Session 174

General Summary

• Having just exited a disorienting and unexpected scenario with Gemineye, tempers started to rise within the party over this creature's role in Dwardazik's life.
• Theran admitted to having stoked some of this for a while before he knew what was going on, so they set it aside for now.
• They moved further into the area, finding several islands with conspicuous doors on them and inscriptions talking about levers.
• While Marvin and Dazki had run off elsewhere to fetch something, Theran and Dwardazik opened one of the doors and found themselves transported into an earlier zone: the stone pipe with rusty oozes.
• Not long after entering that zone, the static from the door pulled them back to where they had come from. They regrouped with the others.
• Deciding to try to circumvent the puzzle, the party tried a separate, isolated, conspicuous door that seemed different from the others.
• It led to what they believe to be "Fogwalker"'s "honeypot", its most prominent feature at first being a set of identical-looking pillars, each covered in symbolism invoking Deep Sashelas in a profane, corrupted way.
• Touching each pillar would trigger a different scene to play out. Before getting distracted by something else, they witnessed four of the seven available scenes:
• A man carefully snatching a skull off a pedestal, handing it off to someone else, and walking away.
• A man standing in a lit doorway of a ruined temple, a lit torch at his side.
• An armored man holding a kitten in one hand while fighting off skeletons with the other.
• A knight easily and trivially slashing open a dragon's belly to free a young child, unconcerned.
• The distraction: a gigantic, towering hand with a large eye in the center. It made Dwardazik pull its finger; it farted, then gave the party a hollow glass rod.
• The party escaped the "honeypot" when Theran had Maedia set up a knock-knock joke for him by manifesting a door that they just exited through.
• They used the glass rod to speedily and easily complete the lever puzzle, opening the way to the next room.

Full Recap

Unloading Zone

The party have a heated discussion about Gemineye's role in Dwardazik's life, and tempers rise over distrust. Theran confesses to (and apologizes for) actively trying to manipulate people against Gemineye from the moment he learned that Dwardazik had "a parasite" inside him. This leads to a direct discussion between Theran and Gemineye about the conflict between the Red Desert and Mirage Prime / "Fogwalker", but Dwardazik shuts it down so that Gemineye can have some rest and not have to endure a barrage of questions right away.   They turn to Theran to talk about his connections to the Red Desert. Dazki laments that they could have made some better decisions if Theran had come to them sooner with it. He justifies it (in part) by pointing out both that he wanted to protect them from the dangers of having that knowledge, and that they deeply distrusted him from the beginning, making it hard to confide in them for a while. They also asked Theran about how his pact started. His response: "it asked me, but I knew about it before it asked".   Once they start continuing through the chambers, they start to "overhear" the thoughts of the entity as they get near to its glowing orbs. Some thoughts that pop up:

• Love was never part of the plan. We should've never fallen for love. See what happens when you let your emotions lead your decisions?
• "Oh, I couldn't stomach the idea of an afterlife without him!", "I couldn't stomach the idea of being shunned and alone!" ...blah, blah, blah.
• Sure, the only reason we had the will to survive was the warmth of his memory, but is this living? I mean, technically, I suppose...
• Don't think so ridiculously. They both took him from me. They took the only thing I ever loved, and the only thing that may ever love me!
• I mean, who were they anyway? It's certainly not family. I was going to have my own family, but nothing in this world can be any less cruel.
• Do you think those travelers are going to come back and talk to me? Wait, who am I even asking this to?

The Best Puzzle is a Lever Puzzle. A Nostalgic and Electric Puzzle.

They proceed further through the body and arrive at several islands in what looks to be a pool of refreshing blue liquid. On some of the islands, there are doorways with electricity pulsing around them. In front of each doorway is a doormat that reads, "Exit Only (unless two-thirds majority)". Each door has six doorknobs. A "metal or brass fixture" is attached to the floor near a doorway, with "the remains of what appears to be some sort of dead eel or lamprey sloughed over it". On one of the doors is inscribed a long and complex procedure for opening "the living chamber", but someone has crossed it out and written one phrase in its place, which differs per door. In no particular order, these inscriptions say:

• The best lever is an icy lever. A cold, frosty lever.
• The best lever is an ivory-infused lever. A very hard white lever.
• The best lever is a waxy lever. A soft and malleable lever.
• The best lever is a bloody lever. A very wet red lever.
• The best lever is a rusty lever. A very worn metallic lever.

There is another door across the way, also with six doorknobs but no other interesting features.   They try to jam a rusty crowbar into the slot by the "rusty" door, a wound appears in the tumor underneath them, and it starts to leak blood and fluid; clearly, not the solution. Dazki and Marvin run back to grab a lamprey from the start using Marvin's Mage Hand. Right as they leave, Dwardazik and Theran have the idea that they could get a "two-thirds majority" if each one of them turns two doorknobs (one per hand). They try this, and they are immediately sucked through the door.   Marvin grabs a lamprey with the Mage Hand, and he and Dazki run it back (without touching it). Partway through, Theran Sends a message to Dazki:

Good news: opened rust door. Bad news: sucked through rust door. Seem to be in stone ooze pipes from upper cave, still have static feeling.

Dazki's reply:

How did you open the door? Why did you open it without us here? Are you safe?

Just before Marvin's Mage Hand ends, he dips the lamprey in the briny liquid by the doors, which the lamprey seems to greatly appreciate. They place the lamprey in the receptacle by one of the doors and try to wiggle it around, but nothing happens. As they are fiddling, Theran and Dwardazik get zapped back through the other door.   Theran explains that they were able to open the door by just twisting the doorknobs ("I think Maedia forgot that people have two hands?"), and that they had a little bit of time once on the other side to try to grab something rusty, but they lost their concentration and got sucked back through before they could. He says it seems to get harder and harder to stay on the other side the longer they take.

