@MrCZAR Twitter Feed live log 002
A month has passed since our party opened the doors to the Spire.
The council rewarded us for our efforts, and set us loose. After being accosted and praised by our families for scaring them into thinking we were dead, we moved about our business.
The Council of Urthspyre has posted guards at the doors of the Spire to keep people out while a handful of mages research the maze and the tower before allowing adventurers in. There are heavy rumors that there are monsters crawling out at night, but this is unconfirmed.
Fenwyse spent her month running her business, and making quite a profit! At the rate her shop has been picking up, she'll have the funding for another employee in no time.
Mia spent most of her month researching the runes at the start of the labyrinth, and tutoring some fresh faces who are learning magic. Of course, she also put in plenty of hours at the Slooping Boar, feeding the happy masses.
Simon took the time to reconcile with his father, practicing his magic and helping his dad get back on his feet. Ka'Lem got a job as a blacksmith so he could maintain an income, anxiously awaiting the opportunity to crawl through the Spire.
A month has passed, and one evening Fenwyse calls her compatriots to meet her at the Garden Cafe (the place where she plays Dragonchess with Mia every morning). Fen and Mia are discussing the current discoveries from the research as Simon and Ka'Lem approach.
Apparently it's been difficult to research the maze without physically exploring. Each path branches in large numbers, and nobody understands how the maze climbs the walls in the way that it does. There's a call for adventurers to meet at the Spire tomorrow.
A tabaxi interrupts our conversation, asking if we're the "group that did the... you know, the thing," and Mia promptly tells him we are "the Keybearers." The rest of us are confused.
He introduces himself as "Eagle" and tells us he's an information broker. He's got way too much information about all of us, and he seems upset that we managed to open the Spire before he and his associates could do so. He wants to offer an exchange of services.
Eagle has a deal. We offer information we gather to him prior to relaying it to the council, and he gives us a full scouting report from what his associates have managed to collect by sneaking into the Spire. We sign a magical verbal contract.
As his contract book lights up and the text fades away, Eagle slips a small brown journal onto the table as he walks away. There's some pretty disgusting shit in these logs. There are stone faces in the wall... not like carved, but almost as though cement was poured over people.
There's also a note of a death of a researcher who attempted to walk atop the walls and was immediately obliterated. That's not a good sign.
As we finish reading the report, a missionary approaches our party, begging us to stop by the Church and pick up a troupe of priests who want to study the maze. This seems like a bad idea but they're willing to pay, soooooo
A third person approaches, specifically looking for Fenwyse. Where did all these people come from?! Eagle provided Fen with an associate to help run Wildcloak Wares while she's away. That was fast! His name is Donivin.
We sell off a bunch of our old stuff and prepare for our new journey. The next morning, we finally approach the Spire, stopping by the Church on the way. The priests have this wild idea that a mystical place called Paradise at the top. Three priests remain, seeking accompaniment.
We pick up M'Zera, a young tabaxi priestess who is highly devout. She swears up and down that she's "really good at magic," and Mia worries that M'Zera will die if she goes along with any less experienced adventurers. Welp.
We have entered the Spire. We lean to the left, and there are twelve entries into the maze on this side. Mia insists we take the furthest left path. We progress for a while... and then we find the weird faces in the walls.
We take another left. Fen doesn't like it but the rest of the party is all about it. This isn't a good feeling.
We reach a point in the walls where there's some arcane script. Mia recognizes it, and upon reading the script, we are pulled into a deeper darkness, and fall into initiative. There are some sort of winged creatures resembling a large swarm of ravens.
Everyone in the party falls for the illusion except for Fenwyse. The rest of the group thinks they're fighting an endless swarm of ravens, but Fen pops a unicorn spirit in the middle of the group and they all finally fall out of the illusion.
We clear the hallway and enter another split in the path. Simon suggests we continue going left, just as Mia wants. Fen still doesn't like it and urges the group to go forward instead. The party's opinions are split, and our tabaxi priestess decides upon left. Ugh.
