Session 3: What is that?

General Summary

The first puzzle

Last time in smooth brain chronicles, our heroes had fought a battle with four Kobolds, investigated some areas in our dungeon some which proved to be fruitful investigations and some which were not, and we left them around a campfire contemplating their next steps.

Our friends were gathered around and talking about what they think comes next period as they walked the length of a large wall with five foot openings in between 5 foot pillars. Upon entering the myriad of hallways which all seemed to lead to the same place they noticed that as they walked the ground underneath them turned a light glowing red color. Emanating a magic that was somehow familiar but also foreign to the party members. The tiles begin to emanate a light pink glow reminiscent of that of the ruins in the room that they found themselves in before summoning Danestra from her suspension in time and space.

They stopped, if only briefly unsure of whether they should continue or turn around and find their way back to the entrance. Upon crossing the entirety of the hallways Vylphira instantly recognized a large and smooth piece of stone wall as an entrance or exit to the area. It was a hidden door one that had no apparent way to access it. The party was slightly apprehensive but decided to backtrack the way that they came and see if anything happened on the floor as they walked the tiles on the floor started to turn a brighter red, no longer the seemingly harmless glow of energy but also not threatening. As they walked, some of the party members noticed that there was some give to the tiles on the floor. These large stone plates were moving about 1/3 of an inch up and down as they pressed on them.

Curious, if not somewhat cautious the party decided to do a little test with these tiles. They had Quena walk back and forth on a couple of them to see if her weight would activate them and found that it did not. In the interest of scientific curiosity they also had Bolo navigate to the same tile that Quena was on. They found that with the two small creatures on a single tile they were able to actuate the pressure plate and activate whatever magic was fueling the lights.

As Amber was walking the hall trying to come up with a solution to this puzzling situation that the party had found themselves in she noticed that there were plaques on the wall in between the entrances. These plaques were hung with seeming care on the pillars that line to these hallways. She looked very intently to try and decipher the meaning however, she was unable to. Amber shared with the party members that she had seen a plaque but could not decipher what it was trying to tell them.

After some time in conversation, and fruitless experiments with what was happening, Denestra made her way back to the pillars and took a look at the plaques amber had detailed.

She recognized them, relics of ages past For the rest of the party but to her time that seemed to be only yesterday. In fact to her it was just yesterday, and she instantly recognized them as a military formation that she herself was familiar with. Danestra having lived through the sacking of Rhovar was educated much like any children of the time would be. She had received instruction not only on the use of weapons, strength, and basic military maneuvers, but she was also instructed on how to write and read Rhovarian Battle plans proficiently. She recognized these plans as one for a flanking maneuver.

She only looked at one of the plaques detailing the first flanking maneuver that should be executed, on the other plaques were other steps in the process but having been satisfied with the knowledge she has she did not look to the other plaques.

The party conferred with this new knowledge and decided that they would make an attempt at a double sided flanking maneuver. They reset their battlefield, the labyrinth of hallways that led to this door that was unbroken and unopened within the dungeon or temple that they found themselves in. What they did next was find themselves in a merry go round of a puzzle were they activated twice the flanking areas on each side of the hallways. Upon doing this the colors of the tiles changed they locked in the downward position and turned a bright and reaffirming green. The party then went to check to see if there had been any success and noted that the door was still closed.

The party then decided that the flanking maneuver should have a second wave, this was not done with the help of any information but instead intuition. Bolo and Quenna were Not part of any of this conversation and found themselves in the center aisle of the hallway and moved back out activating the three inner cubes. When the flanking maneuver was completed on the 2nd wave the floor itself deactivated completely. Amber posited that it was because of the activation of our middle pieces in the puzzle. The party tried again and were triumphant and relieved when the stone door dropped into the floor. A secret hiding space to keep something out, or perhaps to keep something in.

It was at this time Vylphira noticed a rune on the wall, this one in the shape of an S, the type that would be seen on a nautical map on the southern part of a compass rose. She shared with the party and they moved on unfazed and their pursuit of an exit from what had become a literal hell.

