Rybaer
First Post
Session #4.5 – Tour of the Grounds
After a blissfully uninterrupted night, the group decided to follow it up with another day of rest. They did make a brief foray into the library and laboratories to collect items of interest for Zalman. Among these were a number of books and assorted supplies needed to create alchemical or magical devices (including a wand of magic missiles that he was busy constructing). Throughout the day and the following night, everything was peaceful and quiet.
On the morning of their fourth day at Shadykin’s school, they finally felt fit enough to resume their explorations – all together this time. Having seen no further threats, they decided the horses would be safe on their own in the courtyard, chomping on the abundant spring grasses and lounging in the shade of the numerous trees. The group debated between exploring up to the top of the tower under which they’d been camping or continuing to explore beyond the room from which the rust monsters and beholderkin had come. They settled on going up first, because at least in that direction they knew it only went just so far.
The main floor of the tower had a massive pile of rubble where the stairway up had once been. They checked the possibility of going in through one of the windows higher up on the tower, but found that they were impossible to open and equally impossible to break. They settled on going through the rock. Rurik called upon Moradin’s favor and cast a Stone Shape spell to open a clear path up to the next level. The second floor they found to have two spacious bedrooms fitted with the worn out remnants of what was once fine furniture. Quick searches of the rooms revealed a few personal effects, but little else of interest. The third through sixth levels also had a pair of bedrooms each, again with little of real value. The seventh level opened into one large circular room stuffed full of furniture, shelves, and knick knacks.
They soon concluded that this must have been the witch’s living quarters as there was a bed with relatively clean sheets as well as a stew pot that had gone cold but not molded over yet. While Nigel and Kisty made a thorough search through her belongings, Zalman cast Detect Magic. The one item in the room that had a magical aura was what appeared to be a large rectangular box made of cast iron that was dominating the top of one of the room’s tables. It was three feet wide, two feet deep, and about one foot tall. The entire front side of the item was a door that swung downward. The inside was empty. They were perplexed and offered a steady stream of wise-ass suggestions as to what it might do. Many concluded that it must cook food, for it looked much like a toaster oven. Zalman doubted that, though, as his Detect Magic revealed it to have divination magic upon it.
Kisty, who had started flipping through the log books strewn around it (she was the only one who could read gnomish), finally figured out what it could do. She explained from the notes that it would identify the magical nature of any item placed within it. Several of the group were hesitant and skeptical, worrying that it was a trick and that anything placed inside would disappear or turn into a fresh meat pie. Zalman offered up an otherwise useless magic item that he had been toting around as a test piece, a wand of Ghoul Touch that they had acquired a while back. He lacked familiarity with the school of necromancy and could not use it. So, into the black metal box it went and they shut the door. Moments later, an ephemeral voice spoke out from seemingly nowhere: “This is a wand of Ghoul Touch.” They opened the box and were relieved to find that the wand was still there and had not been turned into a meat pie.
Now confident in the box’s abilities, they started unloading the numerous magic items that they had picked up since their journey began. Most were fairly minor items, some useful and others not. Once all were identified, they redistributed them so as to best complement each of the party’s abilities. They were happy and dubbed this wonderful new item the “Toaster Oven of Identify.” They also tried to figure out a way to bring it with them. Estimating its weight as well over three hundred pounds, and finding that it was bolted to the table, which in turn was bolted through the floor, they finally abandoned this idea and pressed on with their investigation.
The only other exit from the witch’s room was a ladder leading to a trap door in the ceiling. This, they found, led directly to the roof. There was nothing of interest up there, so they headed back down to the basement of the tower.
(DM note: At this point in the game, Zalman’s player left town for a month for work-related reasons. Not wanting to NPC him through what I knew were to be some dangerous times ahead, we instead agreed that Zalman would spend his time cataloguing the contents of the library and studying anything of interest he could find in there. And so, the group continued without their primary magic support.)
