2024-01-20 Labyrinthine Path to the Primary Evolvery
Player Characters
- Balasar
- Essa
- Hyacinth
- Val & Soonie
- Amartherui
Summary
The party gathered at the west entrance of the Labyrinth. The massive, smooth stone wall at the end of the Fariel Columns opened into a huge rectangular threshold. The straight, smooth hallway inside glowed dimly with faerzress.
They came to a fork where each path was labeled with a carved maze design. Balasar translated them and learned that each one was a number. The path backward was labeled 4066, and the two branches were 1344 and 2430. They took the 1344 path.
Val tried teleporting within the faerzress. Due to a mishap, she ended up in some unfamiliar hallway. Her telepathy still worked, indicating she was within 1 mile.
Val traveled through the hallway in one direction and found a room with three arguing trolls. One was a ghost, one had exposed muscule from rot, and one was covered in grotesque boils. She left them be and tried the other path.
The party came to a room with cages on either side. In one cage, a sickly firbolg man sat shackled. They freed the man from his prison, but then Amar noticed a sulphurous smell that he recognized from visiting Obbleville. He warned everyone to back away and began to fight. The firbolg man and the red oblex attached to him rose to fight the party. They overwhelmed it quickly with a stun.
Val came to a fork with numeric mazes she couldn't translate. She chose a path and continued until she found a glowing chamber full of fungi. She identified a large barrelstalk fungus that would provide food and water, and some combustible torchstalks. A hallway extended beyond the room.
The party encountered another fork. The path backward was labeled 2134, and the two other paths were 3864 and 19741. They took 3864.
The straight hallways of the Labyrinth climbed a staircase and led to a four-way intersection. The path back was 4474 and the new paths were 2329, 12864, and 6783. They took the latter. The straight hallways of the Labyrinth sloped, turned and twisted seemingly at random; it was clear that the maze was not an organized grid.
Moving ahead, they found a gridded set of small rooms, many of which were separated by portcullises. A few levers were strewn throughout. Hyacinth spoke through her cone of blaring in an effort to find Val. In doing so, however, a few imps heard the noise and rushed away from a room beyond. They spoke to each other in infernal, saying something about escaping with the treasure they had found before they were caught. The imps were impeded by a locked door just out of sight; the party knew they had to rush through the puzzle to catch them.
Amar imbibed the potion from his brewing bottle, which made him amorphous. He used this power to slip through the bars, skipping the puzzle and immediately catching up to the imps. He quickly pummeled them and seized their treasure: gold and two blue primal crystals. The party followed behind, choosing to try the challenge just for the fun of it.
The imps were blocked from escape by a door with a large lock. Still amorphous, Amar slipped through to the other side and unlocked it from within.
Val heard the noise from Hyacinth and followed it down another branch. She appeared in the direction the imps came from and reunited with Soonie and the party.
Continuing past the locked door, they found another fork. The path back was 3213 and the other paths were 7104 and 9113. They took 7104.
The straight hallway ahead was split in the middle. On each side, a huge cylinder of stone rolled from one end to the other in opposite positions from one another. Essa walked into one hallway behind one steamroller as it moved away from her, and tested the middle wall. She found that there was an illusory spot, and walked through it, then outran the other side's roller. The others followed suit.
They entered another chamber of fungi and harvested bluecap and timmask mushrooms.
Continuing ahead, they found a fork. The return path was 1510 and the other paths were 15236 and 17616. They traveled through 15236.
The hallway opened into a large cavernous chamber. A river of lava crossed through, blocking the path forward. Balasar conjured a wall of force, which the party used as a bridge to get to the other side.
They entered a large room that held a ruined ancient mazefolk outpost. They found two journals as well as a shed shaper and two deployable domiciles. They rested there for the night.
The path forward was blocked by a cave-in, forcing the party to turn back. They were able to move the heavy deployable buildings back to the previous fork in the path, but decided to leave them there due to encumbrance constraints.
They traveled down the other path (17616). At some point along the way, the path had two numbers. Suspicious, and keeping a journal found earlier in mind, they tested the adjacent walls and found that one was illusory. The path backwards was 4799, the path forward was 10890, and the illusory path was 5952, which they took.
They entered a large room with an icy floor. Two frost salamanders awoke and attacked. The PCs dispatched them.
Continuing, they came to a small square-shaped room with two ancient stone buildings. Opposite the buildings was a statue of a four-armed insectoid person, with a label on its dais: "Thr'ka, who stopped the flood".
Inside the buildings they found a masonry workshop and two more journals.
They spoke the name and title of the statue, and a hidden door opened in the wall behind it. There was a chest in the hidden alcove that contained a phaseglaive.
The path past the buildings led to a fork. The path back was 8322 and the new paths were 11610 and 13836. They took the latter.
They exited into a large cavern facing north and slightly west, which they presumed to be the northwest exit of the Labyrinth. The faerzress stopped here, and Val tested that her teleportation worked properly. Balasar sent his walking, glowing book cover ahead; it was promptly attacked by a cloaker.
They traveled ahead into the cave, resting another night.
The next day, they found a ruined fort with three towers, one larger and two more damaged. Amar scouted atop the surrounding wall, seeing twenty members of the Carnabrex Coterie enjoying music from a man with a guitar built into his chest. They had found the Primary Evolvery.
Essa and Soonie led the party into the collapsed opening in the wall.
Hyacinth convinced the duergar guards that she came from the Fariel Evolvery, showing her acidic boils as proof. The guards led the party into the main tower.
Inside the lobby of the building, they spoke to the lead scientist Vhonraema Vimmrath telepathically through the main door. She peered at them through a periscope-like mechanical eye.
The party discussed options with Vhonraema. Hyacinth expressed interest in growing additional arms to fight with. Vhonraema promised she could make something like that happen, for a price; for instance, she could replace one arm with a greatsword-like appendage. As payment, she wanted Balasar's lungs and/or breath weapon organ, which he politely refused.
They noticed a large hole in a nearby wall that had been patched up. Vhonraema told them how two demons had come in requesting treatment, only to barge out partway through her "gift" of magical surgery after stealing something important to her.
Vhonraema demanded a hair or other fragment from each person. Essa rejects it in defiance, saying the party did not feel threatened by her. The door opened to invite them to fight.
The party accepted the challenge, stepping in the operating room. Vhonraema descended from the back of the room, suspended by numerous cables and pipes that were attached to her. The party fought her as she imbibed resistance potions and hasting/healing brews, explosively teleported around, and lashed out with countless bladed arms.
The PCs defeated Vhonraema. The drow cyborg begged for her life, offering to improve the PCs with her skill and magic. They refused, and finished her off.
They took the elevator to the upper floor, where a grotesque alchemy lab of preserved body parts, organs, and fluids sat in covered tubs among a large collection of potions. They found one vial of all ten resistance potions for each party member, plus some extras to take to the Salmund apothecary for research. They also looted a tome of leadership and influence, staff of withering, feather token - bird, potion of supreme healing, two orange primal crystals, and gold.
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