We end up at a dead end full of bones. That's not a bad sign or anything. The party turns around and goes left at the junction (the previous option's "forward"). We hear swords clashing and we feel like we're being watched.
We progress through a long hallway and, to nobody's surprise, all of the stone bodies start crawling out of the walls. They're relatively frail but there are SO MANY OF THEM
A lot of really really bad shit happens until Fenwyse casts an absolutely booming Thunderwave, shattering all of the bodies into pieces as the party rushes forward out of the hallway.
At the T, Fen rushes right, yelling to the party to stop going left. The party follows. Fenwyse utilizes Mold Earth to close off the hallway, and they take a brief respite. The next couple of hours are uneventful, as the party pushes further into the maze.
We enter a circular room with a chest on a pedestal in the middle of the room. We look for traps, but can't find any. Mia uses Catapult to hurl an iron ball through the chest. It breaks open, and an item spawns... and then dematerializes. Welp.
We move forward into one of the 17 other hallways branching off of the circle. Immediately upon turning, we see a giant eye, and then the creature attached to it. It stares at Fen and she takes a bunch of necrotic damage, and it feels like her skin is rotting off of her.
Of all the hallways, we pick this one... It peers into Ka'Lem's mind, searching for secrets. Simon blasts it with a brutal Shatter attack, and it reels back, screeching. Ka'Lem closes the gap, cleaving with his longsword.
Fen moves up and slashes at it with her Primal Savagery. The creature winces, and Mia moves up to Catapult another iron ball. It misses! M'Zera launches a Sacred Flame, and the creature is unamused. It claws at at both Ka'Lem and Fenwyse.
Fen takes a brutal hit and is wavering. Ka'Lem lunges forward, stabbing it directly through the eye. It collapses.
We find a safe place, set up camp for the night, and continue exploring for two more days. Trivial events occur. As we near the end of our camp, another party of adventurers stumbles into us. We know two of them! It's Marcus and Kurog.
oh
oh boy
a giant chest in the middle of a room that has giant doors on the other side that's not foreboding or anything
Our parties move forward together and Ka'Lem opens the chest. It's actual loot! We are able to identify the item as hide armor. The double doors have giant diamonds and swords engraved into them, and some script that nobody understands.
Mia recognizes the script as the same language from the entrance of the Spire. Using what she learned before, she deciphers the script and speaks it aloud, and to everyone's surprise, it actually works! The diamonds and swords light up, shift on the doors, and it cracks open.
Our parties move forward together, entering the chamber. As the tenth body moves through the doors, they close behind us. A massive lamia slithers down from the ceiling, hitting the ground, and reeling back with trident in hand.
Only highlights from here foreward - this is the floor boss, and though our characters don't know it yet, if we emerge from this fight alive and manage to take down the boss, it'll drop a "gate key" which will progress us to the next floor - the next plane of existence.
It could be anything! Literally anything! It's an exciting prospect as players, but first we have to survive. Fen started off the combat by blowing a second-level spell slot on a Moonbeam and immediately breaking concentration.
This lamia has legendary actions and keeps nullifying our attacks. This is terrifying!
There's a fighter from the friendly party who got completely destroyed in one round. We're all feeling our mortality.
After one of the companion group lands a massive critical hit, another fails gloriously. Korag gets punched in the gut by the lamia as he runs up and slips. Ka'Lem is granting advantage to all his allies and has successfully taunted the lamia... let's hope it doesn't kill him.
Simon casts Shatter, and with the bonus damage granted to him by Ka'Lem's distracting strike, he fells the boss with a massive boom. The lamia's unique loot is pretty cool - Simon gets a Lamia's Lightning Trident, which deals area of effect damage after impact.
There's a floating key of sorts, with three rings hovering behind the loot pile. Mia recognizes the script, and as she goes to read it, it transforms into a familiar language for her. We all hover around, while the other party starts picking each other up behind us.
As she reads the incantation, the room suddenly fades away from us. We look around and find ourselves in a strange, crystalline field. In the near distance, there's a ...dinosaur?! It has crystal ridges along its back.
As we look back at the portal, golden script appears over it in common, and it reads "The Crystal Fields." A few moments later, the other party lumbers through the portal.
