Gwynfaren Session 10

Zenith City is built on a lake. It is an island with a waterfall. Cipher asks Granny Poo Poo if she has a map of where the sea grass lies. She hands them a map that has Zenith City on it with an X directly under it. She usually goes under the city to get the sea grass. There are caves underneath that are abundant. Before leaving, Aenas asks if the fish tell Elryn things. She says they talk about a lot, but mostly their sex lives. Granny chimes in and says she also likes to talk about her sex life. The party exits. Aenas and Elryn head to the store and Aenas grabs powdered silver and a simple wooden shield.
 
The party goes to Hero's Landing where Til finds the ferry worker. She finds out that they just have to jump in the water once the ferry lowers itself into the lake. Aenas takes off his armor and greatsword and places them in the stables with Alistor. Grin asks if he needs assistance disrobing and he politely declines the offer. He is in a plain white tee and simple pants. Cipher asks M'rgle if that is what "dibs" means. Having heard the comment, Grin looks over and vehemently denies it. Cipher says he thinks she has good ears. M'rgle responds saying, "he doesn't have ears". The party starts to look for a place to enter the water and on their walk finds out that Aenas' favorite color is yellow. Elryn shares that the sea grass they are searching for has natural abilities to harm. The leaves are acidic to touch and are used for territory amongst sea creatures. She also warns that things are very territorial in deep water and the party needs to take precautions. Aenas asks if Grin will be able to sing underwater and if she needs a javelin at her side. The party surmises that the magical weapon will be okay but Grin asks Belinda out right if she will be alright in the water. Belinda heartily replies, "Yes! Let's go get moist"!
 
Grin asks for tickets for all of the party at the ferry station. The Ferry guide quickly tells the party that there are monsters in the lake as well as piranhas and merfolk. They live under the city. Elryn warns that the party should take precautions as they enter. Cipher asks if they will get half off their ticket fare if they aren't going all the way to the shore. The ferry worker says there is one destination and one price. Grin asks Elryn a favor: she wants her to go to the front of the ship and hold her waist as she says, “I’m flying”. They have their Titanic moment.
 
The ship slides off the gate, into the air and down to the surface. Tilaries stares at the water from the edge of the ship, terrified. Grin comes up to her and converses with her about her sadness. They hug and Til quietly explains that bad things happen in the water. The last time she was submerged in water she took the life of a child. Aenas embraces Tilaries, leaving her with heroism. The non-water breathing members of the party and M’rgle take the potion of water breathing and jump in the water. Cipher casts Mage Armor on Aenas as soon as they all submerge. The water is lovely and warm at first. As the party dives deeper, the water gets colder. Aenas asks if it will be helpful or dangerous to add a light in the water. Elryn cautions against it, saying it may attract creatures of the deep. M’rgle then casts Dark Vision on himself so he may see, and Cipher gives Grin his mask, granting her dark vision. He cautions her not to look directly into any light. As they travel down to 300 ft, the bottom of the lake becomes visible. There is a staircase and open structure that goes straight down into the ground. M’rgle casts pass without a trace on the party. They start to see a faint glow and Til checks for Magic in the sacred seeming place and finds out that the large portal looking structure is teeming with magic. Elryn completes her task, easily filling the bag to the brim with seagrass. Aenas pokes at the light in the center of the room and it gently ripples.
 
