Session 5: Escaping the Cages, Marbles and Frode!
General Summary
Cage Trap
Four of you, imprisoned in cages and desperate for a way out, discovered some new clues about your predicament. As Namina attempted to make her cage more pretty and visible, she touched the outside to imbue it with Light, however, this also caused the cages of her three trapped friends to fall deeper towards the boiling blood. Because of this, Kaswink thought it may be best to be careful and wait for DAN and Frode to eventually arrive.Outside the cage room, DAN had decided to walk backwards towards the door, hoping that this would keep it from stretching even further beyond their vision, and it worked! They were able to quickly enter the room, only stumbling a little bit upon collision with the door frame, and they continued walking backwards, ever scared of the possibility of finding out what happens when they turn around. Frode also walked backwards towards the room and the two of them found the situation their friends were in. Kaswink took this opportunity of their arrival and threw a dagger attached to a rope from her cell to Agave's across the plateau. After some backwards stumbling about, DAN and Frode eventually utilized this rope to pull two of the cages, Agave and Kaswink, out of the danger and onto the surface of the central "pillar". Here Frode noted that he had some leftover spare keys from his guard days still on his person and attempted to use one to unlock Kaswink's cage. Surprisingly enough, the key fit! The lock turned and the cage door opened allowing Kaswink to be free...but in unlocking her cage, Frode also caused the two remaining cages that hung over the blood to drop even closer.
Kaswink used her same dagger and rope trick to grapple the other two cages so that the three of you could pull them up before unlocking the remaining cages... The boiling blood was avoided and you were able to turn your backs on this area. Before leaving, however, Kaswink did comment that perhaps you all were supposed to enter the strange boiling blood, though after discovering that it is slightly acidic, the lot of you decided, again, to avoid it at all costs. Lots of discussion as to how to proceed was had, but you eventually decided to follow the path of Frode or Hysteria with or without their help as Namina attempted to read their auras and feel out the appropriate path. It was a tricky thing to do, but she managed to find a way towards Frode's "area" of the maze.
Marbles
On the way there, the lot of you encountered many empty rooms, but eventually came across a side room that had a floor covered in several layers of marbles... Two levers were to the left of the entrance. One had a spiral engraved above it, the other had a circle. A great deal of discussion lead to Kaswink and Namina pulling both levers resulting in some of the marbles being discarded, some being saved by a glowing circular light on the ceiling, and a circular pendant being lost with several of the marbles as the floor opened into a spiral shape. Oh no! You lost your marbles! Hoping to retrieve the pendant after realizing the connection between the moon-like item and ...something untold, Namina wanted to find a way down the spiral. Unfortunately, after having reset the spiral lever to close the floor, it refused to reopen with subsequent pulls. Agave utilized beams of moonlight to hopefully unlock the secrets of this room. As the beam of moonlight it this spiral floor it caused a small portion to tighten into a tighter and tighter spiral before it folded in on itself revealing a pit of darkness, impossibly black and impenetrable by any torches or darkvision. Namina, seeing this darkness and connecting some dots in her mind, decided to reach into the pit only to, strangely enough, be met with another scaled, clawed and webbed hand similar to her own. This hand grabbed onto her wrist though it didn't pull, just gently grabbed on. Namina alerted the party about the hand grabbing onto her and Kaswink reacted quickly to grab onto her shoulders and attempt to free her from the depths. In grabbing onto her and pulling Namina was pulled with slightly greater than equal force in the opposite direction as she was pulled deeper into the darkness, her entire arm now below the floor up to her shoulder. Kaswink pulled again, hoping to free her friend, and was more successful this time around though at the cost of Namina's arm being cut in half by the clawed hand that held tightly onto her. From her wrist down her hand a nasty cut bisects her hand....with healing magic the pain eased, the cut looked cleaner and the bleeding mostly stopped, but the gruesome wound still causes the hand to be mostly unusable. The party decided to depart this marble room at this time, taking whatever marbles they thought looked the coolest, and heading further towards Frode...Frode
Along the way down this winding path, the walls did begin to change from the now familiar pinkish-grey brain-like walls to a stone grey like what you would see at a castle, or the walls of a large city. Frode accepted that these walls were familiar to him, and the additions of sconces, paintings, and iron banding on doors and parts of the wall did further correlate this place to the walls he frequently guarded. The familiar walls began to take on the appearance of "melting" as they became covered in a nasty, oozing goop similar to mucous. Frode extrapolated that this could be related to the plague that had been affecting Voldaren for some time, and that if anyone begs for death to escape this illness they must not be granted the request as they have "their own burden to bear" The halls eventually lead to a larger area with several doors all covered in this goop and one door that was strangely clean with what at first glance appeared to be iron banding...though the metal did shift in tone between several different types of metal. Most of the mucous doors were impossible to open, however, one did eventually give way to your prying and peel itself from the wall with a great deal of force. A portion of the party wanted to investigate the clean door to see why it was the way it is, though the vote did skew towards the mucous door and the party ventured onward.Frode entered first, investigating the area and discovering that there were several unrecognizable piles of mucous positioned around a fireplace along with a table that was mostly in a similar state, a stove, other kitchen essentials, and two corpses covered in the mucous as well. Frode recognized these shapes as an older woman and a much younger woman, an emotional reaction soon followed but was interrupted by a horrible scream of desperation, fear, coupled with wailing cries from the same young man in another room within this home. The door leading to this child was pried open, similarly stuck like the exterior door, but it too eventually gave way. Two big-ol' scary slime guys were after this child, and the anxiety was piling up as moving in this goop took a great deal of energy and time... Kaswink moved quickly, using the ceiling to vault herself over the floor and immediately get between the child and the slimes. Frode, hoping to join her, left the dead bodies to help this child as the slime that covered them rose up into a similar shape. The rest of the party took care of the slime in the central room while Frode and Kaswink saved the child. The slimes were eventually dealt with...much easier than you'd expect, and as the last one fell Frode was able to get a better look at the child. He seemed familiar, perhaps one of the many children affected by the plague in that town...but something tugged at his heartstrings unbeknownst to the rest of the party.
As Frode saw the child, however, he began to feel a terrible migraine, a voice spoke to him. Frode was pressed further into the slime which was quickly thinning into a more liquid state. His whole body shoved against the ground by the agony that was overtaking him... Kaswink, worried about her friend, attempted to lift Frode from the ground, and while she was successful in prying his face from the liquid, the force required also caused her feet to plunge through the rotten wood and cause the now liquid-like mucous to begin draining into a crawlspace. Taking a peek into the new area, Kaswink discovered it stretched on much farther than the boundaries of this home. Perhaps a way through the maze?
Report Date
15 Nov 2021
Primary Location
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