2023-04-29 The Ancient Laboratory
Player Characters
- Wiznt
- Alystin
- Malivette
- Tarhun
- Grey
Allies
Summary
The party met in The Forlorn Watchtower. Grey surveyed the patrolling ghosts around them, learned their patterns, and led the party to avoid them on the way east toward Howlpeak.
Upon reaching the thick fog at the mountain's base, they traveled around to the east side, where they found a simple rectangular stone edifice set into the mountain. A stone staircase led up the mountainside above it.
Mal flew partway up the stairs with Ollinox, finding the stairs to zigzag upward into the thick mist. Grey sent Yogo the rest of the way up to scout. Near the summit, the stairs ended in a large carved alcove housing a large empty brazier of some sort, with a few pieces missing.
The entrance of the stone building was in disarray, broken bits of metal mechanisms scattered about. Charred lines were dashed about the walls, and the enormous stone front doors laid broken on the ground. The party left their mounts and companions there as they traveled into the quake-torn hallway.
The path led to a T intersection, but the other two paths were caved in completely. A fourth path was carved in the other direction, so they followed it.
The PCs found a dark chamber with three subchambers separated by durable enchanted glass. There was a wall lever and a double door leading somewhere, and a back hallway that was blocked by rubble. A journal was found that mentioned something about "equipoisers" and opposite energies. Three pairs of platforms with protruding rods pointed at each other were positioned in the room, with one member of each pair in a glass subchamber. The first pair had a sphere of faintly-glowing ice on the far platform. The second pair had a large stone cylinder on the close platform. The third pair were both empty.
- Grey activated the Hindsight Lens near the smashed entrance the party entered through. It revealed that a huge, powerful-looking demon with a whip and a longsword had smashed its way through the wall, rather than a natural cave-in.
- Grey activated the hindsight lens near the stone cylinder. It showed a group of stoutfolk lifting the cylinder and placing it there, then watching through the glass waiting for something to happen.
- Wiznt pulled the lever, which turned on the light bulbs on the close side of the room only. There was a flicker of light on the far side of the third pair of devices.
- After some experimentation with Tarhun's homunculus, the group discovered that the equipoisers swap their contents when opposite energies are applied.
- Mal used his flaming lance to swap with the ball of ice, and found dimensional shackles on the other side. The party darkened the room and used Mal's light to teleport him back.
- The party moved the stone cylinder aside, and teleported across with Alystin's dancing lights. The far chamber had a stack of gold bars.
- Wiznt detected magic resistance when identifying the ice ball. The group realized it contained a blue primal crystal, and decided to break it out later, since it would take time.
- The party teleported to the third room, which had another cavern smashed through by the demon. They continued onward through it.
The smashed tunnel led to the backside of a hall of six rooms with a bowl-like pedestal and workshop at the end.
- Grey used the hindsight lens near the pedestal, and witnessed unfamiliar vine-formed humanoids lifting a large glass orb off the pedestal and carrying it away.
- Wiznt tried to locate the glass sphere, but it was not within 1000ft.
- Mal explored the four non-destroyed side rooms, finding a variety of strange decrepit test chambers. One contained a stone tablet carved with a maze. Most rooms also had a pipe in the ceiling. Alystin sent his imp familiar to explore the pipe, and found that they were all connected to each other, but nowhere else (not ventilation).
- Alystin used comprehend languages on the maze tablet, and discovered that it was a note. The mazefolk's never-before-seen script turned out to be the mazes themselves.
- Two paths led out of the room: a hallway to an antechamber with an iron door, and a smashed tunnel. The party followed the latter and ended up in an alcove opening to a wide torus-shaped room.
They heard a rhythmic thud. As they stepped into the vast circular room, a bluish balor rounded the corner and saw them. Enchanted glass had fused with its skin, granting it a sort of magical armor with pointed spikes protruding from different directions. The party drew their weapons to fight it as it charged forward.
The PCs quickly discovered that the monster was invulnerable and immune to magic, and dealt very high damage. They scattered and fled to nearby alcoves in the room.
Grey and Alystin ran back to the alcove that led back to the test chamber they were just in. As Alystin taunted the demon, it slammed against the durable enchanted glass, cracking it slightly.
Tarhun, Malivette, and Wiznt explored the room they had ended up in. They found a journal and a gem of seeing. There was another large empty pedestal like the one in the previous area, with a surrounding workshop contained by enchanted glass.
Alystin tried to communicate with the balor, but it did not respond.
The party communicated plans via telepathic bond. While sitll separated, they rested for 2 hours to change attunements and recover.
Al and Grey snuck past the balor to rejoin the others.
The party tried to sneak past it to the next clockwise alcove along the circular chamber, but the balor heard them and gave chase. It destroyed Yogo and got distracted with Grey's slaadi summon as they fled into the next chamber.
Mal peeked through the gem of seeing and discovered an illusory wall in the large room that hid another alcove.
