Session 78 Report

General Summary

Haymin’s Heroes decided to take some time off, at least until a string of birthdays passed. This gave Selia Roselyn Maxwell the time to craft some magic items for Titta Morco and Pyzar Zim, as well as scribe some scrolls for herself. Selia was also interested in attending the meeting of the Guild of Mystic Arts on March 15, 499 AV. Beus Pran, a wizard originally hailing from Talith, was scheduled to speak at this meeting about the conjuration school of magic, focusing on teleportation. However, Beus Pran did not appear that night, causing the meeting to be cut short. Selia brought this up to the party that evening and they decided to go to the wizard’s tower a ways north of the city to look for him and make sure he was all right. March 16, 499 AV was Selia’s birthday and they promised Belpher Burrows they would be back in time for the planned celebration that night. As Haymin’s Heroes were about to leave, though, they ran in to a young half-elven girl who had just approached the front door. This was Vanimelda, Selia’s younger sister. The two sisters embraced as they reunited and immediately began catching up. They all went inside as Selia introduced Vanimelda to the party and they visited. Vanimelda was here for Selia’s birthday, her entourage of guards and chaperones were at the Green Dragon. During conversation, Vanimelda also confessed that she was here hoping to research a particular symbol that was found in one of their father’s mines. The symbol appeared like a six pointed branch. Unfortunately, none of them had ever seen it before. The trip to Beus Pran’s tower was put on hold and they spent the day at home, eventually leading into the party that evening. Lady Dyora Albyn was in attendance with Durik and Naltruum, her half-orc bodyguards. Jenivar Albyn and Amanaxis were present as well. A pleasant evening was shared by all as they celebrated Selia’s birthday. During conversation, Lady Dyora mentioned Beus Pran’s no show and told Selia she might hire them to look for him at his tower if he did not appear in a couple days. Beus Pran had confided in her that if he ever disappeared for a significant amount of time without explanation to come looking for him and send adventurers, not just wizards. They decided that if he had not reappeared by then, Haymin’s Heroes would go to his tower on Tuesday, March 18, 499 AV. The next day was spent much the same, though the focus shifted to Ladigo Farthon’s birthday. All the same guests returned that evening for his birthday celebration. Vanimelda, who had spoken at length with Amanaxis those two nights had asked him about the symbol she was researching. He recognized it and said it was known as an Elder Sign. However, he did not know much about it, other than it was said to be a ward against some ancient and powerful beings. When the conversation shifted to the Beus Pran situation, Lady Dyora asked them to investigate his disappearance and find out if he was alive or dead. They would be compensated based on the difficulty, either by herself or Beus Pran. On the morning of March 18, 499 AV, the party walked the four and a half miles north to the wizard’s tower. Vanimelda remained in Rowadin. She planned on spending the day with Amanaxis. She was training to become a mystic theurge and Amanaxis, an experienced one, offered to share some of his insight with her. When Haymin’s Heroes reached the tower, Titta searched for tracks along the path leading up to it. She saw several approach, but none that left. She counted approximately eight sets of boot prints. They knocked on the door, but there was no answer. The door was locked and looking in through the windows, they did not see anyone inside. Eventually, Auren Sylynn picked the lock and they snuck in. Inside it appeared ransacked. The first floor was a kitchen and dining room area. The cabinets and drawers were open and everything appeared in disarray. A carpet on the floor was disturbed and pulled back some. The second floor was a living room area. There was a framed painting on the wall of a three by three square pattern, where the inside square was painted black and the surrounding eight squares were only outlined in black, with their insides a canvas white. A plaque on the bottom edge of the frame had the words “BEUS PRAN.” In between his first and last name was his arcane mark. The back of the painting was the inverse of this pattern, white in the center and black on the outside squares. The third floor was a laboratory and the fourth was the bedroom. They examined the laboratory and noted that the ingredients and reagents all looked old and possibly expired. The tools and surfaces had some dust on them. The bedroom was sparse and the drawers and wardrobe only contained a few changes of clothes. The party speculated that the tower appeared as a front or a ruse. They went back down to the ground floor and searched beneath the upturned carpet. There they found a hidden trapdoor that revealed a spiral staircase. They descended down the stairs, leaving Pennig and Fisher upstairs. The stairs landed in a large square room with four sets of doors, one on each wall. Beus Pran’s arcane mark was sketched across the floor of this room, with the spiral staircase in the center. Before venturing any farther, Mogi Delvin suggested they go back upstairs and retrieve the painting on the second floor. They did so then discussed where they should go. Mogi cast Detect Magic and sensed a magical aura just behind each door. It was decided to go south, thinking they were in the center square of the painting and they should try to make it to the bottom, leading to the arcane mark on the plaque between his name. The southern doors opened inward and revealed a kitchen area with a