What is that?

The party moved forward on their quest, only to be met with a little more resistance. The stone wall that had dropped into the floor had made way to a large oak door. One with no knob but a handle. It was adorned with a large iron knocker in the unmistakable shape of ancient architecture. It had weathered the time gracefully or so it seemed. Vylphira reached out her hand and put it on the handle attempting to open the door. She was expecting to meet some resistance from a lock, or for the door to swing open either while being pushed or pulled. But instead she was met with horror and something that was never expected.

Children of this time grow up hearing stories of objects that appear to be one thing but are in fact something else. Large amorphous creatures who are able to shift shape at will, ones that produce an acid so vile, so potent, that it can cause damage even with the slightest touch. Because these creatures are not treated as lore or mythological it was not beyond the realm of reason for our current day party members to at least know that the option of this creatures existence was there. And while none of them had ever seen one up close and personal drawings in books, first hand accounts of survivors, and just a general knowledge that one should constantly be vigilant made it so they were able to suspend their disbelief in this moment.

Danestra However was from a time of relative peace, one where monsters did not roam the planet in the way that they did today, she had never heard of a mimic, she had never heard of a shape shifting monster that would take the form of seemingly innocuous items and lay in wait. Setting a trap for weary travelers or unsuspecting adventurers, panic set in she was unable to move she made a whimper sound one that was not becoming of a barbarian of her strength or stature. Bolo, While aware of the existence of this monster and rightfully afraid of it was still taken aback and shocked. His small frame size and meagre strength made it impossible for him to realistically fight back. He would not be able to participate in this fight, he had just survived one death match through the mercy of these adventurers and to the pitifulness of his cries for help.

Vylphira took the charge in this battle, she shielded her new acquaintances and went in for the attack immediately. Amber had recovered some of her constitution and was able to land a series of heavy blows to the monster. Between the party they were able to dispatch with the creature in less than 12 seconds (landing a total of 59 points of damage) and it ended just as quickly as it began. The ball of slime and acid fell to the floor blocking the hallway into the next room. Amber being a reckless individual decided she wanted to see if there was anything within the creature that could be useful. She reached her hand in and instantly found the truth of those legends about the acidic nature of the creature. She burned her hand but was able to recover some gold and a Mace.

During this time Danestra leapt over the BLOB not wanting to step in it, because honestly who wants to get their shoes dirty. Amber, preoccupied with what she had seen and felt in the moment decided that it would be best to not walk through the pile of BLOB, she leapt into the next room with as much strength as she could muster, she landed almost on top of Danestra who stumbled backwards and almost lost her balance but was able to catch herself before she fell into the trap behind them. Out of reflex she pushed amber to the side who was able to quickly recover and find her feet.

Unable to control her rage Danestra grabbed amber and threw her full force into the room ahead of them, amber flew almost 20 feet into the far wall on the other side of the room. She folded up and crumpled onto the floor in pain bleeding. She reflexively threw her torch towards Danestra, but it missed and rolled into the western part of the room.

Something’s in there and we want out

As the torch rolled into the room a sense of despair followed it. While all of our party members can see in the dark, there is nothing quite like a devouring dark. A pitch black in the distance. The torch rolled further and further from amber and it seemed to light less and less as it rolled. It was as if the shadows were consuming the light. The torch held on to its spark with everything that it had, somehow maintaining its light even in the darkness that surrounded it.

The party was unsettled, but they did move forward into a hallway to the east. This brought them into a vestibule, a small area with one entrance and seemingly no exit.

As they looked around no one really saw anything of note, no one except Bolo. The small scaled creature scanned his eyes around the entire room spinning in a full circle. As the party watched him they were incredulous about what he might be looking at, because they didn't see anything how could he possibly perceive something that they were unable to. Bolo a mixture of excitement and apprehension yelled “BUTTONS”

the party looked at him confused about this proclamation. What buttons, where were they, and why could nobody else see them? Vylphira kindly Inquired “how many buttons?”

