Session 169

General Summary

• The party ventured forth to the next zone of the Bleeding Mines, coming to what looks like an ancient Cobralek ruin.
• They spoke to some snake heads and agreed to travel to the "Maze of Echoes", where a beast was apparently scratching at the walls.
• In the "Maze of Echoes", all sounds seemed to emanate from all directions, and it was difficult to tell who was who by sight alone.
• They eventually found "Jahdzan" trapped in a cage... or so they thought. Dazki quickly revealed him to be Roamer in disguise.
• Roamer insisted that he was here to rescue his true love, Maedia Widelove — though it wasn't hard to deduce that he really meant Kiirni.
• Once freed, Roamer ran directly to a room with a large glass bottle, where Dwardazik knocked him unconscious to stop him from escaping.
• After some tense discussions, they broke through the bottom of the glass bottle, and the person who was trapped inside tried to cast a Lightning Bolt, but Marvin stopped them and Dwardazik knocked them unconscious too, very nearly killing them.
• That person was revealed to be Kiirni, and there were more harsh words and tense chatter before the party had to move on to explore more of the maze.
• They solved the puzzle by grabbing some bells from the "guardians" of the maze and convincing Roamer and Kiirni to join them in ringing them all together.

Full Recap

The party — starting with Dwardazik, with the crab key — return to the bubble. They aren't quite stealthy enough to avoid the guardian's notice, but Dwardazik quickly inserts the key, which allows them to pass by without incident.   They are on a staircase, spiraling downward into what seems to be some sort of "vaguely pink transparent liquid", trickling out of cracks in the stone. It's about two feet deep. (Stonework History 30) These corridors are old, not of dwarven make. The stones are roughly cut as if by older, more ancient tools. There are small bits of snakelike symbolism. This is probably some old tribal ruin.   Dwardazik pokes a familiar-looking crystal. Two familiar-looking entities appear back near the entryway, and a scene plays out. "Argon" helps "Jahdzan" up, after he had fallen to the base of the stairs. "Jahdzan" rubs his neck and face.

An ancient tribal temple? What are doing here?! Wait, how long was I out, Argon? I must've hit my head so hard...   He scrawls something in his journal.   Oh, how I long to hear your velvety voice instead of this dizzying din... instead of this... instead...   ...Argon, did you hear that? Someone else is here!

"Jahdzan" goes to the side of the room, outside the range of the crystal. (Medicine 24) The liquid that they are sloshing through is reminiscent of "what may leak out of old wounds, very saline-like".

Snake Charmers

Orchestral music sounds throughout the chamber at the far end, and a "large, greasy-looking boulder" on the far wall makes unusual ripples. When Dazki and Dwardazik approach the aforementioned boulder, they are instantly struck with an irresistible urge to start dancing. It takes Dazki a little while to break free, but Dwardazik is stuck there for quite a while as the others investigate.   The orchestral music emanates from snake heads around the outside of the chamber, each one with a different group of instruments that gets added together. Theran and Marvin talk with one of the snake heads, which beg for help: "our sacred temple is infected; overcome with fleshy monstrosities; we have only access to the prison's labyrinth, nothing else; are you willing to listen?". When Dazki and Marvin agree, they continue: "we would be indebted; a racket, a beast scratches at our walls; it must be the source of the infection!".   The snake heads open up, claiming that on the other side lies the "Maze of Echoes", a mixed-up space filled with corrupted guardians and many traps. Each party member enters a different head, appearing at a different spot in the maze.

Amazing!

Amazing!

Amazing!

As each party member makes their way through the "Maze of Echoes", each other party member hears the sounds that they make throughout their journeys, and each party member looks like a nondescript "guardian" creature. One of the rooms has someone who looks just like "Jahdzan" — locked in a cage with four ballistas pointed at him — and occasionally, some entities would make a sound of ringing bells, which made it difficult to concentrate for people nearby.   Eventually, all party members regrouped at the room with "Jahdzan", and after some conversation with him, they learned that:

• This is not "Jahdzan", but Roamer disguised as him.
• Kiirni is trapped somewhere in the maze.
• One of the other "guardians" has the key that would be needed to escape the maze.
• Roamer knows the way out, but he won't share it unless they free him, which they do.