small dining table in the center. This room was square and the same size as the room with the stairs. After they entered, Titta looked behind them to see if the doors would close automatically. However, what she saw was a set of double doors on the inside of the kitchen that opened inward. These doors were closed. She opened them and saw nothing but a brick wall. It was solid and they could not go back to the room with the stairs. There were two other sets of doors in this room. One in the center of the west wall and one in the center of the south wall. After some discussion, they opened the west door. That revealed an open field covered in lush greenery, bushes, trees, fruits, vegetables, and herbs. This open field seemed to go on for quite a distance. However, there were two other sets of doors, one to the north and one to the west, just standing in the middle of the field exactly where they would be if this garden area was the same size as the rooms they’d already seen. They did not enter the garden. Instead, they opened the southern doors in the kitchen. What they saw was another room, the same size as the rest, with a single other door on the west wall. There were scorch and blast marks around the walls and floor of this room and a menacing stone golem standing in the center. They did not enter this room either. For a time they discussed entering the garden, believing it to appear safe, where the stone golem room posed an obvious threat. However, they discussed there situation first, believing they were trapped inside this area. They opened the north door again to test a theory and saw that the brick wall was no more. Instead, it led to a bedroom chamber, the same size as the others. This room had another set of doors on the east wall. Titta speculated that it was as if they were in an area like the painting. Based on positions of the doors they had seen, the bedroom would be the top left corner, having doors on the east and south wall. The kitchen where they were was the middle square on the right side. However, it appeared that the rooms were moving somehow. They surmised that in fact there were portals in the doorways and that the rooms might not be shifting, instead it was the configuration of the portals making it appear as if the rooms where shifting. Whether the rooms where shifting like a slide puzzle or if the merely the center room with the stairs was switching places with another room, they were not quite sure yet. They waited some more and found the rooms appeared to move every five minutes. The bedroom was suddenly replaced by a library as they held the doors open in the kitchen and watched all the exits. They moved into the library room believing they might learn something there. It had doors on the east, west, and southern walls, placing it in the middle square of the top row, according to their painting theory. They watched the doorways for some time, holding them open. Pyzar on the west door, Mogi, on the south door, and Kyrie Eleison Thatcher-Stone on the east door. Kyrie’s door looked into a brick wall at first. But Pyzar’s revealed a living room area. What was really interesting was that there were people inside this room. Four men, two of them resembling wizards were sitting around. Near one of them was a construct of some sort, a large creation of wood, metal, and stone. It did not seem as if these men noticed them at all, neither seeing or hearing them. Haymin’s Heroes remained in the library and did not enter the living room. They believed that these men would probably be seeing closed doors as the portals seemed to enter the room just beyond these. These men must have been here for days. The kitchen area was devoid of food. There must also be more of them somewhere, based on the footprints Titta had found outside. After a time, the living room shifted positions and was replaced by a brick wall. Haymin’s Heroes had accounted for eight of the nine rooms in the three by three square, if the painting theory was correct. Though there was one room, the bottom left one, yet to be revealed. It appeared as if the rooms shifted randomly. Their best guess by watching which ones shifted was that the center room was switching places with another room every five minutes. And there was no way they had yet found to return to the center room, as whenever it aligned with their room, they would only see a brick wall. They discussed a few theories of what they had to do to open the doors to the center room. As they did so they searched the library. Most of the books were in Gaeric, but there was a small section in Andarian. Titta searched the desk and found a written lecture on teleportation magic, presumably the one Beus Pran was supposed to have given a few days ago. Her and Selia read it over and found references of portal magic and how portals could be linked to multiple locations and how they could be keyed and configured. Auren thumbed through all the books, looking for any notes or inserts. Ladigo also helped search through the library, while Kyrie, Mogi, and Pyzar watched the doorways for shifting rooms. In an Andarian book entitled Everyday Enchantments, Auren found a six inch square thin metal tile. Upon it was inscribed the letter E, in the same style as the lettering on the plaque at the bottom of the painting. Now they theorized that there were more of these tiles, possibly spelling out Beus Pran, they needed to recover to somehow control the movement of the rooms. They wondered if there was one such tile hidden in each room. That would mean that they should start exploring more of these rooms and that they might have to face some of the guardians therein. This explained why Beus Pran told Lady Dyora to send adventurers…

Campaign

The Heart of Embril

Protagonists