Chapter 28: Know Your Enemy

Session Date: 12/17/18

Guest Players:

• Rimple Gob
• Puck

Summary:
spoilers

• The party fights an enlarged and intelligent Phase Spider that seems to come from the Shadowfell.
• The party rescues 2 creatures, a tabaxi named Puck and a human named Rimbple Gob who worked with Melody Rivers.
• The party encounters another puzzle chamber where Puck snatches the gemstones.
• In the upper study, Vairs and Rimple Gob head back downstairs. Suddenly, it is revealed Rimple Gob is a shapshifter and turns into Varis.
• Thankfully, the real Varis lives with the help of his friends. They also release a woman who was trapped in the mirror.
• Myriam gives them a space to sleep for the night and the party heads out to Avalon the next morning.

Plot points/Scenes

Black Forest - Eichenvale Peninsula

Moana barges into the room and the first thing he realizes is the floor is harder to cross. Looking up, the entire room is coated in thick webs, furniture and objects dangle from the ceiling in what seem to be nests. Along the wall are humanoid sized cocoons attached to the wall.
The party slowly files in but hovers in the doorway. Moana and Varis eye the caccons and debate if they should poke/stab them. They look for spiders but don’t see and creatures.
A deep voice echoes in the room: “Come in. Come in. Don’t you know it is rude to linger in doorways?”
Gavin: “It’s even more rude not to show yourself to your guests.” OOC: “And I boldly step forward behind Moana.”
In response, on the far wall, a large arachnid appears. It’s pale white legs holding it tight to the webbed wall and its body a dark purple. Its blue eye stare directly at the party.
Dur’nir-leng: “I am Dur’nir-leng. Ghost spider. One of many. I saw the first world fall before the shadows were locked away. It has been a long time since I have seen creatures such as yourself.”
Gavin: “Like here? Like in this tower?”
Dur’nir-leng: Climbing down the wall and onto the floor, “No, not here. The first world is gone.”
Gavin: “So… we were on our way to see a witch here. Have you seen one?”
Dur’nir-leng: “We have seen no witch.”
Varis: “We?!”
Varis immediately starts watching every wall for spiders. He and Gavin notice 2 of the cocoons start to twitch.
Gavin: “So is this your tower now? What are you doing here?”
Dur’nir-leng: “A dream of light came to the our plumbless depths. A prison under a dark, endless, starless sky. They way is made whole, and now we are free to leave the nightmare and stretch our webs to the world above, and so we came here.”
Gavin: “I don’t like the sound of that. … Wait who freed you?”
Dur’nir-leng: “We do not know. Figures of pure heart and intent came to our prison. It was they who forged the path across.”
Gavin: “mhmm. Mhmm. I see.”
Varis: “So what are your plans on this plane? Now that you’ve been freed from the shadows.”
Dur’nir-leng: a deep laugh echoes in the room. “It has been a long time since we have drank warm, fresh blood.” and with that, in a blink the spider vanishes.
Gavin attempts to cast Fairy Fire on the Spider before he vanishes, but while the web has a coating of the spell, there is no glowing outline of a spider. However, now 3 blue spiders appear on the other 3 walls of the room.
Battle rages as spells fly, hooked barbs are fired, crescent sabers crash and a trident sparks. Gavin, using the modified crossbow bolt with heat metal damages the nearest spider, still on the wall as Moana stabs it. As it perishes, it loses its grip and falls down onto Moana. He takes a bit of damage as he is hit, but manages to avoid being pinned.
Periodically, after attacking, the spiders blink out of existence before appearing elsewhere and attacking. One of the cocoons starts to shake as meows can be heard from inside and 2 black paws break through. The other cocoon shakes but nothing breaks free.
Dur’nir-leng reappears and lashes out at Khadgar, biting and injecting poison into him. One of the blue spiders reappears by the dead body of the first spider downed and attacks Gavin. Khadgar attempts to back off from Dur’nir-leng, prompting an opportunity attack which drops him unconscious beside Varis. At this, a black feline humanoid breaks free of a cocoon and hastily attempts an exit. She is stopped by 26 Lobsters, and seeing she cannot leave, takes out a shortbow and slays the spider hypnotized and now 2 spider bodies lie on the side of the room.
The last blue spider appears on the ceiling and drops onto Moana. Varis and Moana are able to slay it and push it to the side now with a pile of 3 spider bodies. Varis helps a human out of the other cocoon and with 7 people left, Dur’nir-leng is quickly dispatched as Moana stabs him with the trident and lobs him over to adorn the top of the spider body pile.
The party loots the room and gets a better look at the two captured creatures. One is a tabaxi rogue, Puck, and the other a Human fighter, Rimple Gob, who wields a Crescent Saber. They slowly make their way up the stairs as Varis and Rimple Gob discuss crescent sabers and discover they both know Melody Rivers, who Rimple Gob works for. He was in the forest looking for treasure when he was ambushed by the spiders. Similar story for Puck, out in the forest when she was ambushed.
Opening the doors of the next room reveals a circular chamber with large pointed windows filling the room with daylight, a stone pedestal in the center, large tapestries on the wall, and 3 stones in front of each tapestry. Looking around they notice there is no other door. The party splits up to look at the 3 tapestries.
On the left hand side is a small oval red gem, and behind it is a dark red tapestry with a volcanic landscape. In the center is an egg wreathed in fire. Beside it is the egg hatching, a dragon wyrmling, and so on through the various life stages ending in a large ancient red dragon whose flames curve back down and wrap around the egg, completing the cycle. The fire seems to almost writhe and flicker in the light. Beneath the scene is embroidered text in Draconic.
On the far side of the room is a small circular light blue stone. The tapestry behind is a deep blue showing a mountain landscape with snow covered peaks. A palace of ice and blue stones sits in the background. A large Frost Giant stands front and center, an intimidating presences but has a look of calm. In his hand is a small snowflake. Behind him it almost seems like snowflakes are falling in the scene as the snowy peaks glisten. Underneath the scene is also embroidered text, in an unknown language.
On the right hand side is a small green gem that looks like crashing ocean waves. The tapestry depicts a storm at sea with dark clouds rolling and lightning flashing. The subject of the scene is a large sailing ship under siege by a large blue and purple serpent: a leviathan. It shoots blue lightning towards the ship, and the energy from the leviathan and the bolts of lightning seem to almost pulse and crackle. Underneath is more text in strange symbols.
The center pedestal is made of stone and the top is engraved in common:

