2024-06-15 Labyrinth IV: Path of Pestilence
Player Characters
- Arkenciel
- Auri
- Furifuru
- Green
- Derulo
Allies
Summary
They entered Subterranea and traveled through Umethrynn. On the way, Derulo prepared a contingency spell to easily cast circle of power while in the maze.
They approached the Labyrinth from the South entrance, after Furifuru mustered up the courage to ferry across Wath'rym Lake. This allowed them to revisit some of the magical fountains on their way to resuming their previous foray inside.
They drank from the magical fountains on the way. Auri tried drinking from one that she had already used, but found that it was now poisonous to her.
Auri noticed a large increase in mold and parasitic fungi throughout the Laybrinth's halls since her previous visit. Green burned some away with his sunblade and newfound ability to cast fire bolt. Arkenciel and Furi studied the mold and determined that it was desecrated, toxic, and almost seemed to have a mind of its own.
They came to path 11778 and found that it had notably more fungi.
The hallway stopped ahead at a door. An old desk and chair sat to one side and a shelf was on the other. A green primal crystal sat upon the table. A few tiny demons appeared to be trying (and failing) to turn the door's knob as they flew around it.
The PCs found that they quickly shrank as they moved closer to the door.
Furi created an illusion of a balor, and Derulo mimicked fiends' quotes from earlier adventures to trick the demons into submission. The tiny demons brought the party the green primal crystal, which remained a normal size.
Derulo conjured a Huge block of smokepowder in front of the giant door, and Green ignited it. They blew a hole in the old stone door, and the magic shrinking effect ended. They pushed the door open.
The demons were angered by one of Derulo's comments about devils easily getting allies. Once Furi's balor illusion vanished, they became emboldened, and a fight broke out. The party slew the demons.
They came to a fork. They came from 11052. Left was 1232, and right was 9195. They went left, following the smell of decay that was steadily growing stronger.
They came across more demons, this time among patches of rot and infected fungi. The bulezau rotted the party's rations with each strike, but the party destroyed them before losing much food.
They came to a fork. They came from 8010. Left was 6456, forward was 5054, and right was 3662. They went right.
They came across a double fountain chamber, one with a bird and one with a waterfall. Drinking from the bird fountain rewarded them with the ability to not require food or drink for 3 days. Green drank from the waterfall fountain, and resisted the poison.
The hallway eventually led to thri-kreen ruins with a handful of homes. Arkenciel used her hindsight lens, which revealed that an imp had explored the area at some point. They searched the debris-filled buildings and found a mazefolk tablet.
Since the ruins were a dead end, they returned to the previous fork and took path 5054.
The hall led to a magically sealed door. A statue of an object sat upon pedestals on each side of the door: a skull on one and a gear on the other. The party deduced that they needed to speak a code word to open the door.
When they said "tooth", it opened. The next chamber had the same features but with a dagger and grass. After they solved it, there was a third such door with a tree and book.
Opening the third door, they found a journal written by Vak stashed there. It hinted at an illusory wall a ways behind them.
They backtracked from the dead end while scraping against each wall until they passed through one. They continued through the hallway beyond.
They stepped into a rectangular room with a magically sealed door. Above it were three symbols: a head, an eye, and a leg.
Upon entering the room, four stone golems shaped as different creatures appeared and attacked them: a beholder, a remorhaz, a chimera, and an ettin.
They fled from the room. The golems deanimated when they moved far away. From there, they took their time as they tried to figure out how to proceed.
When they damaged one of the creatures, one of four dots beneath one of the symbols illuminated. They figured out that they had to attack each golem in order of the number of heads, eyes, and legs, and did so in only two rounds. The golems then vanished and the door opened.
They found another forking path. The bath back was 9765, left was 14124, and right was 1413. They took 14124.
The hallway gave way to a cavernous chamber, and was continued on the other side. The room was full of contaminated parasitic fungi. They spent time burning away as much of the putrid growth as possible. While searching the room for anything of interest, Arkenciel noticed a faint light through a crack in the side wall of the cave. She shattered it open and walked into a hidden side cave.
