February 12th, 2017

Still Somewhere in the Proving Grounds

Even More Random Meandering Through The Halls Of Wandering

From my left:

Nick playing Merrick the human fighter and “I can feel the rage building.” debtor

Nilo playing Arden the halfling cleric and one who dreams of being alone and happy

Chris playing Valandil the elven spellsword and “Only One Hit Per Night So Make It Count” lucky charm

Sabre playing Desorna the elven fighter and wheezy gigglebot

Hunter playing Strix the elven magic-user and “I shouldn't be so pretty” urchin

Zackery playing Ahri the elven magic-user and burgeoning firemage

and, as always, by divine fiat, Catherine playing Ydee the half-elven thief and “Pay me or kiss my leafy green ass.” mercenary

The adventure once again began in Ivy's room. The party spent an entire day resting and relaxing so Arden could sleep, heal all their ungrateful butts, and then sleep again while dreaming of a quiet hobbit hole with plentiful food, a pipe, and no visitors ever. This also allowed those characters who had reached new levels of experience to gain the basic gains of a level: new hit points, new spell points for those who used such things, and (for those reaching an even numbered level) better saving throws. The rations were consumed and rest was had before the party left to explore new areas and discover new secrets.

Heading south then west, the party returned to the Big Room With Many Doors ™ and decided where to go next. Through the east door was the decision, the door was opened and the journey began. A short hallway was on the far side which opened into a 20'x30' chamber. A door was opposite the way they entered, and there were writings all over the walls, floor, and ceiling. The far door led to a space of absolute darkness, and the party was too fond of their remaining items with continual light on them to risk having the spells canceled as Ahri's had been previously. The door was quickly shut and they turned their attention to the written words. The written language was unfamiliar to the party, so Ahri cast read languages and began to read it. It seemed to be some sort of demonic tongue, but the words seemed nonsensically strung together. As she read it aloud to the rest of the party, Merrick (always knowledgeable when it was too late) began to recognize a pattern to the words. It was determined to be a spell just as the spell activated and the party found themselves standing in an area of complete darkness. Curses!

Some time was spent stumbling around before the party found a the opening which led out of the area. Following the right-hand wall, the party continued onward through the inky darkness. After a surprisingly brief walk the right hand wall felt rough, like wood, and the party opened the door that they had found. Walking through they found themselves in an area that did not match up with their previous maps as far as they could tell. The darkness was not so dark and Strix's lantern was lit so the party could continue onward.

The area they had entered was the corner of a hallway with the hallway stretching off ahead of them and off to their left. The usual right-hand rule took precedence and they went down the hall before them.

Thirty feet down this hallway it came to a dead end with three doors; one to the left, one to the right, and the third straight ahead. Continuing with the right-hand rule, they went through the door and came into a 30'x30' room. The door they entered through was in the center of the wall, and an additional door was in the center of each of the right and left walls. Opening the door in the center of the right hand wall showed absolute darkness on the other side, so the door was slammed shut and ignored as quickly as possible. The door opposite was then opened which revealed another hall stretching off into the distance. Just before the twenty foot mark a door was visible in each side wall, and after these the passage branched off to the left and continued ahead. The right door took precedence again, and it entered into one end of a hallway that stretched off to the left where it turned a corner to the right after 20 feet. Secret doors were searched for, and one was found at the end of the hall to their immediate right.

The secret door was opened revealing a 10'x10' room with two levers built into the wall opposite the door. Both levers were in the up position and though the party played with them for a bit, even going back to open the door to look into the area of absolute darkness to see if anything changed, nothing seemed to be different. After a while of tinkering the adventurers grew tired of such games and went down the hallway opposite the secret door instead. Proceeding down the hallway they turned the corner to see that the hallway only went 20 more feet before dead-ending, but at the dead end was a short pillar with a small coffer on it. The majority of the party advanced down toward the coffer with expectations of another mimic while Desorna and Ydee hung back. Valandil carefully opened the coffer to reveal a silver ring inside, but as he picked it up a chain that it was attached to was pulled. A clattering crash came from behind the party and they turned to see that a portcullis had fallen sealing them in the hallway. Desorna had jumped toward the party and Ydee back away from the party in attempts to avoid being caught under the portcullis. Luckily this meant that Ydee could go back and use the levers to raise the portcullis again.