Bolo summoning all eight of his brain cells turned in a circle again as he counted. He was able to proclaim one and two with relative ease but the concepts of three and four came difficult for him but finally he did settle on four buttons. The buttons had direction markers on them, much like the runes that had been found in the entrance room, and by the door after the hallways. The party looked and thought for a long while about what they might do.

What they settled on was to press a button and see if anything changes with a discovered rune. Danestra Volunteered to go back and observe while somebody else pressed the button. As she passed through the dark room she didn't notice anything but just felt a sense of unease. There was no reason for it other than the darkness that seemed to be all consuming, slowly snuffing out the light of the torch on the far side of the room. She found her way back to the rune that indicated the direction S, and watched it for a moment. When nothing happened she moved back to the entranceway and Carved a note into the ground. Her note was meant to tell her party members that nothing happened and she was going to investigate some of the other areas of the dungeon.

The rest of our party stood and waited for what would seem an unreasonable amount of time but realistically it was only about two minutes, and finally decided that they should go and check on Danestra. Vylphira asked Amber to go and look. Amber headed to the dark room, she looked across the room at her torch longingly but deciding in the end that it wasn't worth risking whatever might be in that side of the room period the unsettling feeling the silence and just the general unease in the room was enough to keep her recklessness at Bay. She noticed at the entrance that there was something scrawled into the floor. There was disturbed dirt that was not there before when they passed by and she found her way slowly and very carefully over there just to notice that she absolutely could not read the note that's an extra had left. To her it was chicken scratch, a note scrawled in abyssal a language not spoken on the continent in millennia. Was this Danestra's native language, she was able to read the note that they found, the questions about where this woman may have come from had just started to really sink in.

Amber went back and reported her findings to her party members, nobody wanted to move past this room period Bolo was frozen in fear in the corner absolutely refusing to move any closer. He kept glancing back at that room proclaiming that it was scary and he did not like it.

In the mean time Danestra very carefully navigated her way towards the room where the iron gate had fallen on her period it was the one room that had not been properly investigated. As she entered to the room she noted the same things that amber had period and looked like a nesting area for a pack of kobolds, there were some undisturbed areas in the room that had human furniture and seemed to be unbothered. Well a little disconcerting she also noticed that there was a loose plank in between two of the dressers on the side of the room period she was able to get her javelin in between the plank and it popped up relatively easily. Within that there was a small lock box, large enough to hold something of value but small enough to fit in her bag. She stashed it away and continued to scan the room.

She didn't notice anything initially, the frustration of everything that had happened to her was finally getting to her in a very real way. Not just bursts of anger and individual actions she was upset. She took her javelin and started to stab around the wall cursing and mumbling under her breath as she did so. As she got towards the western side of the wall she hit a picture that fell off. Behind the picture there was a ruin, the nautical symbol for west laid underneath it. The thought of why there was a picture hanging over it, why it was here, and really what it meant didn't cross her mind as she began to make her way across the room to the other side to investigate the dragon picture room.

Until next time

Rewards Granted

1 Mace 17 Gold 1 Lockbox

Campaign

Araviad Campaign

Protagonists

Oberon Bibleoflare

None Human (Noble)
Wizard 2

10 / 10 HP

STR
8

DEX
16

CON
11

INT
18

WIS
15

CHA
12

Denestra Tundrawalker

Amber

Chaotic Neutral Wood Elf (Outlander)
Ranger 1

10 / 10 HP

STR
12

DEX
20

CON
11

INT
12

WIS
15

CHA
10

Vylphira Bellemere

Lawful Neutral Half-Elf (Acolyte)
Cleric 1

12 / 12 HP

STR
11

DEX
15

CON
18

INT
14

WIS
19

CHA
13

Quena Ickoben

Report Date

31 Jan 2024