The group proceeded down through the main floor’s trap door and through the rust monsters’ room. They had already triggered several traps in the hallway beyond during their initial explorations, so they knew what to look for. The next room, where they had ended their previous foray, was seemingly empty. It was a relatively small rectangular room with another door and two rough cut hallways leading off from each side. Directly in front of the door was a concealed pit trap that Kisty marked out in chalk. Suspicious of more traps, she explored around and found that another concealed pit was placed in front of the other door from the room. They explored down one of the rough cut hallways and found that it led to a small cavern-like room and then back to the main room. Based on some skeletal remnants and other circumstantial evidence, they assumed that the beholderkin must have lived (or been kept) in here.
Kisty listened carefully at the next door and thought she could just barely make out a noise beyond…a raspy or scratching sound. Nigel confirmed this, but could not place it. They all readied weapons while Kisty opened the door slowly and peered inside. “Dark,” she told them. Boaz came up to the front to offer his ability to see in the dark. “It’s a big room,” he told them. “There are columns, lots of piles of rubble…stone. I think there’s something moving around one of those piles, but I’m not sure.”
They whispered among themselves and decided that whatever it was probably already knew they were here. They agreed to slip into the room and spread out, everyone prepared in case it was hostile. Boaz with his longsword and Rurik with his battle axe went in and slipped to either side of the door. Nigel followed with an arrow nocked in his bow. Kisty, with torch in hand, and Amblin came in last. They could all now clearly hear a skittering sound among one of the large piles of rubble in this huge underground room. They didn’t have to wait much longer for a good look at it, though.
As Boaz and Rurik inched closer, a gigantic centipede shot out of the rubble and made straight for the dwarf. Rurik’s armor deflected its glistening fangs and his own battle axe swung in answer, scoring a hit. Boaz charged and Nigel let fly with an arrow. Multiple deep wounds were scored. Kisty flung a sling stone at it, preferring to keep her distance. Amblin jumped in and landed a shot, as did his dog Gunther. The centipede managed one more feeble snap at Rurik before its body gave out and it collapsed in a heap.
They gave a cursory look through the room but found no more creatures. The centipede itself measured between thirty and forty feet in length, by far the largest and most disturbing insect any of them had ever encountered before. Nothing else in the room was of any particular interest. Aside from the piles of rubble where portions of the ceiling had collapsed, there was absolutely nothing else in this room, not even an exit. During a slower and more involved search of the room, Nigel noticed that a portion of the wall seemed odd. The texture of the stones did not seem to match what his eyes were telling him he saw. Kisty joined him and they concluded that it must be some sort of illusion, a fact that Rurik confirmed with a Detect Magic. By touch alone, Kisty finally found a latch mechanism hidden under the illusion that activated a secret door. While she could feel the door opening, the illusion of the wall remained in place. They poked their heads through the illusion and found that a hallway extended beyond.
(Kisty, a rogue of no small skill, was amazed by the secret door/illusion combination. Finding a secret door was one thing. Noticing an illusion is another. But for someone to have cast an illusion of a stone wall over a stone wall to help conceal what she could now tell was already a well-made secret door was a step beyond anything else in her experience. She was impressed…and she now knew what to look for.)
The hallway itself was unremarkable and dark. Stone walls and a heavy wood door at the far end. The undisturbed dust on the floor suggested to Nigel that nothing had passed this way in years. While they cautiously approached the door, Kisty made an observation. “There’s another one of these illusion secret doors over here in the side of the hallway.” She felt around for a minute and concluded that it also had the same opening mechanism. Everyone agreed to explore that direction first, as secret door usually had more interesting things to hide.
The door slid open and a short hall opened into a twenty foot square room. The chamber was filled with tables and shelves, barrels and casks, chests and sacks. They poked through the various items and found that there was a fair bit of treasure in here – coin, gems, art, and a few magically imbued items. They decided to come back and sort through it later as there was far too much to haul with them. Rurik filled a couple skins with a fine (and strong) wine from one of the casks and then the group left, closing the secret door behind them.
They listed at the heavy wood door and could discern nothing. Kisty verified that it was not trapped and, as it was unlocked, opened it. Flickering light from the next room filled their hallway as they opened the door into a largish room that had all the hallmarks of a waiting room. There were several rotting couches, a table with several chairs around it, and half a dozen lit torches in sconces on the walls. As they slowly entered, they could also see that a small alcove branched off to the left. At the end of it was a door that was propped open slightly. On either side of the door stood a pair of pasty white statues of six-foot tall gnomes. The statues, more than anything else about this room, were unsettling.
