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The Kordovian Adventurers Guild
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6791165" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 11: MANOR OF THE PURPLE MAGE</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Binkadink Dundernoggin, gnome fighter 5</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Castillan Ivenheart, elf bounder 5</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Darrien, half-elf ranger 5</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Finoula Cloudshadow, elf ranger 5</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Gilbert Fung, human wizard 5</p><p></p><p>NPC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Ingebold Battershield, dwarven cleric 5 (Moradin)</p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 1 January 2016</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>The group was in standard traveling formation: Ingebold, Castillan, Darrien, and Gilbert Fung in the mule-driven wagon while Finoula rode Daisy (and Wrath trotted at the pony's heels) and Binkadink rode Obvious on either side about ten feet ahead. The adventurers were making their way down the dirt road near the Ghostwood Forest, south of the small city of Garonis; it was a clear, sunny morning and looked to be a nice day. Binkadink was in a particularly good mood, having put in an order for a masterwork gnomish glaive at a weaponsmith's shop in Garonis before they had left that morning.</p><p></p><p>Suddenly there was the sound of an explosion to the group's left, from somewhere within the forest, and a group of eight purple spheres rocketed skyward above the tallest of the trees. These spheres blossomed out like a flower, with some falling to the wayside and others streaking out as if heading for a specific destination. Almost simultaneously, the six adventurers realized one of them was headed directly their way, morphing in shape as it did so.</p><p></p><p>"Incoming!" called out Gilbert in case the others hadn't noticed. Ingebold switched the reins to her right hand and grabbed up her shield with her left, ready to brace herself for impact if need be. But it never came to that; as the purple sphere closed the gap between itself and the adventurers it slowed down, continuing to alter its shape as it went. By the time it was hovering just to the side of the wagon, it had taken on the appearance of a purple, hooded robe - although one not being worn by anybody who could be seen.</p><p></p><p>Despite the apparent lack of a body, a voice called out from the hovering, purple robe. It said, in a clear, strong voice:</p><p></p><p>With that, the purple robe exploded into a harmless cloud of shining violet and lavender motes that faded away in the slight breeze in seconds.</p><p></p><p>"Well, that weird," commented Gilbert.</p><p></p><p>"It sounds like we were just invited to loot the manor of a dead wizard," pointed out Castillan. "I'm in!"</p><p></p><p>"We might as well check it out," replied Finoula. "I imagine the manor's over there, where the explosion occurred. Should we leave the wagon and the animals here and hike through the woods, or press on down the road and see if it heads over that way?" Those seemed to be the only options, as there was no way the wagon would make it between the trees if they tried making a bee-line to where the purple spheres had begun their path.</p><p></p><p>"If it's a manor, there should be at least an access road leading to it," pointed out Binkadink. "And we'll make better time if we stay on the road." The group decided to continue on down the road for a short while in any case and see if the road - which thus far had been winding here and there rather than staying in an even reasonably straight line - made a turn to where the manor was likely located. Sure enough, after about a half a mile there was indeed a fork to the left, which led in the direction towards where the purple spheres had emanated.</p><p></p><p>But right before the group got to the fork, a large, horse-sized creature leaped onto the dirt-packed road ahead of them from behind a clump of trees. This was a frog, bigger than any the group had ever seen. It croaked loudly, managing to project a sense of great hunger and eager anticipation for a quick meal.</p><p></p><p>Finoula and Binkadink were the closest to the dire frog. The ranger kicked her pony to greater speed and pulled out her longsword, Malaterminus. As Daisy raced by the great beast, Finoula bent to the side and made a swipe with her blade - but the frog hopped back at the last moment, and Malaterminus merely <em>swished</em> harmlessly through the air.