RoT 21: "Xonthal's Tower 2: Maze Runners"
Discovery, Exploration
You've entered the infamous Maze that surrounds Xonthal's Tower. So far it's lived up to its mysterious reputation of not having any obvious direction. And now, you find yourself having to deal with sword stealing Chuuls and deep deep pool of water...
The fight with the Chuuls continues. Three of the four have been slain but the fourth has absconded with Rikon’s sword into the depths of the pool. Brehana, in an effort to both damage the creature and try to determine how deep the pool goes users her Staff of Fire to case a Fireball into the center as far down as the spell will reach. The bubbles help her estimate a depth of 40-50feet.
As Malice begins ritually casting Water Breathing so you can go after the Chuul, it resurfaces clearly injured from the Fireball. In very short order, with Taru, Pubert, and Brehana all contributing the final Chuul meets its demise. Once Malice completes the ritual you all dive to the bottom of the pool and find a small horde of magic items which you naturally collect.
With the ruby that was levitating over the pool now in hand, you make your way out of this area of the Maze and after what feels like an hour or more you find yourself back at the Sundial that points in two directions – North and East.
This time you choose the Eastern path and after a brief walk you find yourself in an area that seems completely out of place in a Maze. This rectangular space must be ninety feet across, with its far side almost 150 feet away. It looks like a boulder-strewn pasture, with a large pond to one side and a fenced vegetable garden and oversized cottage on the other. Sheep graze in the pasture, tended by a pair of cyclopes, but none of them are moving. They all appear frozen in time.
As soon as Pubert steps fully into the area, everything comes to life. The two Cyclopes turn to each other and play what appears to be rock,paper,scissors, then approach the group. The one who lost picks up a boulder and heaves it 120 feet toward where they were previously standing then look at you all and gesture toward the boulder. Malice casts Comprehend Language and is able to find out that it’s a game. The rules are that your team’s boulder must fly farther than the cyclops’s. How the characters accomplish this is unimportant to the cyclopes, but the boulder cannot be dragged or carried — it must fly at least part of the distance.
Malice uses Levitate to lift the 500 pound rock and Pubert then pushes it down field until it’s just past the one the Cyclopes threw. Once it lands, the Cyclopes applaud and their stone splits in half revealing a Topaz that they indicate is yours to take. You leave the Cyclopes pasture and eventually find yourself at yet another Sundial this time pointing in three direction – North, South East, and South West. You choose to go Southeast.
Again after what seems like an hour or two (time begins to seem skewed and the Tower’s “location” keeps shifting as you go around corners and turns) you find yourselves in what appears to be a garden. Ahead, you see a bubbling fountain filling the pathway. Large bright flowers grow in the hedges on both sides of the fountain, each blossom shimmering in the light. The air smells particularly fresh and sweet here.
A quick inspection shows that the shimmer in the flowers is due to large pearls embedded in each one. But when Malice attempts to touch one of the pearls, the Carnivorous Plants come to life and become aggressive. You manage to kill three of the plants on the south west corner of the garden and get their pearls, but you still have nine more such plants between yourselves and what appears to be the exit on the other end. On a whim you decide to try going out the way you came in since that is clear which results in you making it back to the Sundial that points in three directions. At this point you plop down for an hour to rest and think.
The fight with the Chuuls continues. Three of the four have been slain but the fourth has absconded with Rikon’s sword into the depths of the pool. Brehana, in an effort to both damage the creature and try to determine how deep the pool goes users her Staff of Fire to case a Fireball into the center as far down as the spell will reach. The bubbles help her estimate a depth of 40-50feet.
As Malice begins ritually casting Water Breathing so you can go after the Chuul, it resurfaces clearly injured from the Fireball. In very short order, with Taru, Pubert, and Brehana all contributing the final Chuul meets its demise. Once Malice completes the ritual you all dive to the bottom of the pool and find a small horde of magic items which you naturally collect.
With the ruby that was levitating over the pool now in hand, you make your way out of this area of the Maze and after what feels like an hour or more you find yourself back at the Sundial that points in two directions – North and East.
This time you choose the Eastern path and after a brief walk you find yourself in an area that seems completely out of place in a Maze. This rectangular space must be ninety feet across, with its far side almost 150 feet away. It looks like a boulder-strewn pasture, with a large pond to one side and a fenced vegetable garden and oversized cottage on the other. Sheep graze in the pasture, tended by a pair of cyclopes, but none of them are moving. They all appear frozen in time.
As soon as Pubert steps fully into the area, everything comes to life. The two Cyclopes turn to each other and play what appears to be rock,paper,scissors, then approach the group. The one who lost picks up a boulder and heaves it 120 feet toward where they were previously standing then look at you all and gesture toward the boulder. Malice casts Comprehend Language and is able to find out that it’s a game. The rules are that your team’s boulder must fly farther than the cyclops’s. How the characters accomplish this is unimportant to the cyclopes, but the boulder cannot be dragged or carried — it must fly at least part of the distance.
Malice uses Levitate to lift the 500 pound rock and Pubert then pushes it down field until it’s just past the one the Cyclopes threw. Once it lands, the Cyclopes applaud and their stone splits in half revealing a Topaz that they indicate is yours to take. You leave the Cyclopes pasture and eventually find yourself at yet another Sundial this time pointing in three direction – North, South East, and South West. You choose to go Southeast.
Again after what seems like an hour or two (time begins to seem skewed and the Tower’s “location” keeps shifting as you go around corners and turns) you find yourselves in what appears to be a garden. Ahead, you see a bubbling fountain filling the pathway. Large bright flowers grow in the hedges on both sides of the fountain, each blossom shimmering in the light. The air smells particularly fresh and sweet here.
A quick inspection shows that the shimmer in the flowers is due to large pearls embedded in each one. But when Malice attempts to touch one of the pearls, the Carnivorous Plants come to life and become aggressive. You manage to kill three of the plants on the south west corner of the garden and get their pearls, but you still have nine more such plants between yourselves and what appears to be the exit on the other end. On a whim you decide to try going out the way you came in since that is clear which results in you making it back to the Sundial that points in three directions. At this point you plop down for an hour to rest and think.