Fearing that the lit torches might mean someone lived or had recently been down here, they looked for signs of such but found nothing. The thin dust on the floor was much like the previous hallway – undisturbed. Closer inspection of the torches revealed that they were not actually burning but were merely lit by means of Continual Flame spells. Kisty searched the room, careful to stay well away from the creepy statues, and found two more of the illusionary secret doors.
At some point, Rurik decided that he wanted to know what was through the partially opened door. As he approached, the two statues closest to the door moved to impose themselves between he and the door. They did not attack, but they would not let him pass. This bothered the others, as they figured these statues to be guardians of some sort for whatever was beyond the door.
Rurik was smart enough not to push his luck with the statues, but Boaz was now rather keen on what was transpiring. As Rurik backed away from the door, the statues returned to their positions on either side of it. Boaz suggested running past them before they could get into position. Before long, the two of them managed to get the statues sufficiently displeased with their efforts to get past that they were attacked. All four statues moved into action and swung heavy fists at the two with some success. Boaz’s sword was a cleaving disaster for the statues, though, and before too long the fight was over. Amblin, Nigel, and Kisty had remained quietly out of the fight and out of the way. Rurik and Boaz were a bit miffed by this, but the others insisted that they had had no desire to mess with them in the first place. Rurik healed himself, having taken a couple tough hits, and then he stomped off to kick the door open.
Beyond was what appeared to have once been a well-appointed office. There were a couple chairs up against the wall, faded but elegant tapestries on both side walls, and a pile of ash and cinders where a desk had presumably once sat. Another door was set in the far wall. They poked about in the ash, but found nothing of interest, only a few nails, handles, and other metal components of the former desk were all the remained.
The door beyond was unremarkable and it was quiet on the other side. They opened it and found that it led to another laboratory. While not as large as some, this one was crowded with interesting alchemical and magical paraphernalia. It had also been ruthlessly ransacked. They sifted through the debris, but found little that interested them. Rurik confirmed that nothing in this room still radiated an aura of magic. Kisty did find what appeared to be a personal journal among the debris under one desk. As she scanned through the gnomish writing, she excitedly came to the conclusion that it had belonged to none other than Shadykin, the school’s founder that they had come hoping to find here. She skipped to the end (a habit she’d acquired when approaching any new book), and read the last two entries:
April 23 “With dark tidings on the horizon, I have taken precautions to protect certain items from falling into the Black Hand’s possession. A contingency spell placed upon myself will cause this lab to be shifted to a different plane upon either my death or absence from this plane. I have selected a plane whose properties should ensure the destruction of everything in this room. I pray that it will not come to this, though.”
April 25 “News has reached me that Gills Dralon of the Hand is coming with his army and I expect that I will have to face him. I don’t know when, but I refuse to leave my school. Some students have already left, yet others are unwilling to. I would force them out if I felt they’d obey.”
The group pondered the meaning of the journal entries. The fact that this laboratory still existed was strong evidence that Shadykin was both still alive and on this plane, assuming that the lab the entry referred to was indeed the one in which they stood. They also now knew the name of the wizard who had led his branch of the five armies of the Black Hand through this region. He was quite possibly the same one who had destroyed their hometown’s predecessor of Selmar.
After they finished searching through the room, they decided to try exploring one of the other secret doors. It opened into a long and narrow hallway. After about a hundred feet, a fork split to the left. Rurik surmised by their travels thus far that they were under the middle of the courtyard. If they kept going straight, they’d end up underneath the golden dome. Going left would lead over toward the dormitories. They decided to continue forward. After a couple small turns, they arrived at a staircase up to a door. The door was locked, but Kisty quickly remedied that. They opened it to find themselves in a small room with a massive set of double doors leading off to the right. Overlapping both doors was a massive circular metallic gold seal. Set in the middle was another smaller circle with four keyholes spaced evenly about it. Kisty inspected them and concluded that while she might be able to open one lock given some time, she would be unable to open all four simultaneously. If she released one to work on another, it would relock.