The next chamber had a bunch of devices set up.
- The room contained an empty power source with 5 levers, a standing fan, a locked vault, a small orrery depicting the position of the sun, an equipoiser facing a caved-in wall, and an enchanted glass-contained room with a pair of bowl-shaped equipoisers on each side of it. Inside the contained room was a freezing radiator and a turret with an empty loading slot. The inner equipoiser bowl contained water.
- The party searched the room for a while, finding everything inactive. They found a journal. Tarhun tried putting different primal crystals in the power source. Malivette found a hidden yellow crystal in the back of the room, and upon putting it in the power slot, some devices whirred to life. The five levers activated and deactivated the different machines.
- The powered vault opened. Inside was two flasks of oil, another yellow crystal, and some iron bars.
- They used light and dark to teleport across the equipoisers. Wiznt loaded his zombie beholder eye into it, and when powered, it fired a disintegration ray which burned through the enchanted glass to destroy the sun model. They shut it off to avoid destroying the eye, which Wiznt treated with gentle repose.
- When they loaded the second yellow crystal into the turret and focused all power into it, they discovered its laser could melt large holes in the enchanted glass.
The party decided to try the turret against the balor. They got into fighting positions, with Malivette guiding the turret, and drew the balor's attention in the main room. Once it charged over, they burned holes through the enchanted glass wall and melted the balor's armor away, making it vulnerable to damage. They fought and destroyed the maddened demon. As it vanished, an orange crystal dropped in its place.
They used the laser to open another enchanted glass wall in the center of the large torus-shaped room. After powering it off, they entered and found a central assembly chamber with a central speaking pedestal atop a circular dais. The room's normal entrance had been caved in, so the party had to melt a back way in. The room contained a journal and a staff of frost.
The party continued clockwise to the next alcove, which was hidden by the illusory wall.
- The bulb-lit room had two glass subchambers, separated from each other by a wall, and each containing four levers. A crystal pedestal like the previous room's power source was positioned in front of the two rooms. Another glass chamber was inaccessible due to cave-in, but had an equipoiser pointed at a wall. Old workshops lined the remaining walls, along with another large empty pedestal.
- Wiznt returned to the previous room and used magical darkness to teleport to the equipoiser in the new room. He found valuable ancient silver art pieces inside.
- The party found a green crystal in the room, as well as a journal.
- They placed a yellow crystal in the device slot, which heated the two adjacent subchambers.
- They placed a green crystal in the device slot, which allowed inhabitants in the two subchambers to communicate telepathically. Wiznt and Malivette entered each one, and acted out a test where they had to pull corresponding levers simultaneously using the telepathy. Once complete, the mechanism broke and a vial of oil of sharpness fell out.
They got a better look at the main torus-shaped room, and saw remains of stone shelves along many of the walls. Bits of stone and metal were scattered about, and scorch marks were everywhere. This room was once the main archives of the laboratory, but had been wiped clean.
Traveling clockwise, they found another alcove hidden by an illusory wall. They entered its front door.
This study had desks and an enchanted-glass contained room with another large pedestal with a workshop. When Malivette went inside to search, he found a journal and a purple crystal, and suddenly some stoutfolk ghosts materialized and attacked.
The party moved on to the next room clockwise in the main archives. This room had a journal, another ball of ice faintly glowing blue, and two pairs of equipoisers in glass subchambers. One equipoiser was on the outside, and its pair was layered in the same place as one from the other pair. The last device held a large spherical metal frame containing a burning lantern in its center.
Alystin cast darkness on his Zeke, his imp, while he was on the equipoiser. He swapped places into the first room (which contained a door to somwhere), but then immediately swapped with the lantern, leaving him trapped in the deepest chamber. Alystin cast a new darkness, which swapped with the lantern and then the room Zeke was in, leaving Zeke in the target center room. He collected some ordinary (but valuable) gems from the back room.
The party returned to the double doors from the first test chamber with the three subchambers. It led them to a few hallways, only one of which was not caved in. The hallway split into two side doors. One door led to a smashed up alchemy lab that contained some potions and a large aluminum pitcher holding a drop of archestrylene. The other door led to an office with a hidden journal inside.
Over the course of their delving through the Ancient Howlpeak Laboratory, the party found seven crystals: yellow x2, blue x2, purple, green, and orange.
Grey's patron commanded him to take the green crystal and leave it out in the open on the edge of the Colorless Hills to the east. He failed to disobey as the Voice of the Deep's corruption wormed its way deeper into his mind. Upon depositing the crystal on a boulder, he saw an intellect devourer. He blasted it before it could escape.
Grey cast dream on Crim, and tricked him into traveling to the Den of Eyes to receive a reward of fantastic draconic power. Once Crim arrived, Grey approached him while he slept and enthralled him. (-10 downtime days)
Malivette extracted some extra samples of the laboratory's enchanted glass on the way out.
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