January 22nd, 2017

Lost and Confused in the Proving Grounds

Continuing Explorations of the Castle in the Sky

From my left:
Nick playing Merrick, the human fighter with gargantuan issues
Nilo playing Arden, the halfling cleric who wishes he had more spell points or less often wounded allies
Zack playing Ahri, the elven magic-user who has yet to find something that her magic is not the equal of
Hunter playing Strix, the human magic-user and filth-monger whose emaciated physique makes her the perfect prybar apparently
Sarai playing Desorna, the elven fighter who is all too certain she's had to do stuff like this before
Chris playing Valandil, the elven spellsword whose recovery from illness only increases his desire for combat
and Catherine, by proxy, playing Ydee the half-elven thief who has had more than enough of YOUR CRAP.

After setting off the poison knockout gas that required them to sleep off the effects in the granite orb room, the party awakened relatively bright eyes and bushy tailed and ready for the next adventure and to learn how the heck to get back to a familiar location. As the gas door was the only door that they had opened and had not successfully entered, they returned to the door and opened it again with Desorna doing the honors. Once again the gas came pouring out, this time only managing to put the two mages to sleep. The door was shut, the mages forcibly awakened, and then Arden yanked open the door again. No gas this time, which was curious, but at the end of the hall was a ladder leading up to the floor above. Excited by the prospect of returning to a higher level, and perhaps familiar grounds, the party ascended.

On the level above, a hallway extended south and ended in a door. A successful find traps showed that opening it would open a pit trap under those before the door, but Ydee was able to jam it so it would be safe to use for a little bit. Passing through the door they came to a 50' by 30' room of many doors, six others in addition to the one they entered through scattered somewhat evenly around the walls. After some debate the decision was made to exit through the door in the north wall in the northeast corner of the room. This led into a switchback hall that went briefly west before turning north and immediately back east and stretching into the distance. A door was in the north wall almost immediately after the switchback, and the party went through it.

The area beyond was a short hallway back to the west with a chest sitting alone at unused at the end. As the suspicious Ydee approached it to check for traps, she was forced to dodge back as the chest took a swing at her. The party charged the mimic and fairly quickly killed it, then Merrick the Merciless cut it open and removed a lot of treasure from its innards; mostly coins but several gems as well. Then the party returned to the long hall.

Proceeding further east the party reached an intersection. A short hallway went north and there was a door on the south wall while the hallway continued east. The door was attempted, but it was locked and Ydee failed to open the lock. The party continued east where they reached the hall's end and found a door in each of the south and the east walls. The south door was opened first, and it led to another short hall that ended abruptly. A message was scribbled on the end wall, and the party read it and made note of it:

"For the younglings out of their depth, here are your classical clues. If you survive, you will owe us gold. Make sure you pay promptly, or else! The Elders.

Proving Grounds – DAD
Halls of Wandering – BAA
Chambers of Plague – CDC
The Center of Control – CAB
Since you've learned only half work, know that you must earn your ribbons three before the depths are opened! We leave that discovery to you, but once you are properly prepared, the next level is as follows:

The Cells and Drakes - EGG
Ta ta!"

A quick perusal made the party feel relatively certain that they now had names for each of the first four levels, though the fact that they might have been in rooms on a level called 'Chambers of Plague' made them uncomfortable at the very least. With more information in hand, they left this hall and prepared to go through the east door.

The east door was fairly easily opened, but an unpleasant experience waited on the far side as six ogres attacked the party. Quite a bit of damage was dealt to and by the party before the ogres lay dead. Luckily Ahri had slept two upon entering, otherwise the dire hit point situation might have become much much worse! The bodies were searched revealing some treasure, and then the room was searched, revealing a panel that opened to show eight tuning forks and the attendant hammer. Strix was instructed to play one of the three note combinations that followed the names of the levels on the previously discovered note but, in her panic of being under pressure, she just flailed wildly at the chimes without any real method. Several of the chimes made no sounds at all, but she ended up striking some combination and the party found themselves in another room.

This room had a door in each of the side walls. The northern door felt like it was barred and the party could find no way to open it, so instead they went through the other door. Luckily, opening it led them back into a very familiar 50' by 30' room with seven total doors around the exterior. Thankful for not being lost in some new expanse of this gods-forsaken dungeon, they proceeded back down the switchback hall to go north down the hallway across from the locked door.

