Spark.
It begins a brutal back and forth with Vengeance slashing repeatedly and Spark winding up for big booming hits trying to knock Vengeance around and trigger bonus damage. They wear one another down enough that the pace slows. Some unseen support has been applied by both sides, but not decisively. Vengeance recognizes that Spark's defensive position is hard to break so backs off and tries to taunt Spark out of it, but the green refuses to take the bait, instead mocks the blue for being scared, about being half squiddified making him weak, not a goblin and unable to hold up to a green's puny mind attacks and bumps Vengeance around with his telekinetic shoves. Spark then sits cross-legged himself with his weapon on his lap, with no protective bubble to taunt Vengeance. Vengeance tries to use full telekinesis to assert his superiority, but El's aura and Spark's genius just make Vengeance look impotent. Spark then stands and prepares for a coming strike, taunting one more time that the great warrior is too scared to get close. The psiwarrior says something about using Strategy! but knows he just needs to try and come in for the final blow. Vengeance rushes in and the two swing at each other, Satellite connects and Spark spills out the remaining bits of his telekinetic might while Vengeance's hit tries to get past Spark's last chunk of gristle. Spark's blow isn't enough to fell the blue, but Vengeance's cut isn't deep enough to drop the green and a vengeful flicker of fire is enough to fricassee Vengeance. Spark is the winner and new boss of the blue army! His friends rush to congratulate, heal, and wrap him back in his magical gear.
That Which Was Gryzorth
The assembled blues bow, but a thought rings through all their minds, we won't just accept this! Ugly brain dragon rises out of creepy squiddy skull set piece in the back. However, some moves Nia made during the duel came to fruition. The admiral had been talking to Link who is supporting the goblins in their quest to free themselves from oppression which the crew all liked. Nia was worried about Cabron or Paz, but picking up from when Spark mentioned that the way in front of them was inauthentic, she used her ring's find spouse ability, and an engorged member pointed out that Cabron was nowhere near the battle. This allows her to talk Link into siding with his dad against the squids who are lying to the gobbos. This happens just as the duel ends, and the squids put a light spell on Lance to mostly foil his invisibility and blind his robe of eyes. The disguises on Way, Paz, and Cabron drop revealing that the hostages were actually squid casters and Way was a brainy ogre-looking thing. Nia sees a big brawny brainy boi and says, "ooo... mine," and dominates it.
Weird tentacles come out of the walls and restrain the blue goblins, but that just clears the path for Aginnad to drop fireballs. El starts beating down squiddies, they wisely teleport away if not instantly dispatched. Lance decides to show the illithids the real way to throw light and bolt blasts away. Link even joins in with the Moonblade of Heskiloth and takes the head of a squid causing a strange unfamiliar feeling to swell in El's chest that may never come again.
The big brain boi unleashes a mind shockwave that is fairly effective, but Spark exhausted himself against Gryzorth and only has the energy left to pull a pistol from his pack and pick off underlings with Mekkamutt's help. The brain dragon then flies in close to unleash a massive breath attack on the whole crew, but it leaves it too close to El and Ashaya's Assassin ends it one round of blinding light and random darkness.