That's it for tonight - we'll reconvene on the 9th of January!
The Council of Urthspyre has posted guards at the doors of the Spire to keep people out while a handful of mages research the maze and the tower before allowing adventurers in. There are heavy rumors that there are monsters crawling out at night, but this is unconfirmed.
Fenwyse spent her month running her business, and making quite a profit! At the rate her shop has been picking up, she'll have the funding for another employee in no time.
Mia spent most of her month researching the runes at the start of the labyrinth, and tutoring some fresh faces who are learning magic. Of course, she also put in plenty of hours at the Slooping Boar, feeding the happy masses.
Simon took the time to reconcile with his father, practicing his magic and helping his dad get back on his feet. Ka'Lem got a job as a blacksmith so he could maintain an income, anxiously awaiting the opportunity to crawl through the Spire.
A month has passed, and one evening Fenwyse calls her compatriots to meet her at the Garden Cafe (the place where she plays Dragonchess with Mia every morning). Fen and Mia are discussing the current discoveries from the research as Simon and Ka'Lem approach.
Apparently it's been difficult to research the maze without physically exploring. Each path branches in large numbers, and nobody understands how the maze climbs the walls in the way that it does. There's a call for adventurers to meet at the Spire tomorrow.
A tabaxi interrupts our conversation, asking if we're the "group that did the... you know, the thing," and Mia promptly tells him we are "the Keybearers." The rest of us are confused.
He introduces himself as "Eagle" and tells us he's an information broker. He's got way too much information about all of us, and he seems upset that we managed to open the Spire before he and his associates could do so. He wants to offer an exchange of services.
Eagle has a deal. We offer information we gather to him prior to relaying it to the council, and he gives us a full scouting report from what his associates have managed to collect by sneaking into the Spire. We sign a magical verbal contract.
As his contract book lights up and the text fades away, Eagle slips a small brown journal onto the table as he walks away. There's some pretty disgusting shit in these logs. There are stone faces in the wall... not like carved, but almost as though cement was poured over people.
There's also a note of a death of a researcher who attempted to walk atop the walls and was immediately obliterated. That's not a good sign.
As we finish reading the report, a missionary approaches our party, begging us to stop by the Church and pick up a troupe of priests who want to study the maze. This seems like a bad idea but they're willing to pay, soooooo
A third person approaches, specifically looking for Fenwyse. Where did all these people come from?! Eagle provided Fen with an associate to help run Wildcloak Wares while she's away. That was fast! His name is Donivin.
We sell off a bunch of our old stuff and prepare for our new journey. The next morning, we finally approach the Spire, stopping by the Church on the way. The priests have this wild idea that a mystical place called Paradise at the top. Three priests remain, seeking accompaniment.
We pick up M'Zera, a young tabaxi priestess who is highly devout. She swears up and down that she's "really good at magic," and Mia worries that M'Zera will die if she goes along with any less experienced adventurers. Welp.
We have entered the Spire. We lean to the left, and there are twelve entries into the maze on this side. Mia insists we take the furthest left path. We progress for a while... and then we find the weird faces in the walls.
We take another left. Fen doesn't like it but the rest of the party is all about it. This isn't a good feeling.
We reach a point in the walls where there's some arcane script. Mia recognizes it, and upon reading the script, we are pulled into a deeper darkness, and fall into initiative. There are some sort of winged creatures resembling a large swarm of ravens.
Everyone in the party falls for the illusion except for Fenwyse. The rest of the group thinks they're fighting an endless swarm of ravens, but Fen pops a unicorn spirit in the middle of the group and they all finally fall out of the illusion.
We clear the hallway and enter another split in the path. Simon suggests we continue going left, just as Mia wants. Fen still doesn't like it and urges the group to go forward instead. The party's opinions are split, and our tabaxi priestess decides upon left. Ugh.
We end up at a dead end full of bones. That's not a bad sign or anything. The party turns around and goes left at the junction (the previous option's "forward"). We hear swords clashing and we feel like we're being watched.
