Session 21 - The Flooded Staircase - Zellandria's Notes

General Summary

So what the heck are we doing?
Something something staircase flooded with water
Ilalai has an idea!
We could politely ask the elementals to plug up the hole under water?
Zell has no context as to what happened with the stairs or the water but she sensed that these assholes have a speaking sphere with Gideon’s voice on it so she’s going to acquire that in the name of House Orien.
100% in the name of house Orien.. Yeah..
Worried Rock wants some foundry glass but we’ve not made that expedition yet.
Cornelius could make potions of water breathing for 100 base +80g
Dii funds the 80g for the potions
I guess we’re cave diving?
Deborah has been rebuilding the library on the edge of the town apparently, that’s pretty neat
Research is now unlocked as a valid downtime option!
Neat!
Diiroehn’s town watch has started and been assisting Ilalai on the town defenses
Zell has a dream about the town being reduced to cinders and the sun being immense and close.
Dope.
All shall burn.
She wakes up.
Ah hell, still in this hick town.
Zell asks to import some fancy arrows and fancy shoes
This is problematic because Steve did not think Zaph would ask this.
Step up your game, Steve
5 sparking arrows
These will make a nice gift for Holly :>
I like her hair.
She and I should be friends.
Magic arrows do an extra 1d6 lightning on hit
Anyway let’s get to it!
We meet at the glass anchor and head over to the giant statue into the alchemy lab.
Hundreds of steps later we reach the bottom where the stairs meet the
Voroc: I’m sure this is sanitary..
Cornelius took a sample previously and determined it to be salt water and not poisoned so that’s nice
Welp.
Bottoms up.
The three non-artificers down the potions of water breathing.
I wish this room was on fire.
Cornelius steps into the water.
It’s ice cold.
He pulls the cloak of the manta in on himself and fits a small mask over his mouth and under the hood.
Neat.
Everyone follows him after into the water
We continue spiraling down the staircase, slime and mossy surfaces coat the walls and floors
After a few minutes of moving downwards we reach the bottom of the stairs and settle at the bottom of a large kelp filled chamber
The light from the sun rod catches on a huge sign made from brass on the ceiling, etched with giant runes.
Ilalai swims up and wipes the grime off the sign and translates it
“Master Alchemist’s Private Laboratories. No entry to honoured guests.”
Kelp and plants seem to have climbed up the walls almost completely.
Moving forward a path to the left is open and seems to have a giant chasm opened up in the floor
Another sign is engraved near the roof
“The flames of rebirth await you, most noble guests.”
Voroc remembers reading about the Flames of Rebirth and Adaxus earning the rights to go to them.
Curious.
To the south Ilalai realises that this was where Crumbles got chomped on.
Poor little guy.
So anyway let’s pick a random direction and go.
We do that.
Dii takes off swimming over the pit.
Water churns beneath it.
Dii: There’s.. Something in the pit..
Cornelius sees something moving fast and suddenly jaws flash towards him.
A long brightly coloured eel appears from the depths and goes to give them the chomps
ROLL INITIATIVE
Voroc: 19 Pit eel: 16 Dii: 10 Cornelius: 8 Zell: 7 Ilalai: 5
Big old jaws go to chomp at Cornelius but he kicks away and it dodges.
Diiroehn stabs it a bunch of times
He gets in and goes to give it the stab
Stab stab stab
Lights crackle along markings along the body of the eel.
Oh noooo.
Off to the left in the vines and kelp move
Another big ol eel comes up from the southern tunnel
Voroc sets his weapon to electricity
Ohhhh no.
It absorbs the electricity well enough
Aw.
A moment later the glowing marks on the first eel flash and everyone seizes in pain for a moment.
Here we go with the lightning damaggggggggggge, kids
Con saves all around!
A shield flickers around Ilalai for a moment taking the bulk of the lightning
Cornelius winces and slams a button on his arm and absorbs half the shock
They both get stunned. Oh nooo.
Dii gives it more of the stabs
The second eel zips forward and grabs Ilalai and begins to pull her back
Oh nooooooooooo.
Zell goes to stab into the face of the eel holding Ilalai
Voroc blasts the shit out of both of the eels and thankfully they die
Across the eel pit there appears to be a large room with a sign hanging from the roof
The light catches glass or something reflective in the middle of the area?
