Who Called for Winged Monkeys?

General Summary

As we walk up to Villa Reviva, Lili stopped and tilted her head listening to something I’m not hearing. “I can almost feel the song here. It feels familiar,” she said walking slowly forward. I tracked Wolfy to the villa and there sat Milli cooking food over a small campfire. I notice a glint from the top of the tower over by the cliff about half a mile away, and sometimes it looks covered. Cap and I decided to walk over to the building, but our plans changed when Wolfy howled and ran off to a half-decayed building. Wolfy headed straight up to one of the better-preserved rooms and curled up on a pile of moldering blankets. Cap took one look around and cuddled up next to Wolfy and said, “It’s safe and relatively warm in here.” “You’re strange Cap,” I muttered and rolled myself up in my blanket a bit further away.
“Did you know Wolfy talks in his sleep?” Cap asked. “You know,” I answered, “That’s not something I thought I would learn today.” We poked around in the different rooms and followed Wolfy as he tried to find something. I’m not really sure what he was looking for. Finally, we encouraged Wolfy to go with us as we headed to the tower. The further we walked from the building, the more dejected he got. I looked up at the tower we walked towards. It was fluted out at the top, rather like a shallow cup. The blocks the walls were made out of strange blocks I hadn’t seen anywhere else on the island as we wandered about it. There was no door at the bottom, just an arch about 30 feet wide, and a roughly 210-foot diameter.
We walked in and found a large chamber with five doors in front of it. Each door had a single word written above it, and in the middle was a pillar with the phrase “Ordered” on one side and on the opposite, “First then Last.” I craned my neck up to look at the ceiling around 30 feet above me. “Which do you think is first?” Lili asked. “This one is written in Mani,” Milli said pointing to the door to the left of our entrance. “It says glory.” “This one is glory in Elvish,” I said and pointed at the next one. “I think this is glory in draconic,” Lili said, “When did I learn draconic?” “This says best metalworker in dwarvish, which I guess is their word for glory,” Lili continued going around. “This last one is glory in Imperial. According to the Creator, man was created first, and then the other races were corrupted from them,” said Cap. “So let’s do this door written in Mani for glory.”

MANI ROOM

We walk into the Mani room and see it is lined with life-like statues and the floor is covered in a pattern of linked circles. Milli walked around identifying statues, “Goat, gryphon, dragon, bird, faun, pegasus, centaur, chimera, lion, manticore, sphinx, and horse.” “What do these have in common?” Lili asked as she walked around them. I walked around the circles, and traced the lines connecting them. “Some circles are connected to only one other circle, and some are connected to several.” Cap followed me around the room, “There are two circles with four connectors.” “How would you explain each of these creatures?” Lili asked. “Goat, gryphon is a lion bird, dragon, bird, faun is a man goat, pegasus is a bird horse, centaur is a man horse, chimera is a goat dragon lion, lion, manticore is a man lion dragon, sphinx is a man lion bird, and horse,” I said walking down the rows and describing each one. I started to sketch out each different combination creature on the floor with chalk, and slowly but surely we figured out where each statue went and pushed them into place. Once the last statue clicked into place a piece of paper fluttered down: “Ev’ry door for His allegiance.” The word for was written in gold.

