Session 72
General Summary
- The party began exploring the inside of the ant nest, quickly coming upon a door leading to a zone labeled as "Facility Enclosure Site for Turmoil Experimentation and Recycling", which they entered in order to escape what was looking to be a long combat encounter with some of the larger guardian ants.
- Just on the other side of the door was a puzzle with branching paths that kept looping back around on itself, the only clue being that each path was marked by a unique symbol on a respective black-and-white grid. The symbol would change whenever all five party members committed to one of the paths. Grogery quickly realized that the correct solution was to take the path marked by the entity that would devour the energy of the symbol of the previous round.
- The next major room, beyond a hallway with five unique skulls, contained a plethora of crystals in five different colors and a solitary "perfect" diamond the size of a plum, trapped precariously by several glass rods.
- Dwardazik grabbed the diamond, which caused a few rods to break on the ground and trigger Turmoil events that teleported him across the room and encased him in a giant crystal that the party had to rush to break him out of.
- Grogery licked one of the crystals, which was actually salt. Kesmet licked three of the others (becoming poisoned by one of them in the process) and Dwardazik licked the final one. This gave enough information about the crystals that the party were able to assign each crystal to its corresponding skull.
- Each skull represented the race of one of the party members, and the reward for solving this puzzle was a diamond worth 300g, with a piece of paper attached to it that says "WINNER", in every language.
- After more exploration, the party came upon another fog-covered path near a rubble pile where Dazki had heard unfamiliar scuttling noises. The entity making those noises stole Dazki's coin purse, Dwardazik's diamond, and part of Kesmet's kidney, before unwittingly losing all of three to Marvin and then bumping into Grogery. The party capitalized on its mistake and restrained it, ultimately with a Hold Person spell from Marvin.
Full Recap
The session opens with the party members just having landed at the bottom of the opening to the ant nest.
ANTagonizing
Dwardazik: Those ants could follow us down here! We're gonna have to either pick a direction, or stand and fight here.
Grogery: We should probably pick a direction...
Dazki: I had a look around, and we definitely don't want to go this way. The other two might re-converge.
Dwardazik: Sounds good to me. As you can see, I managed to drag a rope down with me. It should be stable enough to climb.
Dazki: We have those masks, too. Who wants to put them on?
Grogery: I think if I were to wear a mask, I would still be pretty recognizable.
Kesmet: And I can turn invisible.
Marvin: I'm a natural at disguises. I should take one.
Dwardazik: Definitely.
Dazki: And you can take one too, Dwardazik. I'm pretty good at staying in the shadows.
Marvin and Dwardazik put on their cultist disguises. They're very convincing, thanks to Marvin's proficiency with disguises.
They advance forward down one of the tunnel paths leading from the initial chamber. Dwardazik leads in front, using his lantern to light the way.
This tunnel is absolutely crawling with ants, some of them the size of large dogs, one even carrying some bones to add to the bone pile that they started at.
The party hugs the near wall to stay a distance away from it.
Around the corner is a rather large chamber, 15 feet high, a few ants simply going about their business. One of them seems to be preoccupied, digging a new tunnel. The small ants go around you, like waves going around a rock in the ocean. They don't like the smell. At the far side is a large iron door, distinctly not of insect origin. It looks like a large airlock with a heavy vault wheel in the center. It has a small plaque on it, adorned small letters. Dazki approaches closer and reads it:
Zoned as: Facility Enclosure Site for Turmoil Experimentation and Recycling.
By entering the site, you submit to the possibility of possibility and may become part of the experiment.
Dazki: I don't think we want to go in here, guys. There's some kind of horrible Turmoil experiment, according to the inscription here.
Marvin: I think... that's our only way.
Grogery: Yeah, is this not basically proof that the Flesh Artist is beyond this door? He is doing Turmoil experiments.
Dazki: Well, I would at least like to explore other options before heading right into the Turmoil experiment room, personally.
After some more deliberation, they decide to try to lure away the ant that was blocking the original passageway that they had gone down. Kesmet takes the lead, as he is still able to hover a short distance above the ground so as not to create any unnecessary tremors. He successfully leads the ant away into the entrance chamber with the large bone pile, and the party proceeds down the tunnel it came from.
Being able to look further down the tunnel, it narrows and then widens into a small chamber filled with ants, including some larger guardians. There is a brief combat, initiated by Dazki firing an arrow from stealth. During this combat, the party realizes that the ants' acid spit attack is particularly effective in the narrow tunnels that force them to move single-file.
