Monster Mission: The Keeper's Last Beast

Tessaly the Masked, Everfrost camp · Theme: Miragul's Menagerie · You play: a manticore

What Tessaly says

Miragul's creatures are caged and studied. Tomorrow the adventurers come to cull the collection. Go alone. The shape will not hold two of you. Are you [ready]? If you fell in there, I can send you [back].

Your form

A barbed, furious manticore, one of the Menagerie's exhibits. - Signature: Roar of Thunder - Shape abilities: Tail Spike, Feed, Pounce - Race abilities: Venom Barrage, Thick Hide, Wing Buffet

How it plays out

"You wake in a cage of ice in Miragul's Menagerie, wearing the shape of a manticore. The cage door hangs broken. Somewhere a warden is humming -- and then he stops."

1. Get ready. "Spend your Monster Points (AA window, Monster Abilities) while the hall is quiet. Step out of the cage when you are ready."
2. Break the cage. "The warden has seen the broken door. He comes with one of Thorne's raiders. Kill the warden quickly, or he will call for more." If he stays up too long, he shouts "Wardens! The manticore is out!" and more wardens come. Kill all of them: "The cage room is quiet. Down the hall, more cages -- and something in each of them."
3. Free the others. "Four cages down the hall, a warden at each. Kill a warden and its beast goes free." Each beast helps in its own way:
4. Frost drake: "Its breath will slow whatever it touches."
5. Holgresh mender: "It will keep you standing."
6. Glob of fire: "hot enough to crack stone."
7. Fiend: "Fewer wardens will find you."

After you free the second one, Oswin Grey raises the alarm ("The manticore is loose in the cages! Every warden, now!"). The remaining wardens rush you, and their beasts stay caged, so you only get two. Choose carefully. 4. Shake the mark. "Oswin's mark settles on you -- look at your buffs. Anything that strikes you is healed by it. His hexers hold it; kill them." Three squads come one after another, and each is led by a hexer. When the last hexer dies: "The last hexer falls. Oswin's mark burns away." 5. Kill the Keeper. "Back in your cage, specimen." The Keeper of the Menagerie fights you, and the beasts you freed fight with you. As the fight goes on, the Keeper calls wardens and empties its last cages. How many come depends on which beasts you freed: the fiend means fewer wardens, and the fire glob hits the Keeper first. "The Keeper falls across its own workbench." 6. The ending. "The Menagerie's cages hang open. Your beasts scatter into the frozen halls." Oswin, from the dark: "A manticore that reads runes. No. That is the same thing I saw in Guk. Something is wearing them."

If the run fails: "The wardens drag you back to your cage, and the shape you wore comes apart."