A Meeting of Minds

Posted on: 2024-03-13

Storyline: Girlfriends

Characters: Tamilda, Baetzzi

Baetzzi was part of the party's adventures for a good chunk of the campaign, her soul inhabiting the goggles you've seen Cirra wearing in her appearances. Most of the problems in the game (including the death of Tamilda's parents) came up because the party were trying to help Baetzzi return to life.

Her whole deal is a saga. She's one of my favourite NPCs. And the party -- Cirra in particular -- love her, despite all the bad stuff.

Transcript

Tamilda stands outside the entrance to an ancient mine with the label "Phandelver" on it. A spider is carved into the cave entrance.

CAPTION: A scrap of paper with "WOMEN I KNOW (who aren't dead" scrawled on the top. The list contains three names, two of them crossed out:

Kipo [crossed out] (dead)
Cirra - Druid - wolf form! - Something in common? [all crossed out]. [New note reads: "THINKS SHE'S MY MOTHER!"
Baetzzi - Drow - automatically cool. - Knows magic! - Singing Cricket called her a lich, but she seemed OK?

Tamilda looks at the mine entrance and sighs.

Tamilda enters a room with an eager smile on her face and a torch in her hand. She has an arrow in her chest, but that doesn't seem to deter her. A weird little creature - a brain on legs (a.k.a. an Intellect Devourer) stands on a table, looking at her (without eyes). Next to it is a hand floating in a jar of liquid.

In the foreground, an elf woman with white hair, dark skin, and goggles leans over the corpse of a bugbear. She has a bonesaw in one hand, and is removing the top of the bugbear's skull with the other, revealing its brain. This is Baetzzi.

Tamilda: "Hi -- Baetzzi? I heard you were alive again --"

Baetzzi: "Hm? A visitor? How did you get past my puzzles and traps?"

Tamilda places her torch in a sconce while she plucks the arrow out of her chest. "They weren't THAT hard." A trio of intellect devourers crowd around her.

Baetzzi scratches her chin with interest. "You're that girl Cirra and her friends dragged along on their adventures. Tamilda, was it?"

Baetzzi hands an intellect devourer to a puzzled Tamilda and walks away smiling.

Baetzzi: "I'm glad you're here. You can help me with my experiments."

Tamilda does not seem to notice the other intellect devourer crawling up her leg.

Tamilda holds up the intellect devourer and looks at it as it squirms. She smiles. The other one has reached her shoulder.

Tamilda: "Sure - what kind of experiments? (These little guys are kind of cute.)"

Baetzzi uses forceps to extract another intellect devourer from the bugbear corpse's now-empty skull. It clings to the head, trying not to be pulled away.

Baetzzi: "I'm studying the behavioural patterns of intellect devourers." She adds, "Don't let my test subjects eat your BRAIN."

Baetzzi turns around, bone saw in hand. "Actually," she says, with a grin, "Are you using it much?"

But she's too late -- Tamilda is running off with a ZIP, only her ponytail and an arm remaining in frame.

CAPTION: Tamilda's torn notepaper again, now with Baetzzi's entry hastily scribbled out.