Session 40 - Into the Fiery Heart

23 Klarmont 1010

General Summary

The party heads down the western hidden passage from the Ghoul room and finds a room containing four alcoves, as well as another door mirroring the position of the one they came through. The floor seems clear of debris and dust, but the ceiling has cobwebs on it. As they move to enter, they see a strange shimmering cube in the southeastern alcove and it moves to attack them! This cube is roughly 10 feet on a side, and appears to be a Gelatinous Cube, which some of the party has some basic knowledge of. They attack the cube and take it down pretty quickly, but not before it tries to devour Tork, and then tries again on both Tork and Seraphina. Thankfully they are able to avoid being absorbed and soon the cube is destroyed, collapsing into a puddle of slightly acidic ooze. They don't find anything of interest in the Gelatinous Cube, but do find two "pooped out" skeletons in other alcoves, which have nice gold anklets that look pretty valuable. They collect these and, as they are searching the room, Tork notices another irregularity in one of the walls, which they determine is yet another secret doorway.
Inside the small hidden room they find another skeleton as well as a sealed jar. They take the skeletons necklace, as well as the jar - it's contents rattle around when shaken.
The non-hidden doorway opens to a passage, where they see the familiar yellow marking of the magic portals that lead out to the valley itself. They confirm this by touching the marking, which opens a tunnel through the stone as expected.
The party returns to the ghoul room and the eastern hidden passage. This passage loops south and leads to another room. When they open this door, they find a T-shaped room. The east and west sections of the room have stone pedestals with vials sitting on them. The eastern pedestal has four healing potions, which Seraphina distributes between Stavos, Tork, and herself. The western pedestal has potions that appear to be the same potions the Hin gave them to sneak into the Sahuagin lair - Potions of Gaseous Form. There are only two of these, as the other two have dried up.
The southern part of the room has a pedestal with a very finely crafted crystal skull. When Stavos picks up the skull, a loud whistling fills the room. When Stavos returns the skull to the pedestal, the reverberation stops. After some consideration, and the apparent value of the skull, Stavos picks it up again, and walks away from the pedestal. As he does so the pitch increases and becomes louder. He walks back toward the pedestal, and the pitch and volume lower again. He makes a move toward the door, and when he gets about 20 feet from the pedestal, glass begins to shatter. Several of their glass items shatter - vials, potions, and inkwells are destroyed, making a mess, and they are forced to clean up their glassware and soiled items.
After further consideration, they put the skull back, and then put their remaining potions outside the room, or in the Bag of Colding, and try again. The pitch continues to climb, and volume increases, but with their remaining glassware stowed, no further breakage occurs. When they close the door behind them the sound appears to stop, though it may have simply gone beyond their ability to hear.
They finally head down the final hallway out of the Ghoul room, southwest, and find a long passage; can hear what appears to be distant rumbling. As they continue they find the path is very long and the walls become warmer and warmer; the party anticipates that there may be either a hot spring, or a lava tube wherever this passage leads. Eventually, maybe half a mile down the tunnel, they find themselves at a door.
As per their normal routine, Seraphina opens the door, and they find a room with four wooden statues and doorways on the east and west walls of the room. The statues look humanoid, but with snake-like heads. The statues have mother of pearl eyes and teeth and, as Tork moves to investigate them closer, the statues turn and attack. Tork, ever on the alert, is able to quickly dispatch the first statue with a devastating blow, and deals heavy damage to a second. The rest of the party attacks and they are able to take out the statues with relative ease. They pluck the mother of pearl from the statues' heads, which seem to have been modified from their original shapes, and decide to explore the eastern doorway out from this room.
The door east opens into a short hallway with a square rug in the middle, some kind of antechamber, and a door on the eastern wall. Not trusting the carpet, Tork uses his spear to lift it up and examine the floor below, finding no traps or surprises waiting. They once again have Seraphina open the next door, which opens on a room with some form of crude, possibly magic, circle in it, and five humanoids. One has a snake-like head, similar to the statues, and is carrying a sword of some sort, and the others have some scales on parts of their bodies, but otherwise appear human-like. Tork once again is the first to react, and is able to go for the snake-headed person, and is able to knock him off his feet pretty quickly. The rest of the party is able to pepper the snake-headed one with blows before he is able to respond, and also take down one of the other Yuan-Ti, who of course attack. One casts some sort of gas-based attack, but Seraphina is able to avoid the effects, and after the party strikes out another time, the Yuan-Ti are all killed. Stavos decides to sew one of the Waldhexe coins into the head of the snake-headed humanoid while the party searches the room. Along with several human skulls, they find a bag with a valuable looking jade amulet, and what appears to be a jar of hot sauce, which they decide should be kept cold for best results, and put it into their bag of colding. They also take the snake-headed man's fancy feathered robe and headdress, which they also stow in the bag of colding.
Once again, feeling pretty chipper, they don't rest, and move on to the doorway south out of this room. When they open this door, they are accosted by a horrible stench, as they find holding pens carved below the walkway through this room. In these pens are various creatures including Deiny's and Raptors, possibly raised for food. In addition to the steep sides, there are sharpened stakes that keep the dangerous looking lizards away from the walkway. This room has doors to the west, and south.
