Session 16-D: I Can Do This

Key Plot Developments
Pyrite, physically aged and reeling from the revelations she learned about Rotgut and the time gate, reflects on her options. She feeds her Hook Horror, grateful that her persistence helped keep it alive through her final loops in the faerzress bubble. In order to free Rotgut, she says, she needs more power. She calls on Ichabod to forge a contract. Ideally, she wants him to be her familiar.

Unfortunately, Ichabod's recent destruction at Trix's hands prevents him from appearing in his complete form. Instead, a small portal to Hell opens up, and Pyrite sees a horrific image: Ichabod is nothing but festering sinew and skeleton. The skeletal, twisted, shrieking bird rejects Pyrite's call, sending her into a brief state of madness. As she tries to recover, her Hook Horror instinctively comforts her.

Pyrite, the would-be chieftain of Clan Cragmaw, decides that her family will become more than any other goblins ever were once she reunites them. She considers something Rotgut told her: Cragmaw wasn't their tribe's original name. Rather, it belonged to the bugbears and hobgoblins that conquered them a generation ago. Before that, they were the Horroc Tribe. Understanding the symbolic value of reclaiming her clan's power, she decides on a new name: Demonbane.

Pyrite Demonbane and her Hook Horror journey through the Underdark, seeking shelter and support. They find nothing. Finally, they arrive in a large cavern. They see a sizable chasm; on the opposite side, there appears to be a distant outpost. Pyrite could try to make the physical jump, or use an incantation to ensure its success. Pyrite, wanting to test her new spellbook, searches for components for the Jump spell. She can't find them. She sends her Hook Horror to a lower level to forage by itself.

Soon, the Hook Horror is attacked by large insects. Pyrite, thinking they are beneath her, blasts them with weak spells. They aren't cowed. The goblin thinks of her successful attack on the Demogorgon, refusing to expend her higher-level powers on comparatively feeble creatures.

When her Hook Horror's flesh begins to get torn off, she still will not unleash her full abilities.

When she jumps down to its defense, she does not use all of the magic at her disposal.

As she is swarmed by these monsters, who bite at her, pump her full of poison, and go in for the kill, Pyrite cannot process that the chieftain of Clan Demonbane could fall to lowly insects.

In the distance, she hears the shouting of deep dwarves. By her side, her Hook Horror gasps its last breaths and tries to shield her with its diminishing body. When the meat from her bones is bitten and stabbed, all she can do is rely on her eternal mantra: "I can do this."

Pyrite dies.