</p><p></p><p>Wrath had followed the pony's course and made an effort to bite the frog, but in avoiding the sword-thrust the frog had managed to leap out of the way of the wolf's snapping teeth as well. But Obvious was just as fast as the timber wolf, and Binkadink had led his jackalope to the other side of the frog, so avoiding Finoula only made the beast a better target for the gnome fighter. His glaive lashed out and the blade buried itself into the creature's flank. At nearly the same time, Darrien and Castillan sent arrows flying from the wagon over to the frog. They struck true, and the frog died a relatively quick death, his hunger still unsated - but no longer a problem.</p><p></p><p>After a bit of meandering, the side road did indeed lead up to a manor - a quite impressive-looking one, four levels tall with a set of stone stairs leading up to the double wooden doors. However, the doors were currently open, and standing in the doorway were two elven archers. Finoula and Binkadink slid from their riding mounts as Ingebold brought the mule-cart to a halt. The elven ranger quickly and expertly tied her pony's reins to the side of the wagon. "Watch over the other animals," Binkadink whispered to Obvious in the burrowing-mammal language they shared. Then, as a group, the six adventurers approached the manor, Wrath trotting alongside Finoula.</p><p></p><p>"Hold it right there," one of the elves called to the group, raising their bows and choosing their initial targets. "Don't even bother coming any closer; this manor, and everything within it, has already been spoken for. Looks like you got here a little too late. Now turn around and head on back, and nobody gets hurt. Go on, now."</p><p></p><p>That advice wasn't particularly palatable to the proud members of the Kordovian Adventurers Guild. Looking askance at each other, Castillan and Darrien took off like shots at either end of the stone path leading to the manor, raising their own bows in the process. Finoula and Wrath weren't far behind; Binkadink was just as eager for battle but lagged just a bit behind initially as he first elevated his <em>gnomish stilt-boots</em> to their highest setting. Ingebold and Gilbert were the farthest back, and the wizard took the opportunity to cast a <em>magic circle against evil</em> spell upon himself.</p><p></p><p>"Evil?" asked Finoula as she sprinted to the manor, dodging arrows.</p><p></p><p>"Undoubtedly so," replied Malaterminus in her head using his telepathic powers of communication. "Both of them, very strong readings."</p><p></p><p>Castillan got off a shot that struck the elf on the left; as they got closer to their foes they could see a very strong family resemblance between the two. <strong>Aelios</strong> grunted in pain at the shaft sticking out from his shoulder, and replied with a shrill whistle, which his brother <strong>Stelios</strong> echoed - while shooting an arrow into Binkadink's side, just above his belt. Then, as one, they reached out and pulled the doors closed as they stepped deeper into the manor.</p><p></p><p>Castillan and Darrien, acting in unison like a well-oiled machine, each dropped to a knee and aimed arrows at the closed doors, ready to shoot at the first one to open them and stick their heads out. Before that happened, Binkadink reached the front doorstep, with Finoula and Wrath just behind him. He was shocked when a blue light suddenly encompassed his head; from just behind, Finoula could see the gnome's entire head wreathed in a blue halo. But the light didn't seem to have any negative effect on the gnome, so, shrugging, he pulled open the door, only to be shot at nearly point-blank range by Aelios.</p><p></p><p>Back at the bottom of the stairs, Ingebold and Gilbert got to find out firsthand what the earlier whistling had been about: from out of the surrounding trees, another timber wolf and a hyena came charging in from opposite directions, the hyena biting at the wizard while the wolf went for the cleric. Their cries were enough for Darrien to spin around and shoot at the hyena, helping Gilbert kill his foe. Ingebold slammed her warhammer against the side of the timber wolf's head, and then the wizard finished it off with a <em>magic missile</em> spell from the lesser of his two wands. Both beasts dropped to the ground, dead.