Once the party was freed, and Valandil had pocketed the ring after breaking it free of the chain, the party returned back to the other hallway and went through the door on the opposite wall. Inside were four wild-eyed and somewhat odd looking berserkers with their battle axes waiting to attack the group. Strix, who had opened the door, was terrified by the appearance of these slavering wild-eyed madmen and ran away as fast as she could. The berserkers were difficult opponents, but the party was finally able to put them down. Arden discovered that the axe blades seemed to have some sort of corruption on them, and Merrick handled cleaning the axes by imbedding two of them in the chests of those who had been wielding them moments before. The axes were nothing special, so they were left behind. The berserkers had no funds on them, so they were left to rot where they were, and the party was left to wonder where Strix had gone to.

Strix had run wildly down hallways taking turns without paying much attention until she all but ran into a huge creature. Panicking, she wildly cast burning hands at it, singing its skin, and it hit her with a massive paw, clawing her ribs. Whipping off part of her raggedy clothing, Strix wildly threw it over the beast's head and ran off again, keening in fear. Making random turns again, she managed to blunder back into the party that had gathered outside the berserkers room. She gave wild descriptions of the thing she had faced, but if not for her badly injured ribs the party would have been very tempted to disbelieve her.

Looking back down the hallway outside, the party decided to take the left-hand passage at the next intersection since this wasn't the direction Strix had come from and no one was enthused to go hunting some giant creature. This hallway went 30 feet before it opened into another chamber that was 20' across and 30' wide with hallways exiting the chamber left and right at the far corners. Right-hand rule took precedence again, and the party ventured down the hallway. After just ten feet there was a door on each side wall, and the passage turned to the right immediately after the doors. Right-hand rule said through that door, and through it they went!

Behind the door was a 20'x20' room with a web filled alcove in the north wall in the northwest corner and a door in the far wall next to the alcove. Strix, deciding some webbing would add to her ragamuffin dishevelment, went to take some webs for herself. The humongous spider within the 10'x10' alcove tried to take a chunk out of Strix for her daring. Strix was luckily missed and she dodged away while the rest of the party moved to attack the spider. Though the webbing was an impediment, the party quickly hacked the spider to death before Merrick grabbed its corpse and threw it on Strix as Valandil burned away the webbing to make it easier to search the alcove. Three corpses were found within, all with long-ruined gear but still useful coins. Strix managed to find a dagger in the belly of the spider. Though the blade looked weak and heavily pitted as if from acid in the beast's stomach, the hilt of what looked like a dragon's leg with open and curved talons was appealing. One of the corpses had an empty dagger scabbard on their belt which the dagger seemed to fit into, and Strix had a new weapon of sorts.

After the party finished their searching they went through the door next to the alcove and found themselves in another 20'x20' room with a 10'x10' alcove on one side, like the previous room, just turned 180 degrees. The alcove to their immediate left was empty of anything but a lever on the far left wall, and there was another door in the left hand wall on the other side of the alcove. As the party started to search the room, Strix went into the alcove and pulled the lever. When she did so the pit trap in the 20'x20' section of the room opened, and while several of the characters managed to leap to safety the two heavily armored fighters plunged into the pit. They took partial damage as their fall was somewhat cushioned by the widespread gelatinous cube that covered the entire floor, but this was not necessarily a good thing because gelatinous cube. Merrick faceplanted and failed his save, while Desorna made hers. Unfortunately, with no easy way out, she soon failed a save as the cube attacked her repeatedly and she joined Merrick limp and slowly being absorbed by the cube.