During combat, Grogery points out that more will be coming (and, indeed, another does show up right at the start), so Dazki bolts over to the door, unlocks it, and calls for the rest of the party to just go through, shutting the door behind them.
Tunnel Vision
The tunnels behind the airlock are of Ankheg build, but the space has been repurposed as an experimentation / containment area. Immediately after the airlock, you notice a small side room. Two humanoid skeletons are embedded into the floor, sunk partially into the rock as if the rock were, at one point, tar.
The tunnel here seems to split into two narrow passages. Each path is labeled with a grid of black-and-white tiles, each making a symbol, fog obscuring the path that lies beyond the tunnel.
As the party chooses a tunnel to go down, they seem to repeatedly loop back around to the same forked path; the only difference between each run is what symbol is formed on the black-and-white grid. After a couple of loops, Kesmet decides to investigate the bodies in the small antechamber. He finds a heart-shaped locket embedded into the floor, clearly belonging to one of the corpses, and clearly not the solution to this puzzle. He does open it, however. Inside is a picture of a Tiefling lady (unusual, since neither skeleton is a Tiefling), with an inscription:
4◆So I can remember you every day
Grogery realizes that the solution to the puzzle is to choose the symbol that would consume energy from the previous symbol, and the party is able to proceed further into the dungeon.
The Possibility of Possibility
Editor's note: I'm going to use the DM's internal labels for each of these paths, just so that I can refer to them consistently.
The path branches two ways. Splitting up to investigate, one branch (towards "J") turns a corner after a short while, and the other splits into three other branches. Down the first branch are five skulls embedded into the wall. Small crystals are present along this hallway, getting denser as the hallway progresses. Each skull has its jaw agape, as if partially dislocated, and it has a tiny brazier. Each skull is also different:
- A child
- A vampire
- A pirate
- Wearing a fake crown with a silver spoon in its eye socket
- Covered in vegetables and moldy bread
Straight down the other branch ("L") is a vat of some sort of green goo filling in what looks like it once had been a ventilation shaft, leading to a path that splits further. Turning left instead ("N"), there is a small chamber with a pair of bedrolls and a cooking fire that clearly has not been used in a while. Turning right instead (towards "M"), it goes down towards a floor with some sort of disturbing purple... something on it. The party regroups.
Dwardazik: Anybody find anything interesting? All I found down to the south is that path filled with that foul-smelling goo. It does look like it splits into a T-section, though.
Kesmet: I also found a foul-smelling... something. Or, at least, I think it was foul-smelling. I didn't really stick around.
Marvin: We're not the first ones to have been here. It looks like someone camped out in here, at least for a day. But it's been cleared out.
Dazki: I think there's some sort of a puzzle with these skulls. There's some sort of magic going on with them, where I think we need to put something into each of their mouths.
Dwardazik, eyeing the crystals scattered along the pathway towards "J": What did you find, Grogery?
Grogery: The crystals just keep getting bigger! The tunnel is long enough that I didn't feel comfortable going all the way to the end.
Kesmet: Crystals up top, two weird pools of goo, a camp, and that's about it?
Dwardazik: Also the path that I couldn't really see down. It does seem a little peculiar that there seem to be five rooms, and five things that we might need to gather for these skulls?
Kesmet: OK, before we explore further, let's go into each room and see what we can collect from there. Each of the rooms is going to contain something that we put into the mouths of these skulls. Let's get the crystal thing first, 'cause we're already here.
They begin heading up towards "J".
Dwardazik: Be careful, Grogery. These crystals are sharp. I should know!
"J" opens up to a room covered with massive crystals. They grow from the wall, the ceiling, the floor: reds, greens, violets, yellows, and whites jut from the surface in crystal clusters. Some of them are the size of an arrowhead or a wine bottle, but some are the size of a keg! Off to the side, separate from the rest of the crystals, is a precarious arrangement of glass rods. Balanced in them is a beautiful-looking large diamond the size of a plum. It's practically begging you to take it. Dwardazik is captivated by the diamond and moves to take it, carefully.
Grogery: Wait, why are all of these crystals here, if this room is all about that diamond? Dwardazik, be careful!
Despite his attempts at being careful, as Dwardazik takes the diamond, some of the rods holding it up fall to the ground, shattering on impact to cause Turmoil events. Dwardazik is teleported further into the room into the middle of all the natural growing crystals, and he is encased in a large crystal.
Grogery: Dwardazik!
Marvin: Where did he go?! He looks into the room. ...ah, shit.
Grogery: We're going to need to break him out, like, now.