Floor to ceiling glass walls. An octagonal shaped room??
This is ruddy mysterious.
Dii pokes the eel body and wonders how long it would take to harvest them.
Too long man, it would take too long. We’ve got less than an hour.
Swimming into the next room with the glass pavilion the room seems to be circular and has two exits.
An iron grille and a hatch on the floor maybe?
A roof sits about halfway above the glass chamber and then above that again is a series of chains that hold the roof component.
Is it an elevator?
There’s condensation inside the glass.. It’s dry in there.
I wonder how stale that air is.
A heavy iron handle and lock are on the door.
Looks like it would fit the key that Cornelius found earlier.
Maybe we should drain this place first though rather than flood the glass elevator.
Cool though.
Time check
10 minutes.
Moving forward to the corridor at the north of the room. Turns out there’s a left and a right passage here.
Let’s go left!
Dii keeps his eyes peeled for eels now.
Perception check
NATURAL 20.
No eels here, buddy.
Looks like it was a bedchamber and there are rusted giant sized bed frames.
An etching “Rest and recover, o noble ones, you have been reborn.”
The second reads “Visiting hours during daylight only. Please do not drink anything other than provided”
Was this a hospital or a day spa..
Diiroehn swims down into what seems to be a storage room
Giant filing cabinets!
One of them seems to be sealed, maybe it’ll be worth keeping closed to keep it from perishing.
The open one seems to be full of slime and mush, guess it was full of paper.
I wish Forge was here to carry it.
We leave the sealed one and will return to get it later.
Back to the elevator room we scope out the right hand passage
The light catches green globules in the water ahead.. Pollution?
How is it only in that one area?
Magic shit or ghosts probably.
Magic shit ghosts.
Definitely.
Cornelius drifts up and peers at the liquid, it seems to be a non reactive acid?
It’d probably sting to go through it.. But would instantly eat right through flesh immediately.
Zell swims up to it and is curious
Let’s check this shit out, yo, we didn’t come down here and stab some eels for nothing.
Dii swims into a section and clips some of the globules taking some acid damage
Zell and Cornelius dodge the floating matter and spot a dead eel in the corner, covered in burns.
Looks like there’s another cabinet where some of the acid is leaking from
Diiroehn sends his driftglobe into the cabinet and light gleams off broken glasswear.
A gauntlet or glove maybe? Made from metal and leather.
Neat
He carefully moves closer and carefully extracts the glove.
Voroc tries to collect some of the acid in a vial.
Cornelius bumps into Diiroehn and a little bit of acid floats out
Ilalai drifts over and carefully closes the cabinet.
Leaving the acid room we head to the southern hallway.
Another sign:
“Reflect on your past, you have earned this. Long life and power awaits.”
Yeah we definitely earned this. Thanks weird giant place.
Looks like this is an entry hall maybe? Giant seats line the walls.
A huge set of rotten wooden doors lay caved in on the ground.
The archway of the door seems to lead out into a dark paved area.
Looking up there’s no sunlight or anything, just darkness above and in front of us.
Darkness and water.
Neat.
No fears of the deep unknown here, nope.
Let’s not light up this area. This is a later problem.
Swimming back past the eels Ilalai peers into the pit and sees a small cluster of papery white eggs.
The southern room seems to have more seats, maybe a bench top?
Is this a kitchen?
This place was definitely a day spa.
“Accept our hospitality, o chosen nobles”
Well it’s about damn time someone was hospitable to me.
The room is heavily overgrown with plants and kelp.
Those eels probably came through and ate the last of whatever was in here.
We’ve got about 35 minutes remaining under water now..
That’s ok.
There’s another exit out into the deep water where doors have collapsed.
Diiroehn sends his driftglobe out about 30ft into the darkness over the paved area.
A street with a small path that seems to lead away from the building.
An intersection?
Light gleams off the feet of something metallic, a statue?
Welp lets go out into the void, kids, what else do we have to lose?
Dii’s driftglobe floats towards the statue and the expression on the face seems to be of hope and wonder. An arm stretches out towards the sky and his hand reaches towards metal carved flames which spill down his arm.
Does this bear any resemblance to our boi Adaxus?
I mean maybe
Dude like statues of himself.
It could be accidental racism or it could be a hill giant Adaxus, though he was a fire giant or something
Giants!
We’re probably just racists.