“Disturb not the harmony of Fire, Ice, and Lightning.
A brittle peace maintained by the song of sleeping.”

On each side facing a tapestry is more text in the same language as the tapestry. Khadgar reads the Draconic on the pedestal and sees it is the same text, just in Draconic. One the tapestry reads this:

“Born of flame and ancient life, a skilled, deceitful liar.
A tribute I need for you to pass. Feed my heart your fire.”

The blue tapestry they guess is written in Giant, but the ‘Lightning’ tapestry is entirely foreign. Rimple Gob, using his time of study with Melody Identifies it as Lantean, a long dead language.
They hatch a plan to strike each gem with the correct element at the same time: 26 Lobsters on fire, Khadgar on ice, and Moana on lightning. They strike and while the fire and lightning gems glow as if activated. The blue stone remains dormant.
Varis, Rimple Gob, and Khadgar attempt to parse out the Giant message, using the stone pedestal to cross calculate letters. Gavin, 26 Lobsters, Moana and Puck go to the blue stone. Puck touches the stone and finds it frigid and has to pull away. Gavin and the gathered party members look closer on the tapestry intently and noticed a small detail: the snowflake is melting, most likely due to the warmth of the giant’s hands.
Gavin suggests they try to recreate the scene and warm the gem. Puck attempts but by holding the Gem takes cold damage. Moana steps up, shakes his arms in prep and hold the stone. After 2 minutes and about 15 Cold damage, the stone pulses and loses its chill. Removing his hands, Moana and the others around it notice the stone glowing blue. The others still gather around the center pedestal as they finally unwravel the text:

“Vain and heartless, the Giants ruled the lands. From cold fortresses they decreed: warm me in your hands.”

As all three stones are activated, there is a small click. The room begins to rumble as a section of the wall slides away revealing more stairs and enchanted wording in Elven glows above the exit:

“Round they danced ‘neath Tree of Magic’s shade. Their war brought death and pain and so did the first world fade.”

