We discover that we’re basically in a fae escape room. Let the puzzle solving commence!
Taking up where we left off, Wander explores the small room she flew into as a sprite. There are little sprite skeletons all over the ground and a broken transportation circle. She finds the handle for the door and opens it up as a shell-shocked Yiven recounts his travel to the astral plane. Discussion about what to do next follows. A reminder of the other rooms discovered:
- A gold door opens to a platform before a broken off pit. It smells ominously of oil.
- A wood door opens to a room with scattered bones of what they assume is another adventuring party, with another door across the room
- Beyond that door is hallways and doors that seem to go on forever. Last time, after discovering a treasure room with colossally giant-sized items, they had closed the door and turned back.
Nahtan takes initiative to return to the treasure room and the rest of the party follows.
As the entire party passes through the wood door to the room with a deceased adventuring party, Wander takes a moment to cast “Speak with Dead” on one of the elf sculls, at Yiven’s recommendation (because elves usually know stuff). The five questions are asked and answered thusly:
- Who are you? Ariel Shanrarlen of Hearthollow. Sorcerer of the high court.
- What killed you? Killed by sickness. I was the last to die.
- Why were you here? Looking for the tomb of Randal, knaves bane (cue frantic searching through Nahtan’s history book)
- Why were you seeing the tomb? Sent by the lady and lord of hearth hollow to find secrets that Randal held.
- What caused the sickness? Sickness caused by spores from single eyed things. (We recall the mushrooms covering Seagrim and the beholder-like mushroom-covered creature from before)
We continue on, down the hall. There is a flat metal door with no obvious way to open it, with an open gate around the corner. The gate leads to the room with MASSIVE gold coins, a ring, a pile of rubble, and three stone discs. There is much debate at the gate, which has a raised gold portcullis, with the controls on the outside of the room. Yiven is the first to enter, casting “detect magic” and cautiously approaching the first disc. Arunak and Wander follow after, with Nahtan poised to grab the portcullis controls should they shift.
There is a ping of magic about 10 feet underground in the middle of the room, the rubble is all magic, and there is a glint of something under the rubble. At Wander’s suggestion, the three of them step on one of the discs. In the middle of the room, stairs begin to rise, revealing a chest. The portcullis starts to fall, and the rubble begins to coalesce. Nahtan quickly jams his shield into the mechanism and slides under the gate as the rest of the party runs to jump on the other disc. As the weight is removed from the first disc, the stairs slide down, stopped when they apply weight to the second disc.
As the sudden holder of the single braincell the crew is currently sharing, Nahtan runs over to one of the massive gold coins and pushes it over onto the third disc just as the fully formed Rock Elemental steps forward to attack the party, stepping on the first disc. With a click, the stairs lock into place and the portcullis switches from closing to opening, but is still blocked by Nahtan’s shield. With that crisis averted, they shift focus on the rampaging rubble and the chest at the top of the stairs.
Yiven and Arunak run up the stairs, open the chest and look down… into the room? Looking up, the top of the room has opened and they are looking down on their tiny selves looking up at their giant selves, like looking in a mirror through a mirror, but the mirrors make you successively larger or smaller in each reflection. After a failed attempt by Yiven to grab the Rock Elemental through the chest, Arunok successively removes it through the chest-portal-thing, shrinking it down to about mouse size. It is not impressed and continues to attempt to fight. Wander and Arunok attempt to reason with it while Yiven and Nahtan clear out the room via the portal box, transforming the oversized items to normal size, and experimenting with embiggening items.
The Rock Elemental is commanded to sit by Wander, but does not listen to her reasoning and continues to attack after the spell releases. She throws her shield on top of it while Arunak runs back to a previous room to grab a chest. A dex check later, the mini-elemental is put in box, much to it’s disgruntlement. First party pet? If we can keep it from killing us.
After clearing out the room of gold, a ring of free action, and a large diamond-looking crystal, the party returns to the hallway. Wander continues down to see where it leads, followed by Yiven. Nahtan and Arunak go back to check out the metal door, which is now moveable.
Down the hall and around a corner containing a bag of bones and a bag, there is a carved wooden door with an odd orange glow. It appears to be wooden, but is carved like bones and sinew. At the top of the door are winged celestial creatures angled down, as similar demonic creatures climb up from below. Between the opposing forces is a serpentine women with six arms. Written on the door in Sylvin is: “That which you seek is beyond Meralif’s door. The key is five treasures, five challenges from the fey. Find them, solve them, find the way.”