Amblin surmised that they would need a special key to open the door. He also went so far as to surmise that it would probably be some mechanical device with the four keys spaced out on it and a mechanism to turn them all simultaneously. (DM note: Amblin’s description of such a key was so uncannily accurate with what I had envisioned that he was eventually rewarded with a Fate Point for it…a generous reward to say the least.) Not having such a key, they backtracked and took the fork in the hallway. This led to a concealed trapdoor under a bed in one of the ground floor bedrooms in the dormitory. They decided to leave the dormitory alone for now.
Back in the room with the destroyed gnome statues, they tried the last secret door. This also led down a hallway that, after a couple turns, came to a wall. All of them could tell from this side that it was actually part of a door. They listened at it and heard nothing. Opening it, they found that it led into the library in the main school building that they had visited earlier. They said a quick hello the studious Zalman, pointed out the secret door to him, and then backtracked again.
Having found no other passages or secret doors in the subterranean levels, they decided to head back up the tower and use (bum bum bahh!) the Toaster Oven of Identify to find out what the couple magic items stored in the hidden stores room were. Again, mostly minor items that they distributed amongst themselves. Consensus vote at this point was to explore the tallest tower…the one in which Zalman and Rurik had been attacked by the stirges, the one with the mirrored sphere
The ground floor of the tall tower, again, had little but rotting furniture and dust. There was a small storeroom that held some brooms, old blankets, buckets, and other odds and ends. They ascended the stairs to the very top where they prepared themselves to deal with the stirges should they still be there. They weren’t. The devastated top two floors of the tower were quiet and empty. A light drizzle and cool breeze filtered in through the missing sections of wall and ceiling. The lower of the two floors had the hallmarks of a laboratory or study that had been badly damaged and ransacked. Deeply buried among the debris, they found a small silver statuette of a raven. Someone tucked this away for later inspection.
The next level up, accessed by a private stairway, appeared to have been living quarters dominated by a bed, furnishings, and a cold fireplace. From here, the ten-foot diameter mirrored sphere that was floating between the destroyed floors and wall could best be viewed. They touched it experimentally and found that it seemed to be completely frictionless…giving it a strange feel. It was perfectly clean, perfectly shaped, and perfectly flawless. They tried pushing it (not easy given its frictionless nature) but it would not yield. They even dragged Zalman up from his studies to take a look at it and to try a dispel magic. He wasn’t entirely convinced that it was magic because a Detect Magic gave some very strange signals, but he tried anyway. No effect. Whatever it was or whatever might be inside it (and some where hypothesizing Shadykin might be inside), they had no way of exploring it further at this time.
Among the debris on this level, though, they did find something of particular interest…something that Amblin had described for them not an hour earlier. It was a metal plate with four keys extending from one side of it. On the other side was a small crank and a series of gears and pins that caused all four keys to move simultaneously. Bingo!
As the great golden dome was one of the most intriguing and elusive parts of the school, everyone was eager to see what was inside. They hurried back into the tunnel system and reached the sealed double doors. Amblin put the keys in place and turned the crank. With a sudden pop, the seal opened a crack and they were able to pull the doors open. They opened into what appeared to be a roughly cut tunnel underground that led to bright sunlight and green grass about forty feet up ahead. This was odd, because they had just noticed it was gray and drizzly outside. The door had the same key holes on the inside. Just to be sure they could get back through it from the inside, a couple went through with the key while a couple remained back on the outside and they shut the door. Amblin then used the key from inside the dome and successfully opened it again. Satisfied that they would be able to get back out, they all went in and headed toward the sunlight and grassy field.
The tunnel opened upon an idyllic landscape of rolling green hills, copses of trees, and a meandering stream. The sky was deep blue and speckled with small, puffy cumulous clouds. Birds chirped in the distance and the warm sun and fragrant breeze soothed their worn nerves. The horizon extended infinitely in each direction with no sign of the inner walls, which should have been plainly visible given that from outside the dome was no more than a hundred fifty feet in diameter.
It was then that they realized, with a bit of panic, that the tunnel leading to the door was nowhere to be seen. It, and the door, was gone.
