Session 47 - Basement of Zenopus

2 Felmont 1010

General Summary

The party enters the doorway, and after looking around for a bit, the door begins to slowly swing closed, Seraphina pushes on the door, and her hand happens to hit one of the symbols, and it lights up. With some quick experimentation, they find when she sweeps her hand clockwise, starting with the top symbol, the door reopens. They spend some time debating how they should deal with this, but eventually decide that allowing the door to close is probably fine. The do so and, once closed, they are able to reopen it with a simple sweep of the symbols with their hand.
That problem solved, they return to examining the smooth walled pit. Leo tosses a copper down the hole, and it seems to take a bit of time before clinking off the bottom. he estimates it is over 50ft deep, so a single rope won't be adequate to descend to the bottom.
Stavos drives a piton into the rock floor, and it feels nice and secure, and the party descends - some taking Elincia's offered spidersilk rope option (after transforming into a giant spider) while others on tied together ropes.
As they approach the bottom they see signs of violence and scorch marks. There are a range of corpses on the floor with burned clothing - the corpses show some additional signs of violence, but it is unclear what may have done this. Strangely, none of the corpses are wearing shoes.
There is a door to the south, and an open door leading to a passageway north, which has sconces with motes of light suspended above them (the source of light down here). The party takes the northern passage, which leads to another open door. Beyond, they find a room with a closed door to the North, and corridors east and west. They go north first, and find what appears to be a utility closet with a well, some buckets, and mops. The bottom of the well has water, and it seems fresh to the taste. The mops appear well worn, and normally would have been retired long ago, though they still have some functionality left to them.
Having exhausted this room, they decide to head to the eastern passage. The corridor is lined by six cells (three on each side), and the party is attacked by a handful of zombies (who also appear not to have shoes!). These zombies die easily at the hands party but, the fight another horde of zombies comes in from the western passage. These are also readily dealt with. They continue east, and find a wide downward spiraling passageway. They decide to finish exploring this floor before descending. To the west, they find another set of cells, now empty, along with a doorway. Seraphina opens this door, and beyond is a room with torture implements and surgery tables. Also, two tougher looking zombies (?), which appear to be cleaning the equipment. The party quickly beats takes down the two creatures. These two "zombies" appear to be constructed from a variety of bodies stitched together. While tougher, these were still not particularly dangerous to the party. However, like the zombies before, these monsters have no shoes! The party is quite concerned by the lack of shoes.
They find a notebook which shows that terrible tests were being performed on the people that were captive here. The notes indicate 57 individuals that were used in various terrifying experiments, before presumably being turned into zombies or parts for the "stitched zombies".
This room seems not to have any further passageways, so the party heads back to the "cylinder" and tries the southern door. Seraphina attempts to open the door, and it immediately is blocked. She pushes harder, with help from Stavos, and it still doesn't seem to budge. She uses Shatterspike to chip away at the door, and Elincia turns into a small spider to explore through the rubble behind the door. On the other side she finds it to be a small room mirroring that to the north, with another closed door that seems to be barricaded. She returns to the party and transforms back to her elven body, and explains. The party decides they will leave this section alone for now, and heads downstairs after taking a short rest in the antechamber north of the shaft they descended from.
Headed down the long downward spiral stairs, the party eventually finds themselves at a small landing and a door. They find it opens to a small room with a table with a wash basin and a pitcher of water, as well as a pair of very old shoes neatly placed under the table. Still uncertain about the overall shoe situation, they turn their attention to the other door in this room, which naturally they open. Within they find a mostly destroyed room, with signs of an explosion, long-decayed bodies, and more zombies and a large Zombie Owlbear. Once again the party very effectively handles the situation. The owlbear deals some significant damage to Stavos, while Tork focuses his efforts on the zombie horde. Leo and Elincia pepper the owlbear with damage over several rounds and, once the regular zombies are dealt with, the owlbear runs out of steam too. Elincia distributes more berries, to help Stavos and Tork get back to full health, as they explore the room. They find more notes, and one of the corpses that was already dead in the room before the combat actually has slippers on! They start to suspect that this is perhaps the corpse of the caster that was once in charge of this place. Something must have gone wrong with his dastardly plans. There is a note in the same script as the journal upstairs, but Leo's comprehend languages is down now after their short rest. They also find two books, one a text on alchemy, and the second apparently a raunchy sex book about "The Enchanted Tower."
They take the two books, and head further down the spiral. Eventually coming to another, much larger, room (no shoes outside this one). As they enter there are, unsurprisingly, more zombies, but now a terrifying new sight to the party - a Beholder!

Report Date

04 Jun 2021