A school of fish darts off through the light
Towards the east there seems to be a rock wall, maybe a cavern wall?
To the west is a paved street curving off.
Welp lets see what’s above us.
The driftglobe floats up, just a speck of light moving upwards.
A reflection catches the light.
The surface?
Black spindly legs skitter over it.
Gross ass giant water spiders.
Ilalai and Voroc share a glance.
Water striders?
But.. giant.
Giant water striders.
Gross ass giant water striders.
I’m sure it’s fine.
Do we go down the elevator?
I mean maybe we’ll flood the whole place maybe we won't?
Also congrats Cornelius on your new immovable rod.
We stand around and do fuck nothing trying to decide on a thing to do.
Ok enough of this bullshit let’s do something
Zell rages and grabs the handle
She pulls it open and it gets jammed at the lock.
Oh ffs
Unlock
The
Damn
Door
Cornelius stops fumbling and does this
Zell and Ilalai pull the door open.
Fucking come onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.
Everyone gets inside as water pours in and spills through the grille on the floor.
Something about the immovable rod and the door
Let’s go
Voroc and Cornelius look carefully at the levers as Zell considers just yanking one of them
Metal groans above and clicks.
The lift drops about 2m.
The gears jam.
Cool we’re going to fucking die down here.
Ilalai opens the hatch below and Cornelius drops a light infused pebble down
Neat that’s an 80ft drop.
Cool.
Awesome.
Are we supposed to lay on the floor or jump when it hits the ground?!
Neat.
The elevator drops another foot.
Ilalai summons an immense stone hand that buffers and catches the elevator.
Cornelius jams the immovable rod down under the hatch, halting the movement.
A moment later metal chains from above screech again and slam down into the roof
COOOOL.
Diiroehn is getting shit done so he climbs up on the roof hatch and gets the chain down the side of the elevator
He feeds a loop of chain through the immovable rod brake
Ilalai concentrates for a moment and moves the grasping earth further down
Cornelius clicks the rod off.
It and the chain drop
Awesome, never thought my first proper character death would be in a glass lift full of nerds
The rod locks on again
This continues for another minute or so
Man that “half an hour left is plenty of time” from before really doesn’t feel like plenty of time anymore.
There better be a way out of here from underneath.
Ok fuck this
Something about needing to un click the thing but then holding the damn lift chain too many words let’s just do the damn thing
Athletics check
NATURAL 20.
Alright let’s yeet this bad boy into the sun.
Zell counts down and throws the rod up with Cornelius’ mage hand following it to press the button on the rod.
Yolo.
The rod connects and Ilalai lowers the lift with the stone hand The lift plummets a few more feet towards the water at the base.
Eventually we make it to the bottom of the elevator shaft
Thank goodness.
Let’s get the fuck out of here
Cornelius unlocks the door.
Water pushes the door open and spills into the room
Diiroehn opens the door fully and steps into a huge stone room.
As he steps forward two braisers ignite
Torches further down the tunnel bloom into light.
Hm.
Spooky.
Gears and whirring sounds begin to echo through the chamber.
Glyphs seem to be built into the floor
“You have been chosen for a reason, the Sulat League will rebuild you. Adaxus the first of the fire giants welcomes you.”
I was totally fucking right, this is a day spa.
So anyway we’ve got maybe 20 minutes left on water breathing.
REAL hope there’s a way out of here because it’ll take longer than 20 minutes to get back up that lift.
There’s a light flickering and moving further ahead
Cornelius spots this but does not tell us
Dang it
Time to go do side quests.
A bright cheerful voice in ancient giant calls out: Honoured guests! We haven’t had visitors in so long! Is that people?
Zell doesn’t know what that means but she assumes it’s spooky ghosts.
Diiroehn uses divine sense to see if it is indeed spooky ghosts.
He’s probably right.
He senses one (1) undead being
Voice: Hello? Honoured guests? Hello?
Diiroehn pokes he head out of the room that we’re in.
A giant sized floating skull wreathed in green and orange flames hovers.
Oh neat it’s ghost rider
Ilalai speaks giant
Thank fuck
She translates via message
Voice: My name is keeper Iska, of the flames of rebirth, is anyone there?
Ilalai: Well this will either be fun or unpleasant.
WELCOME TO THE FUNPLEASANT HALLS.
Oh boy.
END SESSION.

Report Date

25 Nov 2019