-Rybaer
After a blissfully uninterrupted night, the group decided to follow it up with another day of rest. They did make a brief foray into the library and laboratories to collect items of interest for Zalman. Among these were a number of books and assorted supplies needed to create alchemical or magical devices (including a wand of magic missiles that he was busy constructing). Throughout the day and the following night, everything was peaceful and quiet.
On the morning of their fourth day at Shadykin’s school, they finally felt fit enough to resume their explorations – all together this time. Having seen no further threats, they decided the horses would be safe on their own in the courtyard, chomping on the abundant spring grasses and lounging in the shade of the numerous trees. The group debated between exploring up to the top of the tower under which they’d been camping or continuing to explore beyond the room from which the rust monsters and beholderkin had come. They settled on going up first, because at least in that direction they knew it only went just so far.
The main floor of the tower had a massive pile of rubble where the stairway up had once been. They checked the possibility of going in through one of the windows higher up on the tower, but found that they were impossible to open and equally impossible to break. They settled on going through the rock. Rurik called upon Moradin’s favor and cast a Stone Shape spell to open a clear path up to the next level. The second floor they found to have two spacious bedrooms fitted with the worn out remnants of what was once fine furniture. Quick searches of the rooms revealed a few personal effects, but little else of interest. The third through sixth levels also had a pair of bedrooms each, again with little of real value. The seventh level opened into one large circular room stuffed full of furniture, shelves, and knick knacks.
They soon concluded that this must have been the witch’s living quarters as there was a bed with relatively clean sheets as well as a stew pot that had gone cold but not molded over yet. While Nigel and Kisty made a thorough search through her belongings, Zalman cast Detect Magic. The one item in the room that had a magical aura was what appeared to be a large rectangular box made of cast iron that was dominating the top of one of the room’s tables. It was three feet wide, two feet deep, and about one foot tall. The entire front side of the item was a door that swung downward. The inside was empty. They were perplexed and offered a steady stream of wise-ass suggestions as to what it might do. Many concluded that it must cook food, for it looked much like a toaster oven. Zalman doubted that, though, as his Detect Magic revealed it to have divination magic upon it.
Kisty, who had started flipping through the log books strewn around it (she was the only one who could read gnomish), finally figured out what it could do. She explained from the notes that it would identify the magical nature of any item placed within it. Several of the group were hesitant and skeptical, worrying that it was a trick and that anything placed inside would disappear or turn into a fresh meat pie. Zalman offered up an otherwise useless magic item that he had been toting around as a test piece, a wand of Ghoul Touch that they had acquired a while back. He lacked familiarity with the school of necromancy and could not use it. So, into the black metal box it went and they shut the door. Moments later, an ephemeral voice spoke out from seemingly nowhere: “This is a wand of Ghoul Touch.” They opened the box and were relieved to find that the wand was still there and had not been turned into a meat pie.
Now confident in the box’s abilities, they started unloading the numerous magic items that they had picked up since their journey began. Most were fairly minor items, some useful and others not. Once all were identified, they redistributed them so as to best complement each of the party’s abilities. They were happy and dubbed this wonderful new item the “Toaster Oven of Identify.” They also tried to figure out a way to bring it with them. Estimating its weight as well over three hundred pounds, and finding that it was bolted to the table, which in turn was bolted through the floor, they finally abandoned this idea and pressed on with their investigation.
The only other exit from the witch’s room was a ladder leading to a trap door in the ceiling. This, they found, led directly to the roof. There was nothing of interest up there, so they headed back down to the basement of the tower.
(DM note: At this point in the game, Zalman’s player left town for a month for work-related reasons. Not wanting to NPC him through what I knew were to be some dangerous times ahead, we instead agreed that Zalman would spend his time cataloguing the contents of the library and studying anything of interest he could find in there. And so, the group continued without their primary magic support.)