Some of the party feel as though they are being watched. Elryn tells the party that they have company and the party should hide. As they hide they feel the water shift as a presence enters their space. The creature has a large pink belly and seems to be an eel like creature with tentacles on the sides. As it approaches, the party sees three vertical eyes look out scanning the ocean floor. Elryn recognizes this creature as an Aboleth. She sees two more behind the large Aboleth that are about adult sized, but not quite. Aboleths are born adult-sized with baby brains but they are also born with ancestral knowledge of those who came before them. They are extremely perceptive and can communicate telepathically. They can see well underwater and begin swimming in circles looking for prey that they previously perceived in this direction. Elryn reaches Grin and asks what the plan is. Grin says she is “literally out of her element”. The party sees Torrent leave by entering the portal, and he disappears completely. Elryn tells them to follow his lead, and reaches out to the Aboleth. “Can you understand me?” she says. "Yes Elryn. You are not the first and you will not be the last to enter our space. Elryn, what is your greatest desire?” Elryn responds that she wishes to see her brother again. The Aboleth responds, “Elryn, your brother lives. Come and talk to us face-to-face.” A belief comes to her face and the Aboleth stares at her. “This better not be a joke.” “Your friends are leaving Elryn.” “What do you know of my brother?” “I will know more soon.” M’rgle attempts an attack and Grin puts up a Wall of Force. “Tell my brother to find me,” she says.
 
The party gathers at the portal, excluding Aenas, Elryn, and Cipher. Seeing that they can escape the Aboleth, they move toward the portal. Elryn’s face is war crazed and guilt filled with rage. She still has the stature of a queen. Aenas waits for the rest of teh party to enter the portal, ans steps in last. The Aboleth says to Elryn, “See you soon. There's one way in and one way out.” They enter a hallway filled with blue light; the entrance is not a huge Gateway, more of a watery door. Till yells at Torrent for leaving the party alone and wandering on his own. Torrent steps through the next portal where there is a large circular chamber with a mirror in the middle. Tilaries tries to surmise what kind of magic is being used and finds that there is divination magic within the mirror. There are dark clouds that roll in the mirror. Til holds hands with Elryn and asks the mirror to show her Narada. The mirror does not respond; the rest of the party also tries to get the mirror to have a reaction, but there is no effect. Elryn goes to the end of the chamber wherein lies another door. It resembles the door of a submarine. Cipher, Elryn, and Aenas open it together. A new chamber is discovered with many hallways leading to different doors. Elryn opens the door on the right, and it holds a mirror that shows her reflection.
 
When Elryn reaches to touch the mirror she feels a finger touch hers rather than a cool piece of glass. After her initial contact with the mirror the finger goes out of the mirror and begins to grab the rim. An identical visage of Elryn exits the mirror and tries to convince the party that she is indeed the real Elryn. Elryn grabs Tilaries’ brooch out of her bag and dons it. She now looks like the half-elf version of Til. While in this form she looks to the other Elryn and sees that she can do the exact same thing. They both take off the brooch. The real Elryn tackles the fake in a full attack. As she strikes, she takes the damage being dealt to the other copy. Elryn asks fake Elryn what her conversation with the Aboleth was about and she responds, “we were speaking about our brother.” The real Elryn asks the fake Elryn if she is really exactly like her. The false Elryn responds that she is alike in every way, but more confident. “Do you ever wonder why you were the only person who survived?” “Of course, I blame myself for everything.” Grin detects thoughts and hears Elryn think, “I don't care if I die, she isn't getting out of this room. She's right. I've known it for 15 years.” Elryn feels rage and guilt then she feels loss. Grin shows the party that this indeed is the real Elryn. Aenas attacks fake Elryn and hits her with his spear. He is distracted and blinded by light, so he must reroll. He misses another attack, and then connects with the last. Smite. As he stabs fake Elryn, real Elryn feels the pain. Elryn makes the final attack at fake Elryn with her dagger and goes unconscious. The imposter falls into a puddle of water. Grin does a healing word on Elryn and she is revived. The party heads to the other side of the large corridor where they find another mirror. M’rgle touches it, duplicating himself. Elryn moves to attack and fake M’rgle attacks twice back. He still stands. He then hits Aenas and jumps away. Elryn and Aenas attack him in synchrony and the imposter becomes a splash as he is taken down. M’rgle the proper falls down and is rendered unconscious, but Elryn and Aenas heal and regenerate him.
 
