Session 43: Gimmicks Galore

General Summary

Dear journal,   Having rested up, we got back to the room with the pit. Looking at the map, we had three paths to do, two of which were a dead end. We decided to check out these dead ends first. Might have some loot in them.   We first entered a room with a sarcophagus in the middle. The walls were covered with black silk, and strange prisms floated through the room. When Valstrax entered the room, we figured out that it was also filled with trap floor tiles. He fell into a pit with spikes at the bottom, luckily Voron could get him out. Skrik points out several more traps on the ground, and we start heading towards the sarcophagus. Valstrax searched the sarcophagus and found a bunch of papers, ink, spell scrolls, and another key. We wanted to check the rest of the room as well, so I went to look at the silk on the walls.   I should’ve been more careful since I fell into another floor trap close to the wall. My strength failed me again, but Valstrax was able to get me out. He showed me the safe path back to the sarcophagus, and another me? Something that looked exactly like me was seeping the life from Voron. I can’t do that, so it must’ve been something else. Everyone was attacking the other me, while Voron got away from it. I was very annoyed with this room at that point, so I blasted that other me with a spell and got out of there. Valstrax was able to finish it after that and got out of there too. I think we all pretty much had it with that room because we torched it with some spells after we got outside of it.   We continued to the next dead end on the map, but when we got to the hallway leading to it we saw a circle of white rooms ahead. When skrik walked up to it, he fell into another pit. Valstrax tried to pull him out with a rope, but Skrik seemed to have gotten stuck on one of the spikes. Skrik was able to free himself eventually and checked out the white circle. When he got to close, the circle threw him back with quite some force. It seemed the white circle was preventing us from continuing. Perhaps the keystone that we had found in the sarcophagus could be of use, but we wanted to make sure before trying it. We took a short rest so that Janey could inspect the keystone and the spell scrolls that we had found. As a bonus, we all got to enjoy a bit more of Valstrax’s cooking.   I was still enjoying the last bits of the food and calming down from all these strange rooms when Janey yelled out to us. She got bored, apparently and went back into the room we torched. She had retrieved one of the floating prisms and it had now turned into a copy of her. We rushed over to her and the other Janey and made sure that the copy didn’t drain anyone as mine did with Voron. After making sure everyone understood that we were not going back into that room, we went back to the hallway with the white circle. Janey found out that the new keystone was able to “open” the circle. When the person with the stone remained close to the circle, the rest could pass through without problems.   When we were all through, we checked out the next room. This one contained three big rune circles again. Janey went to work translating it while we stayed outside. Then, suddenly one of the circles started lighting up. Janey said that she read something about periodic lightning bursts, so we made sure to be outside of the room, or so I thought. When the rune went off, it indeed shot lightning all across the room. Valstrax and I were a bit too close to the room still and had to avoid the lightning. Valstrax was able to, but I got hit; luckily Valstrax’s aura protected me from most of the damage.   At the other side of the room was a double door. We decided to quickly open those doors and rush through in between lightning explosions. Valstrax went ahead to the door, but it was locked. Skrik rushed to the door, had it open in mere seconds and rushed through. The rest of us started rushing towards the door too, but several hostile people came out of the door towards us. One rushed towards Voron and Janey on the other side of the room, Valstrax and I dealt with the other two; all while dealing with the lightning explosions. I was starting to get frustrated by all these rooms, luckily there were enemies to take it out on.   After the fight, we found skrik alive and well in the room we were trying to get into. The room was pretty hot and had pillows all around it. The heat reminded me of a forge, so it wasn’t all bad. Skrik was escorting a woman out of the room. She was being held prisoner here by the people we just killed, and she wanted to go home. So we went back to the teleportation circle, past the exploding lightning runes and the white circle. Along the way, we found out that Janey and Voron had dealt with the guard that ran to them though in a strange way. The guard had been turned into a striped horse and was stuck halfway down another pit trap. After she was returned safely, we were all getting pretty weary of these rooms, even though it hadn’t been that long since our last rest. We went back to the hot room, to check the two closets for loot. They had some clothes in them, and there was also a strange half circle on the back of one of them. It matched with another half circle in the torched room. We didn’t have the energy to deal with that right now, so we decided to have some relaxation time in the room. I hope there isn’t another gimmick here, I just want to relax.   p.s. I wanted to start writing down lessons so that I can read them back later. My lesson of today: Don’t let your guard down while investigating a room, there might be more traps.

Rewards Granted

See next story ;P