The group proceeded down through the main floor’s trap door and through the rust monsters’ room. They had already triggered several traps in the hallway beyond during their initial explorations, so they knew what to look for. The next room, where they had ended their previous foray, was seemingly empty. It was a relatively small rectangular room with another door and two rough cut hallways leading off from each side. Directly in front of the door was a concealed pit trap that Kisty marked out in chalk. Suspicious of more traps, she explored around and found that another concealed pit was placed in front of the other door from the room. They explored down one of the rough cut hallways and found that it led to a small cavern-like room and then back to the main room. Based on some skeletal remnants and other circumstantial evidence, they assumed that the beholderkin must have lived (or been kept) in here.
Kisty listened carefully at the next door and thought she could just barely make out a noise beyond…a raspy or scratching sound. Nigel confirmed this, but could not place it. They all readied weapons while Kisty opened the door slowly and peered inside. “Dark,” she told them. Boaz came up to the front to offer his ability to see in the dark. “It’s a big room,” he told them. “There are columns, lots of piles of rubble…stone. I think there’s something moving around one of those piles, but I’m not sure.”
They whispered among themselves and decided that whatever it was probably already knew they were here. They agreed to slip into the room and spread out, everyone prepared in case it was hostile. Boaz with his longsword and Rurik with his battle axe went in and slipped to either side of the door. Nigel followed with an arrow nocked in his bow. Kisty, with torch in hand, and Amblin came in last. They could all now clearly hear a skittering sound among one of the large piles of rubble in this huge underground room. They didn’t have to wait much longer for a good look at it, though.
As Boaz and Rurik inched closer, a gigantic centipede shot out of the rubble and made straight for the dwarf. Rurik’s armor deflected its glistening fangs and his own battle axe swung in answer, scoring a hit. Boaz charged and Nigel let fly with an arrow. Multiple deep wounds were scored. Kisty flung a sling stone at it, preferring to keep her distance. Amblin jumped in and landed a shot, as did his dog Gunther. The centipede managed one more feeble snap at Rurik before its body gave out and it collapsed in a heap.
They gave a cursory look through the room but found no more creatures. The centipede itself measured between thirty and forty feet in length, by far the largest and most disturbing insect any of them had ever encountered before. Nothing else in the room was of any particular interest. Aside from the piles of rubble where portions of the ceiling had collapsed, there was absolutely nothing else in this room, not even an exit. During a slower and more involved search of the room, Nigel noticed that a portion of the wall seemed odd. The texture of the stones did not seem to match what his eyes were telling him he saw. Kisty joined him and they concluded that it must be some sort of illusion, a fact that Rurik confirmed with a Detect Magic. By touch alone, Kisty finally found a latch mechanism hidden under the illusion that activated a secret door. While she could feel the door opening, the illusion of the wall remained in place. They poked their heads through the illusion and found that a hallway extended beyond.
(Kisty, a rogue of no small skill, was amazed by the secret door/illusion combination. Finding a secret door was one thing. Noticing an illusion is another. But for someone to have cast an illusion of a stone wall over a stone wall to help conceal what she could now tell was already a well-made secret door was a step beyond anything else in her experience. She was impressed…and she now knew what to look for.)
The hallway itself was unremarkable and dark. Stone walls and a heavy wood door at the far end. The undisturbed dust on the floor suggested to Nigel that nothing had passed this way in years. While they cautiously approached the door, Kisty made an observation. “There’s another one of these illusion secret doors over here in the side of the hallway.” She felt around for a minute and concluded that it also had the same opening mechanism. Everyone agreed to explore that direction first, as secret door usually had more interesting things to hide.
The door slid open and a short hall opened into a twenty foot square room. The chamber was filled with tables and shelves, barrels and casks, chests and sacks. They poked through the various items and found that there was a fair bit of treasure in here – coin, gems, art, and a few magically imbued items. They decided to come back and sort through it later as there was far too much to haul with them. Rurik filled a couple skins with a fine (and strong) wine from one of the casks and then the group left, closing the secret door behind them.
They listed at the heavy wood door and could discern nothing. Kisty verified that it was not trapped and, as it was unlocked, opened it. Flickering light from the next room filled their hallway as they opened the door into a largish room that had all the hallmarks of a waiting room. There were several rotting couches, a table with several chairs around it, and half a dozen lit torches in sconces on the walls. As they slowly entered, they could also see that a small alcove branched off to the left. At the end of it was a door that was propped open slightly. On either side of the door stood a pair of pasty white statues of six-foot tall gnomes. The statues, more than anything else about this room, were unsettling.