Meanwhile the rest of the party had not been idle. Though Ydee couldn't do much as her bowstring broke the others did their best to deal some damage and kill the cube, finally succeeding before the two fighters were absorbed and devoured. Valandil managed to lasso and retrieve both of their paralyzed bodies, and once that was done Strix closed the pit again so the party could regroup and healing could happen. Then the cube was somewhat burned and its remains sifted for treasure.

Once the paralysis had worn off, the party passed through the other door and into a zig-zagging hall. They left the zig-zag by going ahead and to the left, finding themselves at a dead end with a door straight ahead quickly enough. Opening the door revealed a hallway to the right and another straight ahead with a door immediately visible on the opposite wall down the right hand passage. Quickly passing through that door they found a 20'x20' room with a mind flayer in it, and the attack was on!

Luck was with the party, and though Merrick's beloved helmet was removed and crushed by the flayer as it tried to dig for his brains, the flayer was slaughtered astoundingly quickly by the group, with Ydee making the killing blow as she drove her magical dagger into the flayer's neck. The flayer's psychic scream as it died overloaded the synapses of Strix, Ahri, and Desorna causing them to collapse unconscious to the floor. Meanwhile an intellect devourer had been drawn to the site by the dying scream and it found the unconscious mages easy to feast upon as it stole spell points from them, and from the still active Arden and Valandil. The decision to hack the brain-dog to pieces was easy for the group, and they dealt quite a bit of damage to it, especially since they all made their saves against its slow spell. In an attempt to save its own life, it again turned invisible and managed to escape at a high rate of speed. Cursing at the devourer's ability to escape, the party searched the flayer's body and took the goods from it, including coins, a pair of potions, and a ring that Valandil put on with no apparent effect. That completed, they continued down the hall.

The hall only went an additional ten feet after the door before it ended in a 'T' intersection with right or left hallways. Without even giving a look to the left, the party went right and after 20' the hall ended with a door on the right hand wall. Right hand rule made it easy, and the party entered a room to find two more mind flayers on the other side! Battle was quickly joined and Strix managed to successfully reduce one of the flayers fairly quickly. With all the delicious brains out of reach, the mind flayer decided to leave and it plane shifted away. Its companion, who was preparing to try to dig into Merrick's skull, was not happy about being abandoned, so it tried to shift away too and take the fighter with him. Merrick broke free and the flayer left without its dinner.

Frustrated by his impotent fury at not getting to kill stuff, Merrick searched the otherwise empty room like a man possessed and managed to find not one but two secret doors; one in the left hand wall in the near corner and another in the far wall in the left corner. The closer secret door was opened, and the party passed through into the corner of a 30'x30' room with an opening in the center of the left hand wall and a deep green diamond-shaped mosaic in the center ten feet of the room. One by one, party members stepped onto the mosaic and vanished, all appearing again in the center of the aforementioned Big Room With Many Doors ™. The decision was made then to open the easternmost door on the south wall and explore what was behind it.

This door led into a 30' wide by 50' long room with plain Ionic columns about a foot in diameter in the center of each 10' square on the map along each side wall. At the far south end of the room was a door with an odd lock plate in the center of it and no apparent way of opening it. Merrick, still possessed by the madly intuitive spirit of unrequited murderous fury, managed to discover that the second and fourth sets of columns had a section that rotated around the center, and with some wild and yet maddeningly instinctive cunning managed to rotate them just so to allow the door to unlock and open. Because rolling enough natural 20s in a row is even better than actually thinking things through or, Gods forbid, going in search of actual information.

Beyond this door was a 20' deep by 30' wide room with walls that looked as if they had been painted to represent the patterns that might be formed by a technicolor wind blowing past. More madcap searching revealed a secret door in the center of the south wall, and some random fumblings opened it to reveal a 10' by 10' room with a door in each side wall. The eastern door was covered with a floor to ceiling image of a bear, with a small bear-shaped inset in the center of it where an icon of that shape might fit. The western door had the image of a frog on it, and a small frog-shaped icon in the center of it where an icon of that shape might fit. Since the party had neither of these icons, frustration led to random acts of violence and Arden attempting to squish Strix's toad familiar into the frog-shaped icon space in the western door without any luck.