The Echo Chamber

While discussing how best to handle retrieving a rusty object to use as a lever, Dazki throws his hands up and suggests that they just try the other door across the way. It seems to have no electrical field whatsoever, and it might just bypass the puzzle entirely. They all go there and twist all six doorknobs, and they are immediately transported somewhere else. The same voice they've been hearing throughout speaks to them:

Maedia: There is little I can do to keep you here but to remind you how awesome you were! (...are?...) I had to guess on most of the things, but given all you've done, I imagine I've got at least some of it right!

On each of the columns is what initially appears to be a glowing eye, but upon further examination, it seems more akin to a setting sun. Dwardazik touches one of them. (Religion 18) There are elvish runes on the pillars. Dazki has seen a few of these symbologies before, but these ones seem to be malformed... flipped upside-down, reversed, in some profane way. The symbol is that of the elvish god of the sea, one of the Seldarine: Deep Sashelas.   Theran touches the next symbol. Dwardazik, realizing that they're in one of the honeypots designed to trap them for "a minute, or forever", runs back to make sure they can go back through the door, but there is no door. He tries to run up the stairs, but no matter how far up he feels like he runs, he doesn't make any progress. They're concerned, but they poke another pillar to get more information. Another pillar: The other end of the room has some stairs. Dazki investigates some viscera on the floor, (Investigation 24) finding a spell scroll of Misty Step.   They stop touching pillars to see what's going on up the stairs, finding a giant hand with an eye in its palm (alternative link). Dwardazik challenges it to do something instead of just floating there ominously. It curls a finger to beckon Dwardazik closer, and the dwarf acquiesces. It projects into Dwardazik's mind a sort of promise of near-endless power, stretching out a finger. (Wisdom Save 4) Dwardazik wants nothing more than to grab it, which he starts to do. Theran tries to cast a "Curses Foiled (Again)" spell, but this is not a curse, so it doesn't stop him. When he grabs the finger, a profane sound reverberates through the chamber, and the eye flutters around, clearly very pleased with itself. Dwardazik outwardly puts up a show of being profoundly offended... but behind his back, he gives the eye a cheeky thumbs-up.   This has pushed Marvin to a bit of a breaking point over the sheer breadth of horrifically unexpected situations that they all have now been forced to endure in the name of stopping "Mother Girth", and he is now more resolved than ever to destroy her thanks to this "affront to comedy". The hand turns to try to beckon Marvin as well, but Marvin covers his eyes while extending a couple of fingers of his own.   While the rest of the party searches for a way out, Dwardazik just flat-out asks the hand if it could let them out. It retracts briefly and returns, placing something small on the floor very close to itself. "Some sort of... I want to say, almost like, a rod with a bulbous end". Theran uses "Spooky Action at a Distance" to bring it closer and pick it up. (Intelligence [up to] 21) In the other "honeypots", with enough force of personality, the intended target of the room would have been able to break out of it. They don't know much about him, so they try telling some bad jokes out loud:

• Dwardazik: Why don't stairs ever tell jokes? Because they're always up to something!
• Dazki: What do you call a particularly complex set of stairs? Stairs with extra steps!
• Marvin: I don't even think I could make a pun about stairs, but if I could, it would be absolutely hy-stair-ical!

Maedia's voice reacts favorably after each of these.

Theran: Ooh, I have a knock-knock joke, but I need something to knock on. Can I get a door to knock on?   Maedia: Oh, OK, one second! (She conjures a door.)   Dazki: ...really? That actually worked...?!   Theran: OK. Knock-knock.   Maedia: Who's there?   Theran: RUSH THROUGH THE DOOR!

They rush through the door and exit back out of the "honeypot", agreeing to never talk about that room again ("unless it's the details on 'Fogwalker'"). They proceed through the rusty door, all as one, planning to have Dazki quickly grab something rusty. (Investigation 32) The pile of rusty objects seems to have been "beaten to a pulp", but there is plenty of dust that Dazki is able to scoop up before they get sucked back through. As he returns to the rest of the party, Marvin notices that the rod has started to heat up, so he hands it to Dazki to let him use it as a divining rod / "lever" of sorts. After getting zapped back through, they confirm that the rust inside the rod does allow it to function as a "lever", and they can use it to disable the electric field around the door they came through, its energy zapping towards a tunnel in the southeast.   They move to the "bloody" door, emptying some of the blood from the lamprey into the rod and repeating the same process, disabling the field around the door without having to go through that one. Dazki melting a candle into the rod also satisfies the "waxy" door, and — with some quick fingers from Dazki and a particularly potent "Super-WaterSlide" from Theran — they can freeze a patch of brine in the rod and use it as a lever for the "icy" door before the heat from the rod can melt it back down again.   They can't quite figure out a way to cheese the "ivory" door, so they enter the hard way. They sprint to the chamber with the Cloakers, noticing that three of the four have reanimated. Marvin and Theran kill two of them as Dwardazik chips off part of the "tooth-like stones" and Dazki scoops the debris into the rod, which accepts it happily. Dwardazik grabs one of the dead Cloakers to have it come back with them, and they allow themselves to get pulled back through. Dazki pulls the lever. The chamber empties, exposing the tunnel at the bottom. They take a short rest to prepare for what's on the other side.