The Mouth of Doom: Session 24

General Summary

Centipedes

Standing in the room dedicated to Luck tucked into the Mouth of Doom, the Wrenjers discuss what they should do with all the copper they have won. Deciding on leaving it until they can gather it, they move on and investigate the pit traps they had moved around or disabled. Only one of the pits lead to a potential opening, and after some scouting it seemed to drop at the same level as the transmutation pool’s tunnel. Moving around the floor of the dungeon, it is calm as they have thoroughly investigated everything they could. As they swung by the room with the glue around it, they were finally able to open the door using the tarp; however, it only revealed more glue. Artem places a pair of gloves and spare boots in it to absorb some of the adhesive for future use. On the inside they noticed a chest at the far end of the room and a severed hand. It would take an hour for the gloves and boots to become functional and as of such, they moved back to the room with the magical pools.
On their way, they made sure to open all the doors and that meant Zetwuzadi had to smash the Skull door in the main chamber open. Examining all the pools, they notice that each pool seemed to have a very potent spell infused within it that represented each school they had detected. Te’Leyuura and Artem discovered that the Divination pool functioned like “detect magic” on objects submerged into it. On the eastern side, the Necromancy pool caused some of them to recoil in fear. Ansible and Vadim investigated the Abjuration and discovered it would give Resistance but only ever once that would last one day. The southern pool smelled heavily of acid but the water wouldn’t be magical outside of the pool. After some thought, Te’Leyuura understands that it would have taken immense power to create these pools but similar pools could be constructed at Castle Calaelen, if they wished, and could be used to create powerful magic items. The wizard had only read about theories of places like this and was rather giddy at the idea of working with Jarvis to recreate these at the keep. Upon further inspection, they speculate that the transmutation pool could be refilled and the magic would be still present.
Artem feels like they are missing something but they all press on, back to the mural room with the centipedes. They split into two groups, one taking each door, and as they open the doors, the centipedes swarm out. The first group is taken care of rather quickly with Leofric and Jarvis moving into the room. Zetwuzadi was blocking the southern door when the second group swarmed. Forty-seven centipedes spilled out of the mosaic wall. Most of them taking positions around the two in the room; however, the northern door was unblocked and some made it to some of the squishier folk in the hallway. Te’Leyuura sends a Fireball into the room, sculpting it around Jarvis and Leofric killing all of the centipedes in the room. She then calls out for help with the ones around her, Vadim and Artem. After the wizard’s attack the battle became once again easy for the group. After the battle, Enya finishes off the larvae behind the mosaic. A quick investigation revealed that the bugs had access to the woods above through a hole.
They fall back to the bandits hideout to take a short rest. Artem settles for a cat nap on one of the beds while Zetwuzadi summons their beautiful starlight celestial bear companion, this is done through a lovely song sang by the paladin about inaethri who live among the stars, a mother bear, a child bear and a bear filled with rage and during this song the mother bear is summoned and instantly bonds with Zetwuzadi. After their rest, everyone except the paladin have developed a cough. Artem had been feeling it for a bit before the others and had thought it was because they had kept watch during the wind. Leofric calls Te’Leyuura and Artem over, cleansing the rogue first then moving through the Wrenjer’s with the help of Zetwuzadi. The twilight cleric had heard of a pestilence that was rumored to havoc this side of Gylidd island. It was said to be created by Vrokíva. There was no way for them to avoid it and that they needed to keep watch for more symptoms upon its return. As they leave for the glue room, Enya burns the beds.
The rogue was able to move about the glue room with the boots and gloves. Cautiously they unlock the chest and instantly notice the false bottom that contains gold. Finally able to investigate the last room on this floor they talk about moving down the transmutation tunnel with Artem scouting the area under Te’Leyuura’s invisibility. With Sindragosa tucked into Artem’s leather, they both move down the ladder, noticing the broken rung, the rogue moves up and informs the others before he descends back down to scout. The southern staircase had pools of water on it and each door in the area is wooden with iron reinforcements. Moving back up to the group, Artem gathers them down to make a more thorough investigation with Jarvis. The artificer and rogue make their way to each door, investigating and unlocking the doors but only opening one at a time. The first door they open is the northern one which was mostly empty except for the scrawling of “left, straight, right, left” on the walls and the smell of brine. The next room revealed puddles of water and the last door they were able to open contained fungi that when the door opened, three animated and started to wail. Even as Artem closed the door, the shrieking could be heard. They reopen the door, and quickly silence the fungus but the damage was already done. With their secret scouting shattered, they quickly climb the ladder, leaving Sindragosa to watch for whatever would answer the fungus. Right before Te’Leyuura recalled her companion, they could see large armored ants but they did not climb after the Wrenjers.
After a short discussion, they decided to head to the staircase in the room which had the skeleton statue with the expertly carved wolves; the room with all the leeches. On their way, they swing by the room dedicated to Luck and using Zetwuzadi’s new companion, load the coinage while the wizard ritually casts Detect Magic. They stealth down the staircase, the ground before Artem looks like a black carpet that as he approaches the many cockroaches scatter into the walls. The oval room has two doors, the southern one was shut and above in Gylidder common, Forbidden is written but someone has crossed it out and underneath scrawled “until now”. The northern door had “Healing and Recovery” written above it. As Leofric glanced at the wards he instantly recognized the Mender’s practice. The southern ward would have been for bad cases, diseases and such while the northern ward would have been used for non contagious aethrin. Walking into the ward, the walls are decorated with figures in white robes helping the sick but they had been defaced. Markings to make them look monstrous were across their faces. Across from the door, a large mural of the Mender’s Pantheon of Inaethri was also defaced with “Heal this if you can, you upstart meddlers” in abyssal. Each bed is stained with blood and after a cursory glance each bed must have had a patient that was violently killed. They guess they had the same pestilence that had plagued them, luckily for the Wrenjers they caught it before it got worse as it looks that ones that had been bedridden couldn’t even defend themselves.

Report Date

27 Mar 2021