</p><p></p><p>Up at the manor's double doors, Finoula had opened up the right-hand door, her head likewise erupting in a halo of blue light as she did so. She stabbed at Stelios with Malaterminus and her short sword both, getting in a shallow cut before the elf jumped back a step and shot at her, getting her just below the shoulder on her left arm. Wrath snuck in between their feet, his head momentarily displaying a halo of greenish light as he crossed the threshold into the manor, but extinguishing itself once he was inside. But once inside, he chomped down on Stelios's leg, causing the elf to roar in pain and crash to the ground. Binkadink finished off Aelios with his glaive; seeing this, when Stelios got back to his feet he abandoned his longbow on the ground and came up swinging with a finely-crafted scimitar. But his initial swipe was a ruse, for he almost immediately turned tail and tried leaping to the top of the lengthy dining room table that bisected the large room behind him, it being the shortest way to get to the stairs at the other side of the room. He didn't make it, being cut down by an arrow to the back, and collapsed face-down onto the wooden table, dead.</p><p></p><p>"We're in," stated Castillan, calling back to the others. Gilbert's head glowed green as he crossed the threshold and Ingebold gained a brief halo of a lighter, sky blue color, but there didn't seem to be any long-term effects from the chromatic displays. The group at first had assumed this was some sort of "marking" magic, so the manor could track them at sundown when they were supposed to be out of the building, but upon seeing the various colors displayed they finally deduced that this was some sort of personality test, showing who was of a generally evil bent and who was good. "I wonder what color these archers'd generate?" wondered Ingebold aloud.</p><p></p><p>"Probably nothing," decided Gilbert. "They dead. Dead people no longer good or evil - they just dead."</p><p></p><p>"You know, we all know you can talk normally," interjected Castillan. "Why you still talk like this?" he asked, imitating the wizard's singsong, pidgin way of speaking.</p><p></p><p>"I talk like I talk," replied Gilbert, visibly irritated. "We check out manor now."</p><p></p><p>The vast dining room took up the majority of the ground floor. There were six statues scattered along the edges of the room, and illumination was provided in the form of numerous <em>everburning torches</em> hanging in sconces. Examining the statues, Ingebold identified each in turn. "Lemure, barbed devil, bearded devil, another lemure, chain devil, erinyes. Interesting - each of these is a devil from the Nine Hells of Baator. This 'Purple Mage' had a strange sense of interior decoration."</p><p></p><p>"I no think these statues," replied Gilbert, examining the nearest. (Just by chance, it happened to be the erinyes, a voluptuous diabolic counterpart to the succubus demon.) "This too detailed. I think they not carved, but turned to stone." Casting a <em>detect magic</em> spell, he gave the statue a closer examination. "Yep, aura of transmutation magic," he announced. "All these statues the same."</p><p></p><p>In the meantime, a few of the others had checked out the three closed doors lined up against the wall to the east. The southernmost one was a study, containing several chairs, a small table, and carved shelves filled with books and various knickknacks. Looking them over, Castillan noticed the books were all selections of poetry. Unimpressed, he started calculating the likely value of the various trinkets, and was a bit happier to note that together they were likely worth more than a hundred gold pieces. That certainly beat books of poetry!</p><p></p><p>Ingebold had opened the middle door, finding it to be a rather unremarkable kitchen. Finoula had entered through the northern door, which proved to be a pantry - there was even a connecting door to the kitchen, and another that led outside; this latter one was barred from the inside. The food all looked fresh, but was mostly staples such as flour, wheat, sugar, wheels of cheese, and small barrels of water and wine.</p><p></p><p>"This boring," declared Gilbert. "Let's look upstairs."