Across the door are five insets, in the shape of a triangle, diamond, circle, tear drop, and oval. Recalling the crystal from the previous room, Yiven places it in the diamond shape. It fits. Guess we need to find the rest! On the way back to the metal door, Wander looks into the leather bag in the corner. It wakes up and grabs onto her hand, but is quickly dispatched. Our first mimic!
Returning to the metal door, they find a very fey-filled room. Giant mushrooms of various sort, some seeming to sway. Two more of those mushroom-beholders, an overgrown campsite, and a door on the other side of the room. Remembering what the scull said about spores, the group contemplates throwing in a fireball and closing the door. After contemplating their options, they decide to wait and check out the oil room first. The door is closed and they move on.
The oil smelling cavern is rather quickly solved. There is an oil slime at the bottom of a chasm, attracted to sound. Yiven casts fly, Arunak realizes he can run on walls, and they traverse to the other size, discovering a room with no gravity. Nahtan and Wander are left to their own devices. Wander goes back to the teleportation circle to try fixing it.
Yiven and Arunak step into the gravity well and are pulled up to the ceiling… except now it’s the floor. There are 5 pillars, 4 colored potions, a rod, and a rope. Below them is a swirling pool filled with piranha-like fish. A scrawled inscription tells them that one potion is good, one is bad, and two do nothing. After attempting to test drops on the fish with no results, Arunak deftly drips some on the elemental. After testing one potion, the elemental goes from beating on the inside of the chest to climbing up it like a spider. Ah ha! They share the potion of spider climb and make their way back with a new rope and an immovable rod, discovering a triangular gem in the wall on their way.
Through some cleverness with the immovable rod and throwing the rest of the potions into the slime, causing it to sleep, Yiven and Arunak return. Now we return to the fey room.
Yiven starts to cast fireball and with a pop, is transformed into a barrel. The party takes this in stride and calls it a night. Closing the door, they roll Yiven back to the fairy ring room and make camp, figuring he’ll either transform back overnight or Wander will cast greater restoration in the morning. Thankfully, he transforms back an hour later.
During her overnight watch, Wander notices a creature in the bushes. She leaves out some jerky, and while she isn’t able to see the creature retrieve it, she hears that it has two hooved feet.
In the morning, the party explores the corner where the creature disappeared. Yiven cast dispel magic and a door is revealed. Walking though the door and hallway, they enter into a large meadow. There is a large tree, goats and sheep, and a cabin. As they approach the cabin, a faun steps out. Surprised to be seen and thrilled to have visitors, the faun invites the party to sit as he serves tea.
They learn his name is Johu the riddlemaker. Former Jester for Tatiana but they had a falling out and he was banished. To get out, he needs a key that is incased in sap in the large tree. He’s been here a long time, he’s 50 years old. Yiven says he’s 41, John calls him young. He’s seen Firbolgs, but they left the fey wild 700 years ago. The party starts to get suspicious as his timeline beings to fall apart. As the rest of the party continues to aggressively interrogate, Yiven goes around the tree.
There is the key, in a sap-filled hollow. He reaches in and takes it, coming back around. To the group. Johu demands the key, promising to help them get to the fey door (they realize this is the carved door from before). As talks break down, Johu storms into his house and locks the door. During this time Arunak also discovers that the door across the meadow returns you to the door they came in. They’re trapped in a loop. But how did Johu get out to find them before?
Wander goes behind the house as Nahtan peeks in the window. As she rounds the back, there are discarded bones… small humanoid bones… children’s bones. Furious, Wander storms back to the front, yelling about what she found, just as a large hand breaks out the window and swipes at her.
Johu breaks out the front door, transformed into an Oni. The party unleashes everything they have on the creature, who laments “you didn’t even hear one of my riddles!” Just before Nahtan makes the killing blow, Johu smiles and says “Twice in eternity, but always within eyesight.” I’m sure that won’t come back on us later.
Wander interrogates the sheep and goats. They’re not transformed people. Investigating the room reveals very little, some empty bottles, a rope, and a box with children’s bracelets and drawings. The party, at Wander’s request, digs graves for the bones, burying them properly with their things.
Solemnly, the party leaves the grove, the key allowing them to leave. As they return to the fairy circle room, Arunak is sent a mental message by Dorza: I’ve discovered some developments in Riverband. Want to talk soon. Knaves are captured, orcs are hunting you, the king is in danger.
And that is where the session ended. Where are the other three gems? Does the door lead to the feywild? What sort of wacky fey-magic things will happen when the next spell is cast? We’ll find out next time, with The Derailers!
We’re taking Christmas weekend off and our following session will be a Battle Royale! Time to see how much Harm a cleric can cause.