Dwardazik briefly checks out another direction, and Roamer runs the other way. They follow quickly and regroup with him. When Dwardazik arrives, he attacks Roamer, knocking him to the ground, much to Dazki's dismay. They chat with him a bit to try to get some information, but he doesn't really reveal much useful, other than that they need to "get the creature out of this bottle, then we'll have the key we need to get through the bell door".   While Dazki tries to break through the glass bottle, Roamer distracts Dwardazik with an illusion behind his shoulder. He tries to run away, but Dwardazik is quick enough to see this and attack him hard, knocking him unconscious. Marvin heals him up with a Cure Wounds spell, and Dazki escorts Roamer to a different room so that the dwarf can use the glass bottle as a more appropriate target for venting his frustrations.   As Dazki is trying to talk Roamer down, he learns that Roamer and Kiirni are on some sort of a pilgrimage that will take them far away from "all these problematic people". Dazki offers the assistance of a contact who can help the two of them "disappear", but Roamer turns him down, accusing him of trying to sweet-talk him like he did to Kiirni. Dazki counters that, despite their first encounter making it incredibly challenging to do so, he was still trying to extend some genuine kindness towards them. Roamer insists that they should all just let it go, though he concedes that his brief experience piloting Dazki's body made him understand that outsiders such as Dazki would find it difficult to do so.   Once they all hear the glass bottle shattering, the entity who was trapped inside starts casting a lightning bolt spell, which Marvin counterspells. Dazki remarks, "well, I see Kiirni got out... let's go see that they don't try to attack Kiirni and hurt her, since she just cast a lightning bolt". It's a little too late, though, as Dwardazik has already started attacking in response: her only saving grace is that Dwardazik hears Dazki say her name right as he makes his last attack, which is enough time for him to make it a non-lethal blow, knocking her out.   Roamer sprints to her side and starts casting Synaptic Static, and he almost finishes it when Marvin stops him in his tracks with a Hold Person spell. They have a massive argument, and Dwardazik leaves to the other side of the glass bottle to smash it with his pick, which he does quickly and handily. Dazki talks with him a little to try to get him to be less hostile, but it doesn't seem to do much. The two see a passageway on the other side, so they motion for the other party members to follow. They do, and Theran (Persuasion 28) high-fives Roamer on the way out.   Finding an extremely boring room with an extremely not-boring-looking inscription on the floor, they try the different exits from it. One leads to a room with a scary-looking mouth and another red slime in it — which Theran deals with the usual way — so they try the other exit. The room on the other side has an altar, a sacrificial knife, and another "guardian" entity beckoning them closer to the altar, which is surrounded by a red circle on the floor with (Arcana 21) nonstandard-looking magical (?) runes inscribed at four corners. There are whispers throughout the room, some of which form coherent phrases. The party don't seem too keen on listening to them, so they ignore whatever's going on in here and head a different direction.   The next room has some large cabbages and another "guardian", which attacks Theran as soon as he asks for a bell. They destroy it quickly (with a massive hit from Dazki's rapier), but not before it manages to ring a bell, causing Dwardazik and Marvin to be magically confused for a while, even after it is destroyed. Dazki carries its corpse out of the room, which seems to stop the confusion immediately. Dazki warns Roamer and Kiirni that the bells seem to emanate from all "guardians" when one of them rings their own, to which Kiirni responds rudely, partially under her breath "of fucking course it does! fucking dumbasses...".   They meander their way to a room with several cracked bells and a wall full of worms. On Dazki's recommendation ("Marvin, I have a question: worms are flammable. Flamethrower. That is my question."), Marvin uses his Pyroconverger to blast the worms, revealing the surface of a door. An inscription appears, written in Common: "Only perfect harmony will grace my ears, lest the discordance repeat forever like the din of alarm bells in war." They trace their way back through the maze, picking off other oozes and "guardians" to extract more bells.   They assume that they could find more bells than the six that they've found so far, but they decide to stop looking and just ring what they have next to the wall with the inscription. Dwardazik starts in ringing two bells — loud and proud, as ever — and Dazki calls over Roamer and Kiirni. They distribute their six bells among the six people, Dwardazik giving Theran one of his bells somewhat reluctantly. Marvin (Performance 34) conducts them all to ring on a rhythm — which even Dwardazik decides to match — and the door in front of them opens. As it does, a complete silence washes over the room they're in.