The party opens the largest door to the Middle Chamber. They see six sea trolls chained up to an Eldritch like machine that is bathed in blue energy. There is a huge pile of bones at the end of the room. The sea trolls cower in fear at the sight of the party. Elryn asks why they are here and they explain that they were born here and all they know is this room. They are raised in the other room, and are chained when they are old enough. One of the trolls says that a lady and her friends put them there. She has black robes and black hair. When their dad died they took him down from the chains and put him in the pile of bones. He also explains that when one of them dies, another one is chained up. Elryn says we can let them all go, but the creature tells her that the machines will break if they are taken away from it. When a troll dies, the machine halts. In giant, he tells his family that the party is friendly and they're here to save them. Grin hears them speak in giant and then talks to each of them gently, reassuring them that they are safe and that the party will find them a safe place to live. Grin also delivers rations to each of the trolls.
 
Til investigates the machine and its design. She realizes that it is funneling magic away from the trolls and into a large safe-like container through the machine. Elryn investigates the rest of the map and finds a shimmering powder and collects it. Aenas rifles through the bodies and finds nothing interesting. Elryn moves to see the adjacent room and finds a chest. Cipher watches as she attempts to unlock it. Nestled inside the box are 8 healing potions, 4 diamonds, a bottle of mysterious liquid, and two tomes. Elryn takes the potions and the rest of the loot, then Cipher asks if he can have one of the diamonds. Elryn happily obliges. Tilaries casts Mage Hand to stop the machines, wielding one of her daggers. They come to a halt and the troll below the broken part of the machine starts healing. Red Energy takes over the blue energy that was being siphoned from the trolls. Til and the others release the trolls one by one and all of the blue light that filled their chamber turns red. The mirror in the main chamber starts storming and they can hear a mechanical like voice saying “there is a malfunction in the generator room.” They get the trolls out and head to the main chamber. Til gets one of her daggers back and the Machine starts rolling again, still producing Red Energy.
 
The potion bottle filled with the silver powder that Elryn recovered gets warmer as Elryn heads toward the large chamber with the mirror in the middle of it. Elryn takes the powder and pours it onto the stormy mirror. As she does this, the powder turns into a snowflake and the storm parts, revealing a room. Elryn touches the mirror and immediately goes through it. The rest of the party follows suit, as well as the trolls. The new room has stairs on one side, and looks very shabby and unkempt. It is mostly a mudroom with ramshackle wooden stairs. Elryn ascends the stairs and carefully peers out the hatch. She sees blue sky on one side and hay on the other. She relays to them that they're in a barn. Til waits for the rest of the party to ascend the staircase and exit the hatch door, and then focuses her energy and produces a Thunder Wave into the shoddy room. It begins to turn on itself and become crushed. After Til creates this thunderwave, she is turned into a sheep. The party keeps walking but Cipher realizes that Till is nowhere to be seen. He checks in the barn, finding it empty, excluding a singular sheep. The sheep knocks his hand and begins to lick it. After hearing a thunderous boom before finding the sheep, Cipher believes Boomy is a good name for it. The sheep tries to give hints that she is indeed a human by nudging his hand and licking it but he does not realize. She follows him to the party and as people begin to question the whereabouts of Til, she reverts back to her form on all fours as the slender, translucently pale half-fae. There is a quaint cottage next to the barn.
 
Aenas goes next to the cottage and M’rgle ascends the roof. There are seemingly no people in the cottage, but as he knocks on the door someone approaches the door from the other side. Two tentacles appear out of the sides of the house. Both Aenas and M’rgle are hoisted up and grappled in the air. Aenas is granted the rule of cool as he misty steps out of the grapple and comes down with his spear on the house. Cipher blows a fireball into the mouth of the house and fire fills the inside. He then casts Firebolt and destroys the accursed home. The trolls go jump in the lake running for the first time in their lives. Aenas offers that the party can visit his hometown if they would like to, as it is only a small distance away from where they stand. They walk the path together as they dry off, sharing stories of their adventure.