The Saturday Game 6/22/19 – So Many Secrets…

Note: Our Princess and Luchador were not in attendance. Also, you may wish to refer to the poem in the previous session for clues.

So, we take another shot at this giant puzzle. We make our way back to the hall in the nose of the skull rock formation. The Paper Merchant casts mage hand to open the box affixed to the wall. Out shoots a poisoned needle! Due to mage hand, no one gets hurt. Within the box, a cylindrical object is floating. When the Druid grasps it, the floor below the box drops. The Druid jumps back escaping the trap. Below, deep spikes glisten in the dim light at the bottom of the thirty-foot pit.

One of the paintings on the wall is a picture of a cage which, upon close examination, hides a door. After checking for traps, the Paper Merchant opens the door to find a twenty-foot corridor that ends with another door. Opening it reveals a stone gargoyle that flaps his wings and attacks! The party quickly subdues the gargoyle. Was this the tormentor of the poem? A collar around the gargoyle’s neck contains ten gems. Hidden in a secret compartment is a slip of paper with the words:

Look low and high for gold
To hear a tale untold.
Take the archway at the end
On your way you’ll wend.

The Paper Merchant searches and opens several secret doors until the he discovers a long corridor one-hundred-twenty feet long. Along the walls, colored spheres appear in the following manner:

West Wall	East Wall
Gold orb overhead (Illusion)	Pale Blue orb shoulder high
Orange orb waist high	Silver orb foot high
A door	The door we enter through
Purple orb foot high	Green orb overhead
A door	Yellow orb shoulder high
Bronze orb waist high	Pink orb overhead
Grey orb shoulder high	Black orb foot high (Illusion)
No orb	Pale violet orb shoulder high
Bright blue orb foot high	No orb
White orb overhead	Red orb waist high (Illusion)
Turquoise orb shoulder high	Buff orb foot high
Scarlet orb waist high	No orb
Pale green foot high	Indigo orb overhead

An archway appears at the end of the corridor. The Druid places his hand on the gold orb and it goes through. The orb is merely an illusion! A crawl space appears behind the orb. Two other orbs are also identified as illusions (marked in table above). The Druid places the blood golem ring in the red orb; the Paper Merchant sticks a sword into the black orb. Nothing happens.

The Druid transforms into a spider to explore these spaces. The gold orb contains a passage that runs twenty feet west then ten feet northwest to culminate in a room containing another gargoyle statue with three arms and another broken on the floor. Behind the red orb is a hall that runs forty feet east and south ending in a blank wall. Behind the black orb is a slope running thirty feet east, south for twenty feet ending in a blank wall.

We all crawl through the gold orb to the gargoyle room. There are three outstretched hands (Kurt how if he has a broken arm?). The Druid notices that each hand has a depression large enough to fit a gem from the collar. Placing a gem into a hand causes the hand to close and crush the gem. Are these the trembling hands that maul from the poem?  Since we only have nine gems left and have no idea what is supposed to happen, we choose to revisit this puzzle later.

We all move into the passage behind the red orb. The Paper Merchant finds a hidden door. Opening the door reveals a room. As the party makes its way down, suddenly the floor tilts and we fall into a treasure chest room containing an oak, silver and gold chest. The Paper Merchant opens the oak chest and seven skeletons appear out of thin air. Our Wizard dies but is healed by the Druid and is back in the fight. The Cleric casts turn undead and four skeletons flee into the wall. The Sorcerer kills the first skeleton with the Warlock killing another with eldritch blasts. The Paper Merchant kills the third. The party turns to the four spooked skeletons. The Bard banes three of them. The Warlock’s hellish rebuke kills the first one. After a walloping from the Cleric and the Paper Merchant, a second goes down. After sustaining damage from the party, the last two fall with hellish rebukes from the Warlock and the Bard respectively. The Warlock looks in the chest to find nothing – it was all a trap.

The Paper Merchant searches the silver chest for traps. He disables one and inside finds a crystal box containing a magical gold ring. The Paper Merchant investigates the gold chest only to find it has snakes in it. As we are not up for another fight, he closes the chest before they have a chance to attack.

Behind the chests is an area of the floor that looks disturbed. Moving some dirt aside, we find a trap door that leads to the area above the lever room where the Wizard became trapped the last time.

Moving on, the party explores the space behind the black orb that ends, again, in a secret door. Opening it leads to a room with an altar decorated with two brass candelabras containing five candles each and two white pottery urns. An engraved and padded chair sits on a dais: is this the throne of the poem? A skeleton points to an archway glowing with an orange vapor – a portal? The Druid calls upon his religion knowledge and senses both good and evil in this room. The altar is glowing blue with a magical light. As soon as someone touches it, lightening descends from above. To avoid it, the Warlock jumps through the portal. About ten seconds later, she reappears, but has become a male! The altar changes color and now glows a fiery blue red. The Paper Merchant searches the room to find a spot on the east wall that has a small slot with an O etched above. The Druid places the ring in the O and a stone slab descends to the floor revealing a passage crushing the sacrificed ring. The party heads down the passage and is in front of a door when suddenly everything fades to black.