Fearing that the lit torches might mean someone lived or had recently been down here, they looked for signs of such but found nothing. The thin dust on the floor was much like the previous hallway – undisturbed. Closer inspection of the torches revealed that they were not actually burning but were merely lit by means of Continual Flame spells. Kisty searched the room, careful to stay well away from the creepy statues, and found two more of the illusionary secret doors.
At some point, Rurik decided that he wanted to know what was through the partially opened door. As he approached, the two statues closest to the door moved to impose themselves between he and the door. They did not attack, but they would not let him pass. This bothered the others, as they figured these statues to be guardians of some sort for whatever was beyond the door.
Rurik was smart enough not to push his luck with the statues, but Boaz was now rather keen on what was transpiring. As Rurik backed away from the door, the statues returned to their positions on either side of it. Boaz suggested running past them before they could get into position. Before long, the two of them managed to get the statues sufficiently displeased with their efforts to get past that they were attacked. All four statues moved into action and swung heavy fists at the two with some success. Boaz’s sword was a cleaving disaster for the statues, though, and before too long the fight was over. Amblin, Nigel, and Kisty had remained quietly out of the fight and out of the way. Rurik and Boaz were a bit miffed by this, but the others insisted that they had had no desire to mess with them in the first place. Rurik healed himself, having taken a couple tough hits, and then he stomped off to kick the door open.
Beyond was what appeared to have once been a well-appointed office. There were a couple chairs up against the wall, faded but elegant tapestries on both side walls, and a pile of ash and cinders where a desk had presumably once sat. Another door was set in the far wall. They poked about in the ash, but found nothing of interest, only a few nails, handles, and other metal components of the former desk were all the remained.
The door beyond was unremarkable and it was quiet on the other side. They opened it and found that it led to another laboratory. While not as large as some, this one was crowded with interesting alchemical and magical paraphernalia. It had also been ruthlessly ransacked. They sifted through the debris, but found little that interested them. Rurik confirmed that nothing in this room still radiated an aura of magic. Kisty did find what appeared to be a personal journal among the debris under one desk. As she scanned through the gnomish writing, she excitedly came to the conclusion that it had belonged to none other than Shadykin, the school’s founder that they had come hoping to find here. She skipped to the end (a habit she’d acquired when approaching any new book), and read the last two entries:
April 23 “With dark tidings on the horizon, I have taken precautions to protect certain items from falling into the Black Hand’s possession. A contingency spell placed upon myself will cause this lab to be shifted to a different plane upon either my death or absence from this plane. I have selected a plane whose properties should ensure the destruction of everything in this room. I pray that it will not come to this, though.”
April 25 “News has reached me that Gills Dralon of the Hand is coming with his army and I expect that I will have to face him. I don’t know when, but I refuse to leave my school. Some students have already left, yet others are unwilling to. I would force them out if I felt they’d obey.”
The group pondered the meaning of the journal entries. The fact that this laboratory still existed was strong evidence that Shadykin was both still alive and on this plane, assuming that the lab the entry referred to was indeed the one in which they stood. They also now knew the name of the wizard who had led his branch of the five armies of the Black Hand through this region. He was quite possibly the same one who had destroyed their hometown’s predecessor of Selmar.
After they finished searching through the room, they decided to try exploring one of the other secret doors. It opened into a long and narrow hallway. After about a hundred feet, a fork split to the left. Rurik surmised by their travels thus far that they were under the middle of the courtyard. If they kept going straight, they’d end up underneath the golden dome. Going left would lead over toward the dormitories. They decided to continue forward. After a couple small turns, they arrived at a staircase up to a door. The door was locked, but Kisty quickly remedied that. They opened it to find themselves in a small room with a massive set of double doors leading off to the right. Overlapping both doors was a massive circular metallic gold seal. Set in the middle was another smaller circle with four keyholes spaced evenly about it. Kisty inspected them and concluded that while she might be able to open one lock given some time, she would be unable to open all four simultaneously. If she released one to work on another, it would relock.