</p><p></p><p>There was just the one set of stairs leading up to the next level, and the stairwell continued up, leading to a third and a fourth level as well. The second floor contained a living room and two bedrooms, the larger one apparently belonging to the Purple Mage himself, judging from the chest of drawers filled with men's clothing, much of it in various purple hues. The smaller bedroom didn't look to be in current use and was likely for the occasional guest. The final room on this level was a small library, containing three chairs around a small table, a metal stove for heat - not currently lit - and five small bookshelves filled with books of various sizes and shapes. "But this is odd," pointed out Castillan. "None of the spines have any titles on them."</p><p></p><p>"Let me check it out," demanded Gilbert Fung, casting his eyes over the room with his <em>detect magic</em> spell. "Yep, they all magic," he announced, "Transmutation magic again. Hey elf, touch one and see what happen."</p><p></p><p>"Yeah, I don't think so," replied the bounder, stepping back out of the room.</p><p></p><p>"I have a stupid idea," suggested Darrien. "What if I shot at a book with the <em>Arachnibow</em>, and pulled it off the bookshelf with a silk line from outside the room?"</p><p></p><p>"That's...actually not a stupid idea at all," remarked Finoula. "Give it a go." Darrien did so, standing in the doorway of the small room and choosing his target. He let loose, the arrow turned into a silk line of spider web in mid-flight, he gave the book a tug...and then chaos followed. Not only did Darrien's target book come flying off the shelf, but so did every other book in the room. And they were literally flying - flapping their covers like wings, fluttering around the room in a chaotic swarm. Darrien quickly grabbed the door and pulled it back closed, as the sound of pounding books emanated from within.</p><p></p><p>"Anybody want to go in there?" he asked. Nobody did. Fortunately, even as everyone else was turning back to the stairs to see what was up on the third floor, Darrien gave the closed door one last look, and saw the doorknob starting to turn....</p><p></p><p>"Hey!" he cried, diving for the door and grabbing the knob, holding it in place. Apparently the book he had snagged was using the line of spider web still adhered to it to wind around the doorknob and pull it open. Fortunately, even an animated book was no match for the strength of the half-elf ranger, so Darrien was able to hold the door closed while Castillan tied one end of his rope to the knob and another to a nearby sconce holding an <em>everburning torch</em>. "There!" he replied, satisfied with his handiwork. "They shouldn't be able to get that open now."</p><p></p><p>The group moved upstairs, Binkadink in the lead.</p><p></p><p>Most of the third floor was one big room, with four much smaller rooms at each corner, those to the east containing doors and those to the west being separated by full-length curtains. The large room was lit not only by the <em>everburning torches</em> but also by a number of candles on the floor to the right, positioned around a hand-drawn magic circle in chalk, and on a series of tables directly across from the stairwell, upon which various alchemical experiments seemed to be in mid-progress. A series of bookshelves stood in the middle of the room to the left, as well as a table and chair. The table held a thick tome of some sort.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink entered the room, glaive in hand. As soon as he passed the first bookshelf, he was struck by a <em>scorching ray</em> spell, cast by a wizard who had been huddled between the shelves. The gnome was taken by surprise, but he gritted his teeth, refusing to acknowledge the pain, while at the same moment grateful that of the two balls of fiery energy the wizard had sent his way, only one of them had hit.</p><p></p><p>"<strong>Mira</strong>! <strong>Kira</strong>!" yelled <strong>Armond Petruzzio</strong> as he frantically backed away from the armored gnome. "Those idiot elves we left on guard duty have failed to do their jobs!" Two black-clad women slid out from behind the curtains to the west, and while the two elves at the front doors had looked to have a family resemblance, these two sisters were unmistakably twins. Each wielded a pair of sharp stilettos, and raced across the room to come to the assistance of Armond.