After some time and several DM hints that were not useful apparently (COME ON! EYES! EYES IN THE PATTERNS OF THE WIND ROOM! EYES! LIKE THE THING BEHIND THE CURTAIN! OH. MY. GOD!!!) the party finally got the hint from Ydee that perhaps asking Ivy would be an idea, especially since she had imparted some information previously. Dur dur dur dur dur. Dur. Thus, the party returned to Ivy.

Anyway, DM angst passed and Ivy told the party that there were two creatures on the level that possessed the icons; a huge owlbear to the south and a frog beyond the area of darkness. The party wanted no part of the darkness, except for Ahri who said “I know how to get into the darkness!” and tried to get behind the curtain, which did teleport her to the darkness. The rest of the party decided that they could easily follow the passages they had taken before and get to the south more easily than they wanted to fool with the darkness. So off they went weaving through the hallways in search of the southern part of the map.

Since the hour was growing late the DM skipped rolls for wandering monsters or even placed monsters in some of the rooms and let the party go south.

Continuing south to the intersection just north of the room that teleported them to the arena, the party headed east down the hallway. After 30' they came to a four way intersection with one passage heading north for ten feet before opening into a chamber, one going east for 20' before ending in a door, and the other going south for 20' before reaching a dead end with a door in each side wall at the dead end. The party went north to explore the chamber.

The chamber looked to be 20' deep by 30' wide with a floor to ceiling tapestry all around the walls which touched Desorna on some primitive instinctive avoidance nerve so that she didn't want to enter the room. As the party entered and began exploring, two animated stone statues came from behind the tapestry out of 10'x10' alcoves on either side of the entrance and attacked. Desorna overcame her avoidance issues and charged in to join the combat. Soon the statues were rubble on the floor and the party could explore further. The tapestry was of pastoral and woodland scenes, though there seemed to be several mostly hidden bears in the tapestry and an oddity that looked like a large frog back rising in the center of a pond. Nothing else of interest was discovered, and the party returned to the intersection and took the east passage.

Beyond the door at the end of the east hall was a room 20' across by 30' north to south, with the party entering in the center of the west wall. A passage left the room north and south in the northwestern and southwestern corners of the room. A written message on the east wall unhelpfully informed them “You are mistaken.” The party took the north hall which came to a dead end after 20' with a door in the right wall at the end. Opening the door they came into another 20' east-west by 30' north-south room with the party entering in the center of the west wall and a door on the east wall in the northeast corner. The floor had piles of scat on it that looked like they were from some large animal. Feeling that their quarry was close, the adventurers continued through the door in the northeast corner.

Beyond the door was a hallway that went 20' before opening into a chamber. In this chamber was a gigantic owlbear and combat was initiated. The 'bear seemed to remember the scrawny mage who had set it on fire before, and its grudge led it to hit Strix HARD, dropping her to -1 hit point. Arden stabilized Strix as the battle raged, and then leapt in to join the attack. Before it was over all the party had been injured and Desorna was unconscious having been dropped to 0 hit points. The party took the bear icon on a chain from around the beast's neck, and Arden used the last of his spell points to power the tome and heal them all enough to be able to straggle back to Ivy's room. But before doing so, Arden felt the urge to go out the hallway in the west wall just south of the one they had entered through. It went ten feet then turned south after that and after another ten feet it entered a 30'x30' room. Another hallway left the room to the south, but lo and behold the eastern exit led to a flight of stairs rising up to the floor above. The party had been here before, and so had found their way back to the first floor and the way out of the Proving Grounds. With only a day or two before the teleporter stopped working until the next month, finding this exit was of the essence and the party was thankful for it.

There the adventure ended for the week, and the party straggled back to Ivy's room. Experience for those who might be remotely interested was 1,938 for everyone who isn't Ydee and 969 for Ydee.