IMPERIAL ROOM

Going with the theory, the Imperial sprang up to fight the changed, we went into that room next and discovered a giant pedestal in the middle of the room. Milli marched in and pushed the button. As soon as she did ten gems lit up and after a few seconds, one went dark. I push the button again and all of the lights come back up. I tried to wait longer and push the button with a pattern, but that does nothing. “I think we need to let it run out,” I said as I watched the lights slowly go out. “I’ll be heading out, just in case,” Cap said. They left me alone in the room, and the lights all went out. Another piece of paper comes out of the dark pedestal. “Risen to His open heaven,” I read noting the “to” was written in gold.
ELVISH ROOM A small empty sphere of smoked glass hung from the ceiling thirty-two feet in the air. “I got this,” Lili said and she floated up and pulled the ball down. Within sat another piece of paper. “Numb’ring five with glory prefaced,” Lili read. “The five is written in gold,” as she held it up.
DWARVISH ROOM We randomly picked a room and went into the door with dwarvish written above it. As we walked through the metal door clanged shut. I spun around as it did and noticed the door on this side was gold and a small keyhole was painted on the door. In the middle of the room stood a large stone figure of a minotaur with a warhammer and scroll, painted on him was a golden key and on the wall behind him is a shadow and something is glinting in it. As we walked around the room trying to figure out how to get the statue to move, I accidentally moved a bit too close to the statue and it reached down and swung at me. I dodged out of the way, as Cap yelled, “Addie! The shadow moved. Keep him moving!” “That’s great, but you’re not the one being swung at,” as I dodged another blow from the statue. I ran carefully around the room, and slowly but surely his key shadow moved closer to the keyhole. The key shadow finally hit the door and the door swung open, and a final piece of paper fell at our feet. “Gath’ring knowledge won the magi,” Cap said, “Won is in gold.” DRACONIC ROOM As we walked through the door, we stopped in confusion. There was a figure slumped in a wooden chair on a plinth. I walked over and noticed blood dripping from a wound on the figure. I try to feel for a pulse and it feels cold like wood, and it danced away from my grasp. “Over there,” Cap said, “Look in the mirror. He’s holding the paper we need!” “Help me keep it still,” I shout as I chase the marionette, “I’m going to try healing it.” As I said that, the creature changed its stance and started acting like it had a sword. It still held no sword, but the air it swung at me certainly hurt like a sword. “Ouch! I’ll cut your strings,” I swung wildly above him, but it kept swinging at me. Milli tried to shoot the puppet, but her shot missed and hit Cap. The puppet ran towards the door and mimed shaking prison bars before running out of my reach again. Milli ran towards the door and ran into invisible bars. I finally give up on stopping it from trying to kill me, and swing as hard as I can on the creature. It mimed being struck, and I cast a spell to hold it still. “Addie stop!” Cap tried to grab my arm as I swung on the creature again. “As you hit it, the creature in the mirror gets better, and I can’t grab the scroll.” “Because that makes sense,” I mutter and try to grab it again to heal it. I grabbed it long enough to heal the creature briefly, but it danced out of my reach again. “At least it was slower when I was hitting it.” “Enough of this,” Cap said, “Heal!” A surge of healing energy billowed through the room and the creature healed up and collapsed to the chair again. Cap pulled the rope from his pack and tied the creature to the chair pulling the reflection of the scroll from its hand. “Every soul is free of torpor.” “Free is in gold,” Cap said. We stared at the papers and shuffled them about until I cried out, “Wait, numbers ordered, first and then last.” Gath’ring knowledge won the magi Risen to His open heaven Every soul is free of torpur Ev’ry door for His allegiance Numb’ring five with glory prefaced
As I read the last line out loud, I noticed there were crystals in little containers all around the central pillar alternating green and red. “Maybe if we move them,” Milli said and she carefully moved all of the crystals over slightly. When the last crystal fell into the last container, the pillar turned and a staircase appeared. We climbed carefully up and at the top of the stairs was a door, Milli spoke again, this time in Mani, “Knowledge (or so she told me later).” We opened the door and at this point felt more than a bit paranoid, so we sent Milli’s pet cat in, but it seemed quite unsure. Finally, it darted in, and only a second later came running out scared out of its mind. Cautiously we opened the door and in the far corner of this room, we saw a manticore. The room was a large platform with pillars at each corner, and in the middle, but the outside walls were open to the air. I mentally made sure to never stand near the open edges. On the near left quadrant, a large metal figure stood. The other two quadrants stood empty. The manticore said something, and I looked at Milli in confusion. “It thinks we’re it’s dinner, it speaks Mani,” she said. “We’re not your dinner, ” she replied to the manticore. “I like to play with my food,” the creature replied. “We taste bad. We’re poisoned.” “Spicy!” the manticore said prowling forward, “Master says I”m almost ready to go out into the world. I just need to grow up a bit more. You can help me grow up.” “Spiritual weapon,” Cap stated, calling his ghostly trident forth, and walked into the middle of the room. That is when the winged monkeys attacked. They were the size of bees but were monkeys. They swarmed around me, stinging and flinging small things at me. I ran away from them and flung a tidal wave washing them off the platform. The manticore ran back to me, and I ducked under the swipe he aimed at me. While it was distracted Milli shot striking the manticore in the side. I swung back, but my swing was deflected off its tough hide, and it turned and pounced on Milli as she shot it again. “By the Creator’s Beard Hairs, there’s a beholder,” Cap cried out pointing above us. I looked over and saw a tentacled eye lowering towards the metal figure on the other side of the platform. He sent his ghostly trident to hit the manticore and threw a blast of energy at the beholder. The beholder turned its gaze upon me and I struggled to remember why I was fighting and felt slower and weaker. I tried to throw a gout of flame at the beholder but missed. “Suit, get that guy,” the beholder commanded to his armored suit as he stared at me. As he stared at me, my sword stopped humming. “Aim for its eye,” Cap shouted. Milli turned from the manticore and quickly shot two arrows into the giant eyeball. The eyeball turned towards Milli and she rolled away from the creature’s gaze. “Creator, call forth your storm,” Cap bellowed, and threw lightning at the beholder, and it turned its gaze on Cap causing him to writhe in pain. I hit him with a burst of flame, and the beholder moves off of the platform blocking Milli from shooting him. The armor lumbered to Cap and puked some vile liquid all over him and backhanded Milli into the wall. “Shatter!” Cap cried grabbing the armor. “Enough of this,” I said, “Flame on!” I pushed the golem backwards off the platform, and flew up towards the beholder throwing flames at it. It flew away, and I returned unwilling to pursue the creature further away.

Report Date

23 Dec 2021