3.503: Polterheist

Synopsis

3.503: Polterheist picks up where 3.502: Monster Squad left off, with the party in the middle of a fight in the rain-soaked alleys of Evanstone. The DM, Alex Morrison, has them roll initiative, and Tim goes first, lunging at the strange, shimmering purple thing in front of him with his rapier. The blade swishes straight through it without a sound. Up on the rooftops, Major Baker's Cat can see the creatures through his broad-spectrum vision as silvery, glowing fluid drifting through the air. Perhaps because he is a creature of the hill, he gets the dreadful impression that weapons will do nothing against them, a feeling that spreads to Drandy Savage and the rest of the party once Tim calls out that his sword did nothing. Along the way, Alex also stops to explain how disengaging, attacks of opportunity, bonus actions and climbing speeds work.

Tim slams the back door of the shack on the creature, with Glenn Ghoulia's face still in the way, and flees for the front door. Glenn unlocks it and peers out onto an empty street with a few lit windows. Meanwhile, back on the roof, Drandy deflects a tendril with his shield, and the holy symbol on it glows with white light. Mathon asks about lighting a torch in the rain, but it would take his whole action to dig one out of his pack, so he leaves Drandy to the dead light and follows the cat across the rooftops. Drandy dashes after them and finds that fleeing from the creature is also not free, because of attacks of opportunity. With the cat spotting from above, rolling a natural 20 on Perception to keep the party one step ahead of the dead lights, the group makes a run for the mayor's manor. Mathon slips on the wet edge of a roof and falls to the street, and without a spotter, the rest of the run is a blind sprint with cold brushes on their arms.

A twenty-foot wall surrounds the manor, with a pair of locked, wrought-iron gates. Tim picks the padlock on the gate with the help of Glenn's bardic inspiration, and the lock drops away almost at once. Mathon slams the gates shut behind them, and the party crosses the overgrown lawn toward the largest building they have seen in this town, dark and without a single light on. The black windows remind them of the stone on the hill. The front doors are locked, and Tim, feeling confident, rolls two 1s in a row and snaps his picks, even after using his Lucky reroll. Mathon throws himself at the solid oak doors, to no effect, and so Drandy smashes a window with his sword and boosts everyone in. They land on an expensive rug in a sitting room with a piano forte, and light a lantern and torch. Above the fireplace is a portrait of a blond man with a mustache and a plaque reading Warder Ebengard. A search turns up no vault or hidden doors, though Tim throws a ball bearing at the painting, which merely bounces off it.

The group finds a staircase and heads upstairs, over Tim's objection about splitting the party, and the cat leads them to a pair of double doors that open into a grand bedroom. A search of the bed, nightstand and dresser turns up nothing but a jeweled comb and a couple of perfumes, along with two fist-sized black stones as polished as the one on the hill. When Tim touches one, it comes apart into spiky shards and unfolds into a small, stony creature, and a second stone does the same, hurting Mathon. The room erupts in a fight. Glenn runs one through with his rapier, the cat claws and bites, and a creature hits Mathon for seven, leaving him with only two hit points until his second wind kicks in. Tim shoots his short bow with sneak attack, Drandy takes a chunk out of one with his longsword, and Glenn gives it a dose of vicious mockery. Mathon finally splits the first one in half long ways, and it bursts into a tarry mess, and Tim's arrow pierces the other one right in its black heart, causing it to explode as well. Drandy and the cat both dive out of the way as the episode ends.

Funny Moments

The table struggles with the initiative rules. One player tries to reroll an unlucky result and is told "you can't reroll, you cheetah."
Over and over, the DM cannot get Mathon's name right, and the table jumps in with "it's Gaelic for bear," "Bear Bear," "Mathon Ursus," "Micron" and "that's Latin for bear." The DM says he does not know why it is so hard.
Tim, whose first move is to "assassinate this mouse out of the way," watches his rapier pass through the creature without effect, and the table decides that rogues are either far too overpowered or very sweet.
When Tim slams the door on the creature, Glenn's face is still in the doorway, and a player jokes that he slammed his own face. The DM lets the door slam anyway, because combat has to be played on a grid.
Mathon starts the climb across the rooftops in the rain and the DM is shocked at how athletic a giant bugbear can be. After his fall, the DM describes him as a finely honed athlete of great prowess, and a player cuts in with "bear necessity" and steals one of the DM's own jokes, to the DM's dismay.
Mathon tries to light his torch at the gate, and the DM tells him that Tim picked the padlock so quickly that he did not even get it out of the pack.
"Now that I'm super confident, I'm about to roll the worst of the night," announces Tim, who then rolls a 1, uses Lucky, and rolls another 1. The DM tells him that he broke something in his life.
After Mathon's "Hulk smash" fails against the solid oak doors, the cat suggests that somebody break a window and throw him inside. Someone offers to smash the window with the cat, but "the cat dodges."
A portrait of a long-haired, blond man in a suit of armor with a mustache gets the verdict "Vigo from Ghostbusters 2," and a player says that he would draw a mustache on him, even though the portrait already has one. Someone also notes that the town is called Evanstone and that his name is Ebengard.
Glenn can't help himself when he sees the piano forte, and the table asks him to sing them a song as the "piano ghoul."
Tim throws a ball bearing at the painting, and another table member says "throw a cat in," while the DM reports that it bounces off.
Tim does not want to go upstairs, and objects "for the record" that the group should not split up. Another player replies that when they all die later they will say they should have listened to "Tiny Tim."
Upstairs, the table spots the shrubbery, and an argument breaks out over whether the shrubber is named Robert or Roger, which grows into a thousand-dollar bet.
The double doors of the master bedroom are heard as "Dumbledores" for the rest of the episode, and the cat asks someone to open the door because he does not have hands.
The jeweled comb is claimed by a player who says that he will carry it to Mordor.
Glenn greets the stone creature with "Hey, you" before stabbing it, and when it does not react to being yelled at, he concludes that it cannot hear, and that it is not "a river of slime beneath New York City."
Glenn's vicious mockery is "your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries," and another voice follows it up with "I fart in your general direction."
Drandy proclaims, "take my longsword and slice it long ways," a line that Mathon matches by splitting his target in half long ways.

Notable Quotes

"I'll use my rapier to assassinate this mouse out of the way, man." —Tim
"Nat 20, baby." —Major Baker's Cat
"Dead lights everywhere. There's more coming, boys. Keep up." —Major Baker's Cat
"Make way, gents. Let me try to pick this lock." —Tim
"Team, you can do it. We believe in you." —Glenn Ghoulia
"Now that I'm super confident, I'm about to roll the worst of the night." —Tim
"Someone break a window and throw me inside." —Major Baker's Cat
"I don't have hands." —Major Baker's Cat
"Not die." —Mathon
"Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries." —Glenn Ghoulia
"Take my longsword and slice it long ways." —Drandy Savage