The party decides to check out the west first, and find a hallway going north and south. The proceed north and open the door the passage ends at, entering an unoccupied bedroom. Here they find more human skulls, along with 10 pearls, some nails, and fruit. They take some of the nails, the fruit, and the pearls, and decide once again to put off resting.
This room has another door to the east, which they find connects back to the wooden statue room, with another small antechamber between. They go back through the bedroom to explore the southern end of the passage. The drums continue to get louder and, when they open the door, they find themselves in a large chamber dominated by a gaping pit, glowing red from steaming lava below, over which a rope bridge stretches to the southwest.
The room encircles the pit, except for the southwestern section which is only accessible by the bridge. On the opposite side of the bridge or at least two dozen Yuan-ti, chanting and dancing to the beat of the drums, which are being struck by lizard-humanoids (like the one found in the temple in the valley) on the north and east sides of the room, one just west of the door the party entered through. A large throne sits in a raised area to the southeast, and upon it a large, snake-bodied woman with more than two arms. Another passage continues south just west of this. There are also two of the snake-headed Yuan-Ti in the area just below the throne. The drummers stop and everyone immediately moves to attack, except the person on the throne, who cries out some order and disappears into thin air.
Thankfully, the bridge acts as a choke point for the horde to the southwest, with the first few moving along its length. Leo, finding himself in a situation that appears to need magic, spends his first turn activating his Rod of the Pactkeeper to regain some power. The rest of the party engages with the charging Yuan-Ti, quickly taking a couple down, though the drummer lizards seem pretty hardy. Once Leo has regained some power, he casts Sickening Radiance covering the bridge and the pinch-point to the east, along with several of the Yuan-Ti that have reached the party. This immediately takes out half the Yuan-Ti on the bridge, along with slowing the snake-headed Yuan-Ti to the east. The next round the remaining Yuan-Ti trapped in the effect die as well, plummeting into the lava far below in puffs of smoke. The Yuan-Ti outside the Sickening Radiance hesitate to venture through it, but this serves its purpose as the party is no longer disadvantaged 5:1. The western drummer tries to grapple Seraphina, which is terrifying at the edge of the lava pit, but her strength and athleticism allows her to overcome this threat multiple times, saving her life, as the party struggles to kill the drummer.
Meanwhile, the more cautious Yuan-Ti across the bridge throw spears, ineffectively due to the long range, most avoiding entering the Sickening Radiance but, Tork decides to further reinforce the separation and cuts out the bridge support, causing another 3 Yuan-Ti to tumble to their burning deaths. The party now begins to feel less over-matched, though the snake-headed men begin launching eldritch blasts at them. Just as the tide is turning, the door to the northeast opens, and more Yuan-Ti pour out, attacking Stavos and Tork. Eventually, all the fronts start to soften up, and the party moves fight to the two (now obvious) Warlocks that kept to the southeast. The remaining Yuan-Ti that were stranded to the southwest move off south, out of range and view, presumably seeking another path. Tork pushes over to the door that the additional Yuan-Ti streamed out of with the intent of blocking the path, but the room is now empty. He and Stavos now work their way around the Sickening Radiance, to go after the final two combatants, the Warlocks. It seems the Warlocks underestimate Tork's speed, as they don't immediately run, so when Leo drops the Sickening Radiance, Tork is able to cut off any retreat, and they are soon brought down.
The party quickly searches the room, looking for threats, but find none. This time, they are all in agreement that they should take a short rest. They decide to go back to the hallway out, and rest there. Nothing disturbs their short rest, and they continue their exploration with the room that was northeast of the lava pit room. Here they find more primitive bedding, and a storeroom full of weapons. Deciding that these weapons pose a threat to their safe passage, they light the contents of the room on fire and head back to the lava pit room.
They decide to go through the door behind the throne, and find a round room with bright lights. As the move through the room they find the lights disorienting and lose track of where they are. Tork attempts to open the door that looks like it should head back into the other door of the lava pit room, but finds himself at a totally different place. Once they enter this new room, the sense of disorientation fades, and they explore this storage room. They find various low quality wines and other comestibles, and decide there is nothing of value here. To the east is another doorway and, when they open that, another short hallway and door.
They confidently stride down the hall and open this door, finding an elaborate room with everything in it appearing to be made of crystal, except for two large, black creatures that look to be a cross between a panther and an octopus, and the door on the opposite end. They are hostile, and Tork moves to strike. The creature seems to shimmer as he tries to strike it, making it very hard to do so. After a couple misses, he manages to land a punch, and the defensive illusion seems to end for the time being. The creatures apparently are displacer beasts. Their defensive illusion seems to come back when they attack, but once down stays down until the next attack, allowing the party to gang up on them with relative ease once one strike gets through the illusion. In short order, the battle is over. The displacer beasts both have fancy collars that look quite valuable, which the party takes. Stavos also takes this opportunity to sew their final coin into the mouth of the displacer beast. This completes their obligation to Waldhexe from Leeside, and Leo feels a weight lifted at least figuratively from his shoulders. The complete list of "coined" enemies is as follows:
1) False Hydra 2) Goblin 3) Soldier Ant 4) Hobgoblin 5) Dog 6) Chameleon mount 7) Humanoid lizard rider of chameleon mount 8) Screaming Ghoul 9) Yuan-Ti (snake-headed) 10) Displacer Beast
Besides the collars, there does not appear to be anything of special value in the room, so the party prepares to move on.

Report Date

21 Feb 2021