A pedestal stood in the otherwise dark, empty room. The top of the pedestal appeared to be a bowl filled with a golden fluid. When Arkenciel approached, the fluid rose and hovered in a bubble-like sphere over its basin. She reached out carefully and touched it, and when she did, the fluid spread into multiple ribbons, which rapidly wound their way around her arm and fused with it, granting her the Boon of Goldbinding.
The pedestal appeared to hold no more magic, so the party continued ahead through the other broken-open hallway.
They came to another fork. Backwards was 12727, left was 11715, and right was 5556. They took 5556.
They found a double fountain chamber, one with a torch statue and one with a mountain statue. Drinking from the mountain fountain, each character received a permanent boon: attunement and unattunement take 30 minutes instead of 1 hour.
When they continued on, they found themselves at the fork that contained 9113, a place they had visited previously. They took note of this link, then backtracked to take path 11715.
They happened upon three horned devils and two Destroyer acolytes. They recognized one devil as Mazlataz and Green recognized another as Wintozl.
After some banter between the two groups, Auri, Arkenciel, and Green agreed to a binding bet with Mazlataz: Green and Wintozl would duel with no outside interference. If Green won, Maz would give them a tuning fork (or equivalent) attuned to the Inferno, which they could use to reach that plane later. If Wintozl won, the three characters must fulfill a mission of Maz's design, for which they must recruit two other participants of similar power.
Mazlataz threatened Wintozl with a demotion as Green pulled ahead. Green won the duel, striking Wintozl down. Maz broke off a piece of Wintozl's trident and gave it to Auri, who wrapped it up and kept it.
Maz and his allies left the party in peace. The devil fumed over the defeat as he walked away.
The party found a small stone room with a magically sealed door. Ten spots dotted the wall above it. When they spoke the name of most creatures, including their own names, two of the dots would light up. When they said "chimera", they got 6 instead, and figured out that it was a matter of the number of eyes. Arkenciel said "beholder with an eye missing", which opened the door.
The room beyond held a chest containing a talisman of the empath and another door. Opening the door, they found themselves exiting into an identical room with the same eye-count puzzle. They walked through it and into a hallway that took them back to path 6456 from earlier.
They took known paths forward and took branch 1413. The stench of decay become stronger the farther they continued.
The thick decaying fungi formed their own walls along the hallway, narrowing the path. A curtain of fungal ribbons blocked the view into a larger chamber.
The fungal walls began to close in, attempting to force them into the room ahead. Derulo conjured a steel vault around them, and the party piled inside. Furi layered a tiny hut inside while Derulo conjured a hero's feast for everyone. They could feel the vault rocking as it was lifted and moved.
They opened the door to get some oxygen. A huge demonic fungal woman dispelled the tiny hut, and Furi temporal shunted her away. Derulo conjured a steel vault at the woman's position, and she reappeared trapped inside it.
The PCs took the time to eat the hero's feast inside their tiny hut. During that time, the living fungi outside ate away at the vault, damaging it enough for her to break out.
Battle began. Zuggtmoy, the demon lordess, summoned hordes of fungi to swarm the party, and often consumed many of them to restore her own health. The PCs tried to keep the annoying violet fungi from getting close with wall of fire, and gradually chipped away at Zuggtmoy's health. Finally, Furifuru disintegrated her. Upon her destruction, the fungi lost their animation, and the parasitic decay filtered away.
They climbed out of the mushroom pit and into the next hallway. They found a path that was mostly blocked by boulders, but with bright light desperately trying to pierce through. Furi squeezed through with polymorph.
On the other side, Furi saw a windowed tunnel leading to a huge set of iron doors. He entered the thick glass tunnel, which looked into a huge cavernous chamber with a blindingly bright light above and full of ruined buildings. The party had found the Labyrinth's Center!
They returned home with treasure in tow (including a bag of beans) to plan an expedition into the central citadel for later.
Furi planted one of the magic beans 50 ft away from the Bastion of Dreams in the direction of Bullion Falls. It magically created a geyser that spewed vinegar every 20 minutes.
Green planted the other bean in his back yard. It spawned 12 shrieker fungi, which immediately began to scream. He replanted one in his neighbor's front yard as a joke. He found it destroyed a short time later.
Wiznt cast legend lore on the Orb of Enhancement, which caused him to become allergic to healing potions, just like Auri.
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