The northern hallway was short and had a door in each side wall at the end of the hallway. Using the right hand rule they opened the east door and came into a 20' by 20' room. A rope stretched across the room from the northeast corner to the southwest corner, and a deep red tapestry hung from the rope to the floor where it seemed to be attached. As Merrick tried to slice through the tapestry, a voice from the other side greeted the party. Confused by this, a conversation began, though Ahri attempted to go around the edge of the curtain and vanished. Question led to the information that Ahri had been teleported away. The voice from behind the curtain was relatively happy to talk, though there were questions it said it would not answer and others that it said it did not know the answer to. Some information was gathered, and at one point an eyestalk popped over the top of the tapestry to look at something when a question was asked. The entire eyestalk thing made the party VERY uncomfortable, but the voice remained innocuous enough, so they parted on good terms.

Meanwhile, Ahri had been blundering around in abject and absolute darkness. Exploring with her hands led her to realize that she was in a jagged hallway with many short turns, but she decided to follow it until she came to something new. The darkness was so absolute that it had even canceled the continual light spell on her staff. After a short wandering she came to the end of the hall face first, with a thud. Some fumbling in the darkness allowed her to discover that the end of the hall had a wooden wall, which she realized was a door. A bar kept the door shut, and no matter how she tried she could not lift it. Following it to one end she tried to lift it there only to discover that something was blocking the way. Another quick examination revealed that a key was stuck in the door so pulling it out of the door she was finally able to raise the bar. But, alas, even with the bar gone the door was still firmly closed and locked. A few brief seconds passed before Ahri remembered the key she held in her hand, and with a quick use of that the door was unlocked and opened. She stepped out into the dimly lit hallway and was surprised to see her friends at the end of a hall twenty feet away looking at her with equal surprise as she had come out of the door that the party could not open earlier.

All together again, the party went through the west door at the end of the hall where they found another 20' by 20' room which seemed barren and featureless, except for the various reddish and occasionally greenish paint that had been smeared around the walls long ago. A careful examination of the room led to the discovery of a slightly raised center section of the floor. Ydee, after examining it, demanded that everyone get out of the stupid room right then, or more quickly than that, as there was some sort of horrific trap that could cause those caught in it to have their blood spattered all over the walls of the room. For once the party showed sense and left the room immediately.

Retreating back to the room of many doors, the party decided to try the western door, which opened into a long north-south hallway. Proceeding south, the party found the hall ended in another door which was quickly opened to reveal a 20' by 20' room. A door was in the south wall in the southeast corner of the room, and a pile of coins was scattered around in the southwest corner of the room. Fearing treasure left in the open, Valandil fired an arrow into the coins, scattering some and causing others to creep closer on their own. The party found itself under attack from several small clusters of what appeared to be gold, silver, and copper coins. The gold struck first, spitting acid into Merrick's face. The copper belched a cloud up into Desorna's face, and the elf failed her save and collapsed unconscious on the floor where a group of silver coins bit her. The battle continued with the party attempting to crush as many 'coins' as possible before they could do much more damage. Before they were all defeated it was learned that the silver coins breathed fire. Finally the last coin was crushed and Desorna was awakened. The creeping 'coins' were revealed to be crustaceans similar to trilobites, though obviously magical creatures judging by their breath weapons. The actual coins were gathered and the creeping coins left crushed.

Through the south door was a hall that stretched a short distance each before turning north. Ydee noticed that the west end of the hallway looked odd, and some excellent searching discovered the way to open the secret door there. Beyond it were stairs leading up, but the party determined that they would continue searching this level before returning to the higher level. The north turn of the hallway ended in a door after 30' or so, and opening it led into a 20' by 20' room with a roughly 10' diameter pillar in the center of it. The party hammered on the pillar and got back a somewhat echoing noise indicating that it was hollow. As they discussed what to do, they head a door close, and a mind flayer came around the pillar to attack them!

The flayer started with a psychic attack on Desorna. She failed the first save but made the all important second save. She had a migraine and penalties to all her combat values, but she was not dead. The rest of the party attacked in a fit of sheer panic. The next round the flayer grabbed Desorna by the throat and began squeezing as it tried to move into tentacle range. The party attacked with a fury and with remarkable successes as blades, beating sticks, and magic missiles pounded the nightmare creature. The damage was enough that on the next round the flayer tried to plane shift away with its victim, but Desorna was able to resist and pulled free. The party's panic remained, but at least their foe did not quickly reappear to counterattack. Badly wounded and in desperate need of rest and healing, the party returned to the tapestry room to further consult with the whatever on the far side of the screen, and to see if they could use the room to rest and recuperate. And there the night's adventure ended.

Experience points: 1270 each for the party, 635 for Ydee.