Dazki: Does anyone have anything we can use?
Grogery: I have a mace...
They eventually do manage to break the crystal around Dwardazik, thanks in large part to Marvin's
Bigby's Hand spell. The dwarf gasps, as he can finally breathe again. As he does, Kesmet angrily smacks him with the pommel of his dagger, dealing no damage but annoying him a little.
Kesmet: Dwardazik, you idiot! You nearly died, again!
Dwardazik: Thank you guys, I wasn't expecting that. I thought... they were more fragile than I expected. But I've got the diamond now, and... it's beautiful.
Dazki: I'm willing to bet that it needs to go in the mouth of one of those skulls.
Dwardazik: We don't know that!
Kesmet: Well, all right! Looks like we're done here. Let's head on out and see if the other rooms are just as interesting as this one. Just in case, though...
Kesmet collects a crystal sample in each of the five colors.
Dwardazik: But thank you. I can't believe I messed up that badly. Ugh... that would've been the end of me, if you guys weren't here.
Dazki: It's all right, that's what we're all here for. To help each other out.
Grogery: Wait... before we move on...
Grogery walks up to a white crystal and licks it. It's salt.
Kesmet follows his lead and licks the others. Purple is fruit juice, red is blood, green is poison. After licking the poison one, Kesmet gets
suspicious of the yellow one.
Dwardazik: Kesmet, how did you know that you had to taste them?!
Kesmet: Grogery went and licked stuff, so I... I don't know.
Dwardazik tastes the yellow one. It's vinegar. That's enough for them to find a solution to the puzzle, over some mild but stern objections from Dazki about what happens to the royalty / nobility skull:
- The child skull gets the purple (fruit juice) crystal.
- The vampire skull gets the red (blood) crystal.
- The pirate skull gets the white (salt) crystal.
- The skull with the crown gets the green (poison) crystal.
- The skull with the rotting vegetables gets the yellow (vinegar) crystal.
As Kesmet lights the braziers, it is clear that this is the correct solution to the puzzle: the skulls all seem satisfied with their meals, and the jaws clang against the braziers before suddenly and violently expulsing lethal green smoke. A voice says, "FOOLISH MEDDLERS!", as each party member becomes queasy and disoriented. Reality literally begins to rewrite itself. There was no expulsion of smoke. Instead, a bolt of starlight blasts into the ground, exposing (with a burst of red sand) a cloudy diamond with a piece of paper glued to it. Across the piece of paper, scrawled in literally every language that any player can recognize, is the word "WINNER". A voice peeks through, speaking over itself:
R͋͜è͈w̯̿r̜̆ị͊t͉̓t̳͆è̩n̳̾E̪x̗p̢ḻo̙i̪t͜e̜d̪S͝a͑f͠e̛g̅u͒a̽r̽d̆e̊d̏
In addition, the skulls have changed: they are now a skull of an elf, a skull of a dwarf, a skull of a halfling, a skull of a goblin, and a skull of a Genasi.
Dwardazik: We solved the puzzle, guys! With my clever... Dwarven... thought process, we broke it down!
Dazki: Uh... something's not right here, though.
Dwardazik: We got the gem. What's wrong?
Dazki: I would say don't touch that!
Dwardazik picks it up.
Grogery: Dang it, Dwardazik!! This is the second time you've gone and just picked up jewelry!
Dazki: Like that one, that wasn't a goblin. That was a human child!
Dwardazik: Uh... it's a goblin.
Dazki: It's a goblin now, but it changed! At the same time that diamond in your hands showed up. There was some weird puff of smoke.
Dwardazik: Dazki... are you puffin' smoke over there?
Dazki: Grogery, Marvin, you saw it too, right?
Grogery: I think so...
Marvin: Yeah, they... I don't know what you're talking about, Dwardazik. This is...
Grogery: It's also possible that whatever we did to solve the puzzle also messed with our brains to think the puzzle was diff... but wait, why would it do that?
Dwardazik: I remember, we walked up to the crystals, because we had our heads here that represented all of us, and we were like "Oh, let's go up there". Kesmet started testing the flavors, and we were like, "Oh! Obviously the rogue has to have the poison, the dwarf has to mine the salt". It just made sense!
Grogery: I feel like that diamond might be cursed.
Marvin: Yeah, you should probably drop that.
Dazki: I would agree.
Dwardazik: I don't -- the cloudy one? The one we just got that says "WINNER"?
All three others: Yeah.
Dwardazik: Why not just detect magic real fast?