The party makes a mental note about the First World line as it is similar to what Dur’nir-leng mentioned and head out of the room. Puck manages to snag the stones despite Gavin’s attempts to stop her. He does however notify the party she did it.
Continuing up many stairs the party finally enters the study Khadgar saw when looking through Hedwig’s eyes. Khadgar immediately is looking for interesting stuff and his attention is drawn to a mirror off to the side on the wall. Rimple Gob asks if he can talk to Varis in private. While the party is focused on the mirror (only Puck notices Varis and Rimple Gob leave) only Khadgar notices a barely perceptible shake as if the mirror was tapped from the back, but when Moana attempts to move it, it is unmoving.
Downstairs in the tapestry room, Rimple Gob talks to Varis about their journey and Melody. Suddenly, Rimple Gob takes on the appearance of Varis and attacks! The two exchange blows before real Varis takes off up the stairs, (Not)Varis close behind.
Varis cries out: “I just got stabbed!”
(Not)Varis cries out: “Rimple Gob changed into me and stabbed me! Don’t trust him!”
The party moves away from the mirror and back to the door in time to see one Varis throw a dagger back at another Varis. Both Varis-es reveal the same memory at the same time. Gavin incapacitates the furthest one with Tasha’s Hideous Laughter while Moana tackles and restrains the closest Varis. Tied up Varis starts spilling all kinds of memories but it isn’t until Khadgar casts detect magic and senses the magic of the Amulet of the Shadow Blade on the tied up Varis that they know who the real one is.
(Not)Varis saves from the spell. He pulls out a candle and summons 2 Shadow Hounds instructing them to kill Varis. Varis retreats into the room as the party attempts to create a front line. The hounds phase through them and Rimple Gob was able to bypass them as well. Varis goes unconscious and is attacked again by Rimple Gob. Gavin rushes to his side, sending a healing word as he runs, then cure wounds when he gets there. Khadgar manages to send (Not)Varis / Rimple Gob to sleep, but the hounds continue to follow their orders. Gavin casts fly on Varis to let him escape, and Moana and Khadgar kill Rimple Gob, who upon death transforms back into his true form, a tall blue humanoid: a Doppleganger. Varis floating out of the way, the party quickly dispels the hounds.
Now free of immediate danger, Varis floats back down and collapses. He slices the head off of the body and tosses it out the window. Khadgar returns to the mirror and notices an open book on the desk. He deciphers the enchantment to “free this form from the wall.” A flash of green energy sparks from the book to the mirror and the mirror begins to shake.
Black energy spills from the mirror and coalesces into a humanoid form. A fair elven woman in an elegant, deep indigo dress stands before the mirror and the party.
Elf Woman: “Oh I hate that witch.” she glances around at all of the people standing and staring at her. “So, how did all of you end up in my study?”
Khadgar: “What are you doing in that mirror?”
She walks over plucks the book out of Khadgar’s hand, places it down on a desk, and makes her way back to a bookcase. The party, now looking at the clutter again, notices it isn’t normal clutter, but the remnants of a search; someone tore through the study looking for something.
Moana: “Are you Zelena?”
Elf: “Ha! You haven’t met her then have you?”
Varis: “She almost killed me.”
Moana: “We actually don’t really like her.”
Elf: “Then that is something we have in common.”
Gavin: “What is the mirror?”
Elf: “It is one of my many protections against would be intruders. Never thought I’d be caught unaware and trapped myself.”
Khadgar: “Who are you?”
She turns and straightens giving a slight bow as she introduces herself: “Myriam O’Deran, at your service.”
Moana: “Are you a witch?”
Myriam: “Some would call me that, yes.”
Gavin: “Ok, we were sent by the Raven Queen to find an ally and weren’t given any instructions. So let’s speed this up: what are we doing?”
Myriam: “Interesting. I wasn’t expecting… well all of you. But no matter, I have been keeping track of the Shadow Web’s movements in the surrounding area. My latest information puts Zelena back at the Citadel of Avalon. Shall we find out what she is up to?”
Varis: "Can we rest first? Kinda had a rough day.”’
Gavin: “Yeah can we stay here?”
Myriam: “I suppose that is acceptable. Then we shall travel directly to Avalon tomorrow.” and she goes reaching for something in the corner.
Varis: “ooo… we have horses… do we need to take them back?”
Myriam: lets out a sigh and mutters under her breath… “One day.”
Gavin: “I think there’s a base in Avalon. We should be able to bring them there.”
Myriam: “Very well. Fetch your horses. Rest here for the evening, and at dawn we ride to the citadel.”
The party goes back to town to retrieve their horses. Puck settles into a nice corner nook by a window and pulls out the gems from the puzzle.
At dawn, the party descends the tower, pausing as Myriam, now clad in traveling gear with riding boots and a black hat, inspects certain aspects of previously hidden rooms, and the wrecked rooms the party passed through. Puck is nowhere to be found.
Traveling several days across the peninsula and towards the mountains, the party approaches a massive city constructed as a single fortress jutting from the side of the mountain. This is the Citadel of Avalon. Myriam gets them through the front gates of the city, but with the intent to lay low while she performs reconnaissance, leads them to the Stonemill tavern in the Lower Town.

Plot type

Chapter

Recorded in:
The Shadow Chronicles Volume 1: A Growing Darkness