2023-12-12 The Ringbearer's Revenge

• Date: 2023-12-12
• Region: Solaki
• Session #: 62

Player Characters

• Balasar
• Callisto
• Auri
• Tarhun
• Hyacinth

Summary

The party traveled to the Shadowglade and marched east, climbing the glade's edge hill into Solaki. While continuing through the wilderness, they met Narma, a grown elf woman who frolicked in a flowery meadow like a child. They played a game of hide and seek with her. Auri was the only person she didn't find.

Balasar noticed that Narma was wearing a ring with a pink spinel. He asked her about it, and she told him about a wizard who gave it to her and taught her the basics of magic. She told the party that the wizard's lab was located in the wild hills due south of the Suntouch Spires.

Narma led the party past Morningshade City and along the road, then south off the trail toward the wizard's lab. There, in a small misty green valley, they found a large octagonal structure made of stone brick.

The PCs approached the lab's front door. A magic mouth appeared on it and spoke to them, asking them their intent for coming. Balasar recognized the voice as belonging to the wizard who had tricked him into wearing his cursed ruby ring, which had often driven him to become agitated and angry during his adventures. Balasar told the wizard that he wanted to remove the ring. The man resisted, insisting the ring would not directly kill him and stating that it can't be removed. The party conversed with the man. He asked them questions about different emotions, stating that "his kind" do not experience them. He refused to tell the PCs what kind of being he was, and what he planned to do with his research.

The PCs approached the door to open it and found that it was magically locked with a unique seal; in order to open it, one party member would have to focus on a memory from their past adventures that was strongly tied to a feeling of disappointment. Tarhun opened the door with his memory of a recent adventure where he explored ruins in the Shadowglade, but did not find the main ruins of the ancient city of Atla that he was looking for (2023-10-18 The Ruins of Atla).

They entered a room with bookshelves and floating ethereal shields and fought two steel predators. They healed up the damage after fighting the durable canine constructs.

The wizard's voice spoke from another door. It sounded as though he planned to flee if the party continued into his laboratory, and they knew they had to move quickly to catch him.

There were three doors ahead, each requiring a memory with a different emotion in order to unlock.

Hyacinth's weapon, Pursuit of Greatness, refused to open the door requiring peace. Callisto opened it by recalling the moment he witnessed Hahalua, the spirit of the moon (2023-08-08 Sailing to the Moon).

Tarhun opened the door of sorrow by recalling the memory of being forced to destroy Obbleville, who he wanted to befriend (2023-10-14 Rest in Peace).

Hyacinth opened the door of courage by recalling fighting an uphill battle against the devil Mazlataz on a mountainside cultist hideout (2023-07-15 Chasing Truthfinder Evandra).

They entered the peace door, which led to a garden. They found a comfortable reading spot, a fictional story about a knight fighting a dragon, and an empty stone portal. The stone portal had two stone pedestals on either side containing a total of eight empty slots.

They returned to the shield room and searched the shelves, finding scrolls and books about abjuration magic and history. They found a square stone crest with a stylized shield carved into it, and slotted it into one of the garden portal's pedestals.

They entered the courage door, which led to a room with a wide star chart table. Markings tracked how stars moved and disappeared over time, and chalked constellations suggested a search for patterns. Tarhun talked to the wizard's magic mouth and shared his theory that the stars are primal crystals. The voice mentioned that he has witnessed stars vanish and appear over time.

Callisto shut off a simple orrery that (incorrectly) showed the movement of the sun and moon on a wheel. The voice complained that this would throw off the time, so Callisto politely turned it back on.

They searched and found scrolls, a crest with stars, and a red primal crystal containing a memory of studying the stars at night.

Balasar opened the next door with a memory of envy: he remembered rolling against Tarhun for the tome of clear thought they found a while ago.

They entered a storage room with a mix of mundane equipment and treasure. They took conjuration scrolls from nearby bookshelves and found a crest depicting two portals.

There was a device attached to a mirror sitting on a desk, with a button on one side and a slotted green crystal on the other. Tarhun pressed the button. An angry, battle-hardened, armored yuan-ti appeared in the mirror. The man shouted at Tarhun in Abyssal for a moment before the connection was severed. Tarhun pressed the button again, but nothing happened.

Tarhun took the green crystal and put all six colors together. They hummed with some kind of energy; there was a lightly distorted field between them, but most of it came from the blue and yellow crystals. The other four crystals didn't seem to have clear counterparts to create similar fields with.

The next door required a memory of anger to pass. Balasar remembered seeing Witch Doctor Jha'kri for the third time atop Howlpeak (2023-10-14 Rest in Peace).