Dazki: There's a limited number of uses on this wand, and I would like to save them to use on something... less obviously cursed.
Marvin: And genuinely explain to us why your logic makes sense?
Dwardazik: Because... that's how we solved the puzzle. Duh! Kesmet, you agree with me, right? You're the one who tasted the crystals!
Kesmet: Yeah... I am? Yeah, I guess so.
Dwardazik: What if we just put the diamond in the bag of holding, eh?
Grogery: Ugh.
Kesmet: OK, OK, OK. Obviously, something happened. Dazki, Marvin, and Grogery are saying that something else happened than what we remember. There's something at play here. They're saying that the crystal is cursed, and I don't see how keeping this crystal gets me closer to killing Dennis. I would err on the side of caution and throw it away. It was weird that it appeared in a puff of red sand.
Grogery: It reminds me a lot of the Red Desert.
Kesmet: Oh yeah, you're right...
Dwardazik: But I could probably sell this gem for 300g. And it's just a gem!
Dazki: Do you really need that gold, though? Look at the diamond you just picked up!
Dwardazik: Well, that'll be fine too!
Grogery: I'll put it in the Bag of Holding if we want to keep it safe, but I think we should take a closer look at it to make double-sure it's not cursed.
Dwardazik: OK, I agree with that, let's put it in there. We might need to use it somewhere else anyway. Let's hold onto it for right now.
Grogery: What about the "perfect" diamond?
Dwardazik: I'll hold onto that one.
Grogery: *shrugs* suit yourself.
Moving on towards "M", the bottom layer is covered in fungus. Dazki grabs a nearby rock and throws it into the fungus. It makes an unsettling "splort" noise, but no spore clouds or other such overt events happen. He makes a makeshift face mask out of some cloth, holds it over his nose and mouth, and heads down towards an iron door on the other side of the fungus-infested floor.
This door is the back of a large iron door, seemingly identical to the one that they had entered through earlier. There is also a small breach on the side, something that maybe a small Ankheg could fit through. Clearly, "containment" is not going according to plan. Dazki opens the door to look through.
Dazki, calling out to the rest of the party: It looks good, but there's a whole lot of this purple fungus down here. It's a bit slippery and hard to walk. Better be careful!
You see one of the ants put some rotten flesh deep into this area. It seems that the ants here grow fungus, out of rotting meat.
The rest of the party doesn't seem too keen on leaving the Turmoil containment zone just yet, so
Dazki closes the door.
At "O", there is a dead Ankheg and a little mound normal-sized fire ants picking bits off of it. How did that happen? Why is there an Ankheg on this side of the containment zone?
At the other side of the path from "O" is "N", blocked off by some odd-looking rubble made of not rocks from this tunnel, but miscellaneous statues piled up. Dazki hears some unfamiliar scuttling around on the other side of the rubble, something other than Ankhegs and reports this to the rest of the party.
Grogery: "Weird", how?
Dazki: Small scuttling noises.
Grogery: Like, "Ankheg" scuttling? "Skittering Pony" scuttling?
Dwardazik: How about "something we don't want to deal with" scuttling, Grogery?
Dazki: Yeah, I couldn't tell through all the rubble blocking the noise.
Grogery: Maybe they put the rubble there to keep out whatever that is...
Dwardazik: So there's some more of this fog through these tunnels. Something to keep in mind if this other direction happens to be a dead end.
Kesmet: So, our options are to either go through that fog, go through the door and venture back into the hive, or bust through that rubble and see what's scuttling on the other side.
The party investigates what killed the Ankheg at "O". It's missing some legs. The corpse is fresh: it's been killed. They decide to go through the fog from an entrance far away from the dead ant, above objections from Dazki about going deeper into the Turmoil containment zone.
As the party members enter into the fog, an unknown, unseen entity (about the size of a goblin) uses the fog as cover to steal Dazki's coin purse, Dwardazik's diamond, and a piece of Kesmet's kidney. On Marvin's turn, something surreptitiously transfers all those stolen items to him for some reason. When Grogery enters, the entity bumps into him, and he instinctively grapples it successfully.
Hard to see in the fog, it probably used to be a goblin, but its limbs are awkward for it now... especially the extra ones. The bits of chitin melting into its flesh don't seem to help things.
Despite Grogery's initial successful grapple and the party piling onto it, it manages to escape the grapple and start to flee, but Marvin successfully lands a
Hold Person spell on it to keep it.
Dazki: Have you stolen things from us?
Dwardazik: GIVE ME BACK MY DIAMOND!
Kesmet: Can we get out of this mist first?