Amblin surmised that they would need a special key to open the door. He also went so far as to surmise that it would probably be some mechanical device with the four keys spaced out on it and a mechanism to turn them all simultaneously. (DM note: Amblin’s description of such a key was so uncannily accurate with what I had envisioned that he was eventually rewarded with a Fate Point for it…a generous reward to say the least.) Not having such a key, they backtracked and took the fork in the hallway. This led to a concealed trapdoor under a bed in one of the ground floor bedrooms in the dormitory. They decided to leave the dormitory alone for now.
Back in the room with the destroyed gnome statues, they tried the last secret door. This also led down a hallway that, after a couple turns, came to a wall. All of them could tell from this side that it was actually part of a door. They listened at it and heard nothing. Opening it, they found that it led into the library in the main school building that they had visited earlier. They said a quick hello the studious Zalman, pointed out the secret door to him, and then backtracked again.
Having found no other passages or secret doors in the subterranean levels, they decided to head back up the tower and use (bum bum bahh!) the Toaster Oven of Identify to find out what the couple magic items stored in the hidden stores room were. Again, mostly minor items that they distributed amongst themselves. Consensus vote at this point was to explore the tallest tower…the one in which Zalman and Rurik had been attacked by the stirges, the one with the mirrored sphere
The ground floor of the tall tower, again, had little but rotting furniture and dust. There was a small storeroom that held some brooms, old blankets, buckets, and other odds and ends. They ascended the stairs to the very top where they prepared themselves to deal with the stirges should they still be there. They weren’t. The devastated top two floors of the tower were quiet and empty. A light drizzle and cool breeze filtered in through the missing sections of wall and ceiling. The lower of the two floors had the hallmarks of a laboratory or study that had been badly damaged and ransacked. Deeply buried among the debris, they found a small silver statuette of a raven. Someone tucked this away for later inspection.
The next level up, accessed by a private stairway, appeared to have been living quarters dominated by a bed, furnishings, and a cold fireplace. From here, the ten-foot diameter mirrored sphere that was floating between the destroyed floors and wall could best be viewed. They touched it experimentally and found that it seemed to be completely frictionless…giving it a strange feel. It was perfectly clean, perfectly shaped, and perfectly flawless. They tried pushing it (not easy given its frictionless nature) but it would not yield. They even dragged Zalman up from his studies to take a look at it and to try a dispel magic. He wasn’t entirely convinced that it was magic because a Detect Magic gave some very strange signals, but he tried anyway. No effect. Whatever it was or whatever might be inside it (and some where hypothesizing Shadykin might be inside), they had no way of exploring it further at this time.
Among the debris on this level, though, they did find something of particular interest…something that Amblin had described for them not an hour earlier. It was a metal plate with four keys extending from one side of it. On the other side was a small crank and a series of gears and pins that caused all four keys to move simultaneously. Bingo!
As the great golden dome was one of the most intriguing and elusive parts of the school, everyone was eager to see what was inside. They hurried back into the tunnel system and reached the sealed double doors. Amblin put the keys in place and turned the crank. With a sudden pop, the seal opened a crack and they were able to pull the doors open. They opened into what appeared to be a roughly cut tunnel underground that led to bright sunlight and green grass about forty feet up ahead. This was odd, because they had just noticed it was gray and drizzly outside. The door had the same key holes on the inside. Just to be sure they could get back through it from the inside, a couple went through with the key while a couple remained back on the outside and they shut the door. Amblin then used the key from inside the dome and successfully opened it again. Satisfied that they would be able to get back out, they all went in and headed toward the sunlight and grassy field.
The tunnel opened upon an idyllic landscape of rolling green hills, copses of trees, and a meandering stream. The sky was deep blue and speckled with small, puffy cumulous clouds. Birds chirped in the distance and the warm sun and fragrant breeze soothed their worn nerves. The horizon extended infinitely in each direction with no sign of the inner walls, which should have been plainly visible given that from outside the dome was no more than a hundred fifty feet in diameter.
It was then that they realized, with a bit of panic, that the tunnel leading to the door was nowhere to be seen. It, and the door, was gone.
-Rybaer
