Coia: 35 - Checking the Length of Your Rod
General Summary
Searching the rooms more thoroughly, the Vanguard notice that in front each relic/riddle the floor looks different and it appears that there is a small pressure plate. Since splitting up always works in their favor, they split up into small groups to attempt to activate a relic while standing on a pressure plate. Zen waits in the main chamber to see if anything activates there. Garus goes to the water relic, Polonius and Szarden go to the wind relic, Lucy goes to the earth relic, and Polonius and Nym go to the fire relic.
Garus pours water into the golden bowl and steps on the plate. Immediately, a stone wall begins to slide up, and as it does, Zen sees the ice quadrant of the door slide open halfway. The wall opens to reveal an Ice elemental staring down Garus. Lucy and Zen hear the commotion and join in the fight. After some hypnotic confusion, the group defeat the Ice elemental. Garus find and immediately dons a plain ring with a second ring attached by a chain. The second ring has 3 blue crystals.
At almost the same time, Szarden and Mithac light the censor and step onto their pressure plate. Similarly, the air quadrant in the central chamber opens halfway, and in front of them a wall opens to reveal a Wind Elemental. Szarden uses the sending stone to alert Nym who rushes over with Polonius to help fight. Nym’s rage cannot be contained, and he goes weretiger on the elemental. They defeat the elemental and find a large staff with 3 crystals on top which they put in the bag of holding.
Zen returns to the central room to notice that the air and wind stones have moved completely out of the way. One more stone should let someone squeeze through. The Vanguard assemble by the Fire elemental and activate the pressure plate. After a fierce battle the Fire elemental is also defeated. The group finds another ring with a second ring attached by a chain which has 3 small crimson crystals. They place it in the bag of holding.
Heading back to the central room, they take position as Garus attempts to sneak into the room with the Rod of Rulership. He gets into the room and sees the sceptered rod hanging on the mantle. It’s a long golden scepter about 1 meter in length with fine jewels on one end. Just as he enters the room, the room goes black and a statue in the room springs to life and becomes a blue Abishai. At the same time, all the gargoyles in the central room spring to life as different colored Abishai dragons (red, white, black and green).
During the fight of their deja-vu-ridden lives, Mithac gets knocked unconscious again, Garus runs away again, Nym stuns an enemy again, darkness envelopes the room again, Polonius pompously pomps again, Lucy becomes an ape again, Szarden becomes one with the shadows again, and Zen delivers a fatal arrow again.
After the death of the white Abishai, the blue Abishai pulls out the Rod of Rulership from his belt, chants an incantation, and all the Abishai disappear.
Uh oh.
Sszardan T'Sarran
Zenhorn
Mithac Fezim
Lucius
Garus Silenus
Pelonious Pomp
Nym Lenore
Report Date
21 Jun 2023