We progress through a long hallway and, to nobody's surprise, all of the stone bodies start crawling out of the walls. They're relatively frail but there are SO MANY OF THEM
A lot of really really bad shit happens until Fenwyse casts an absolutely booming Thunderwave, shattering all of the bodies into pieces as the party rushes forward out of the hallway.
At the T, Fen rushes right, yelling to the party to stop going left. The party follows. Fenwyse utilizes Mold Earth to close off the hallway, and they take a brief respite. The next couple of hours are uneventful, as the party pushes further into the maze.
We enter a circular room with a chest on a pedestal in the middle of the room. We look for traps, but can't find any. Mia uses Catapult to hurl an iron ball through the chest. It breaks open, and an item spawns... and then dematerializes. Welp.
We move forward into one of the 17 other hallways branching off of the circle. Immediately upon turning, we see a giant eye, and then the creature attached to it. It stares at Fen and she takes a bunch of necrotic damage, and it feels like her skin is rotting off of her.
Of all the hallways, we pick this one... It peers into Ka'Lem's mind, searching for secrets. Simon blasts it with a brutal Shatter attack, and it reels back, screeching. Ka'Lem closes the gap, cleaving with his longsword.
Fen moves up and slashes at it with her Primal Savagery. The creature winces, and Mia moves up to Catapult another iron ball. It misses! M'Zera launches a Sacred Flame, and the creature is unamused. It claws at at both Ka'Lem and Fenwyse.
Fen takes a brutal hit and is wavering. Ka'Lem lunges forward, stabbing it directly through the eye. It collapses.
We find a safe place, set up camp for the night, and continue exploring for two more days. Trivial events occur. As we near the end of our camp, another party of adventurers stumbles into us. We know two of them! It's Marcus and Kurog.
oh
oh boy
a giant chest in the middle of a room that has giant doors on the other side that's not foreboding or anything
Our parties move forward together and Ka'Lem opens the chest. It's actual loot! We are able to identify the item as hide armor. The double doors have giant diamonds and swords engraved into them, and some script that nobody understands.
Mia recognizes the script as the same language from the entrance of the Spire. Using what she learned before, she deciphers the script and speaks it aloud, and to everyone's surprise, it actually works! The diamonds and swords light up, shift on the doors, and it cracks open.
Our parties move forward together, entering the chamber. As the tenth body moves through the doors, they close behind us. A massive lamia slithers down from the ceiling, hitting the ground, and reeling back with trident in hand.
Only highlights from here foreward - this is the floor boss, and though our characters don't know it yet, if we emerge from this fight alive and manage to take down the boss, it'll drop a "gate key" which will progress us to the next floor - the next plane of existence.
It could be anything! Literally anything! It's an exciting prospect as players, but first we have to survive. Fen started off the combat by blowing a second-level spell slot on a Moonbeam and immediately breaking concentration.
This lamia has legendary actions and keeps nullifying our attacks. This is terrifying!
There's a fighter from the friendly party who got completely destroyed in one round. We're all feeling our mortality.
After one of the companion group lands a massive critical hit, another fails gloriously. Korag gets punched in the gut by the lamia as he runs up and slips. Ka'Lem is granting advantage to all his allies and has successfully taunted the lamia... let's hope it doesn't kill him.
Simon casts Shatter, and with the bonus damage granted to him by Ka'Lem's distracting strike, he fells the boss with a massive boom. The lamia's unique loot is pretty cool - Simon gets a Lamia's Lightning Trident, which deals area of effect damage after impact.
There's a floating key of sorts, with three rings hovering behind the loot pile. Mia recognizes the script, and as she goes to read it, it transforms into a familiar language for her. We all hover around, while the other party starts picking each other up behind us.
As she reads the incantation, the room suddenly fades away from us. We look around and find ourselves in a strange, crystalline field. In the near distance, there's a ...dinosaur?! It has crystal ridges along its back.
As we look back at the portal, golden script appears over it in common, and it reads "The Crystal Fields." A few moments later, the other party lumbers through the portal.
That's it for tonight - we'll reconvene on the 9th of January!
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