</p><p></p><p>However, by that time, most of the rest of the adventurers had made it up the stairs. Gilbert cast a <em>color spray</em> at the nearest woman, Kira, who had been approaching Finoula with deadly intent. The female assassin was instantly stunned; Finoula had no compunctions about slaying her where she stood. Mira had come the long way across the room, avoiding the magic circle on the floor, and was approaching the bookcases where Armond and Binkadink fought it out. The gnome made a successful strike on the wizard with his glaive, but took a <em>lightning bolt</em> to the face for having done so. Smoke curled away from the gnome's armor, but he managed to strike the killing blow on the wizard immediately thereafter. Mira, meanwhile, was peppered with arrows and fell before she had had an opportunity to skewer anyone with her stilettos.</p><p></p><p>The room was quiet; the battle was over. But then Gilbert heard a telepathic call in his mind. "Wizard!" it called. "Behold: I am a <em>book of infinite spells</em>, sitting inside the circle upon the floor. Fetch me, and I can open up untold realms of magical power for you!"</p><p></p><p>"Yeah, I no think so," replied Gilbert aloud, drawing puzzled looks from his friends. Turning to Finoula, he said, "Have sword look for evil in circle." The elven ranger complied, reporting back that Malaterminus had indeed found an aura of evil emanating from the center of the magic circle. "Ha! We onto you!" laughed Gilbert. "How about you show yourself now?"</p><p></p><p>Whatever entity might have been inside the circle opted not to reply. Instead, Castillan heard a telepathic voice in his head. "Hey, elf," it said. "That book in the center of that circle in the floor? It's not really a book - it's a place to hide coins. Seriously, it's filled with platinum coins, centuries old -- worth a fortune, I bet! Why don't you go help yourself to them? The others don't need to know."</p><p></p><p>"Um, guys, something's in my head, telling me to go fetch that book on the floor there," reported Castillan.</p><p></p><p>"Don't enter the circle, whatever you do!" advised Ingebold.</p><p></p><p>"Yeah, there something in there all right," muttered Gilbert. "Here, maybe this help!" He said the words of a <em>grease</em> spell, carefully coating a portion of the circle's interior without having the edge of his spell effect touch the chalk outline of the circle. There on the floor stood two large footprints, made no doubt by there being an invisible creature standing at that spot (and standing there still) when the spell came into effect. They were large paw-prints, looking rather like those of an oversized tiger.</p><p></p><p>"Rakshasa!" deduced Gilbert. "Everybody stay far away from that circle!"</p><p></p><p>"Hey, elf chick," said a voice inside Finoula's mind. "I'm not a rakshasa, I'm a genie. I'll grant you three wishes if you want."</p><p></p><p>"I don't want anything from you," replied Finoula aloud.</p><p></p><p>"C'mon, three wishes. Anything you want. All you have to do is come over here and rub the book on the floor. That's my genie bottle."</p><p></p><p>"I'm not rubbing anything!" replied Finoula rather loudly, raising a few eyebrows.</p><p></p><p>The invisible creature tried a new tactic. "Here boy!" it telepathically called to Wrath. "Who wants some fresh treats? C'mere, boy!" But the wolf was not used to voices suddenly manifesting inside his mind, and rather than obey the voice he just whimpered and pawed at his head. Finoula guessed immediately what was happening and pulled Wrath over by her.</p><p></p><p>"Last chance, wizard," said the voice, trying again with Gilbert. "I'm really a wish-granting genie. You want that elf chick? Wish number one, she'll be all yours."</p><p></p><p>"How you know she not already mine?" challenged Gilbert.</p><p></p><p>"Oh, come on, man. Get real."</p><p></p><p>Deciding they'd spent enough time on the unseen menace, Ingebold cast a <em>detect magic</em> spell and gave the room a once-over. "There are auras of both conjuration and abjuration around that magic circle," she reported.</p><p></p><p>"So whatever's in there is trapped in there," reasoned Finoula. "Good to know."</p><p></p><p>"And this book is radiating very powerful magic," the dwarf added. This time, she was referring to a book on the round table near the bookcases, not the one inside the magic circle. She picked it up and read its title. "'Theoretical Astral Realms Delineating Infinite Spaces.'" She snorted. "Sounds like somethin' a wizard'd read." She put it down, but Castillan picked it right back up, curious about what could be so magical about it.</p><p></p><p>The inside cover of the book held a drawing of a bookcase, filled with a dozen or so books on its top shelf. He turned the book sideways to read their spines: <em>Beholder Variants</em>, <em>Folk Tales of the Vistani</em>, <em>Quinquillian's Journals</em>, and a few others - including the title of the book he was holding. He flipped to the book's inside back cover, which had a picture depicting a line of scrolls. "Hmm," he commented to himself, putting the book back down. Books weren't really his thing.