In the next room, the PCs saw blasted test dummies and a large brazier. They found scrolls and a fireball crest on protectively covered bookshelves.

A shelf contained different colors of dust. Balasar sprinkled green dust onto the flaming brazier and were met with a cloud of toxic smoke. He backed away, then Auri used mage hand to sprinkle gray dust onto the fire, which created a translucent shimmering thunderous flame.

The next door required a feeling of love. Hyacinth opened it by remembering her fondness for Arkenciel as the two departed Subterranea together.

The party entered a room with a forge. Auri examined the jewelry workshop, which contained gold, gems, and a completed magic ring. Balasar immediately put the ring on, and to nobody's surprise, it wouldn't come off.

Hyacinth offered criticism about the wizard's canine guardians from the front room. The voice promised greater resistance if the party didn't leave him be.

Callisto found scrolls and a crest depicting a mask.

Tarhun examined the rest of the forge, seeing both jewelry molds and glassblowing implements for creating simple beakers and vials.

The next door required a tale of humor. Auri remembered tormenting the bully in Crow's Brook, and leaving him hanging from the ceiling with pants down and a drawn moustache (2023-06-24 Scorch Alley Cultist Hunt).

They entered the next room, which was identical to the divination room from earlier with its star chart table. They immediately reached their hands through solid objects in the room, predicting the illusion magic. Sure enough, nothing was real, and the room reverted to being empty and simple, but with eight different creatures inside: a sphinx, mind flayer, stone giant, djinni, owlbear, green hag, young blue dragon, and beholder.

The eight creatures spoke simultaneously in a strange chorus, asking the party to free the real one, but unable to prove which one was real. The supposedly trapped creature(s) indicated that ordering them in a circle correctly would set them free, and each creature provided a clue to that arrangement. The party spent some time solving the logic puzzle.

Once they solved it, all the beings except for the gynosphinx vanished, and more bookshelves appeared. The sphinx, named Pepper, thanked them for their help. Balasar persuaded her to give him one of her hairs for scrying. Hyacinth persuaded her to visit Wiznt's castle and ask for Mal. She cast remove curse on Balasar, allowing him to remove the cursed ring of protection, and used identify to reveal its effects. She then left out the front door, bidding the party good luck in punishing the wizard.

Tarhun opened the next door with a story of fear: his capture by the dragon Verda (2022-12-11 Emerald Assault: Eyes).

The next room looked like a crypt, with a bone pit, autopsy table, and a few coffins. While Balasar dug through the bones, two death knights and a skull lord rose from the pit and coffins and attacked. The party defeated the undead after a tough fight. They took the crest from the bonepit afterward, then short rested to lick their wounds, knowing that time was growing short.

The last room, already unlocked by a memory of sorrow, was the transmutation room. The room doubled as an alchemy lab and kitchen, with cauldrons, potions, pestles, and knives spread out. The party found the last crest as well as more scrolls and several potions.

They took the eight crests to the portal and slotted them, which opened a portal to a demiplane with smooth marble walls. A bright prismatic wall blocked the party from proceeding. They brought down the first few layers with cantrips and a gust of wind scroll, but were stuck on the green layer.

Callisto beseeched Hahalua to provide aid. Hahalua answered the divine intervention, and a portal opened, shining potent magical moonlight onto the prismatic wall and removing the rest of it.

They moved toward the wizard's bedchamber, and learned that he was in fact a yuan-ti. He dropped his books and raised a staff, and tried to bargain with them. The man offered Tarhun the chance to study dark magic together, then promised Balasar that he could improve the ring, even if he couldn't remove it. He mentioned how sacrifices were made in the spirit forge in order to create the cursed rings, and that he did so to make them linger for his experiments. The PCs were repulsed by the man's evil ways, and he cursed their lack of pragmatism and need for "arbitrary, useless" morality. The fight began.

The man cast a powerful dark star spell, which took the party a couple of turns to move through. Auri was able to rush through to break his concentration. Once through, they found that the man's magic prevented him from being incapacitated in any way, so the unloaded damage on him. He used legendary reactions to act quickly and protect himself, but in the end, the party slayed him.

They recovered spellbooks with all 1st-level wizard spells and the man's main spellbook, some research notes written in Abyssal, 12k gp of gems, and notes on how to operate the cursed spirit forge. They learned that the evil wizard's name was Sshuka, and that he reported to someone named General Kassahar. Balasar followed the instructions to upgrade his cursed ruby ring to a Ring of the Spellrager. The ring began to stabilize, and would no longer continue to accelerate Balasar's anger going forward, though it still remained attached to his finger.

Documents found

• Sshuka's notes on emotions