</p><p></p><p>Finoula, in the meantime, had peeked behind the northernmost curtain - the room from which Kira the assassin had emerged - and saw a full-length mirror anchored securely to the floor. Her reflection looked back at her - and then spoke directly into her mind. "Beware, for the betrayal of a beloved friend is the worst kind to bear," her reflection said, her lips moving although the ranger's did not. Then it returned to being a normal reflection in all ways. The elf stepped out of the room to see if anyone else had heard anything from inside the room, but they were all busy checking out other parts of the arcane library and lab. Just to be sure, Finoula re-entered the mirror room and looked at her reflection, but it was back to behaving normally.</p><p></p><p>"Come check this out," she called to the others. Darrien was the closest; he stepped over and looked at the mirror. His reflection stared back at him, then said, quite clearly, "There are many different paths on which a race might be run; you are on a different path than where you believe yourself to be."</p><p></p><p>"Weird," agreed Darrien. He called Binkadink and Castillan over. They stepped into the room together and something odd happened. For a brief second, both the gnome and the elf were visible in the mirror, then Castillan's image winked out. Binkadink's image then said, telepathically, to the gnome, "One you cherish will prove to be from much farther away than you might imagine." Immediately after having passed on this information, Binkadink's mirror image vanished and Castillan's returned, secretly telling the elf, "One day, you will mate with an insect."</p><p></p><p>"I'll <em>what</em>?" demanded Castillan, but the image gave no reply. Now the mirror was reflecting the images of both adventurers in the room, as if nothing were out of the ordinary. But Gilbert and Ingebold both wanted to hear what their mirror images would tell them. Gilbert's said, "Some books always judged by covers; remember this after apparent sudden death." Ingebold's said, "A wounded heart may indeed be mended over time; forgiveness is key."</p><p></p><p>"Weird," everyone agreed.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert picked up the heavy tome on the table, and it had a much bigger effect on him than it had had on either Ingebold or Castillan. His mind was instantly flooded with instructions on how the book could be used to absorb other written works and later display them within its pages; indeed, the only reason the book was labeled "Theoretical Astral Realms Delineating Infinite Spaces" was because that tome had already been absorbed into the <em>Omnibook</em>. Gilbert smiled slyly and pocketed his new treasure.</p><p></p><p>Finoula checked behind the other curtain, but the contents there were less magical: an iron cage held the moldering bones of a human, the unholy symbol of Erythnul, God of Slaughter, still hanging from his skeletal neck. Castillan tried the door to the southeast, finding it to be a closet of sorts well-stocked with all sorts of arcane material spell components, neatly labeled. At the same time, Binkadink was trying to open the door to the northeast, but found it locked. He called the bounder over to help him out, and Castillan had the door open after a few quick seconds with his lockpicks. The room inside contained two chests, two crates, and two barrels, all closed.</p><p></p><p>Castillan cautiously peered at each of the containers, seeking hidden runes or other indicators of a magical trap. Seeing nothing, he randomly chose one of the chests and lifted the lid. It opened without trouble, exposing a pile of gleaming golden coins within. "Now that's more like it!" exclaimed the bounder, picking up a golden coin and admiring its luster.</p><p></p><p>That proved to be a mistake. None of the six containers had been trapped, but it looked as if each of the coins stored inside had been. The coin wriggled out of Castillan's grip as, at the same time, coins began spilling out of the other containers. They all whirled together in the middle of the room, taking on the semblance of a gigantic insect of some type.</p><p></p><p>While it was taking form, Castillan jumped back out of the room and slammed the door back shut. "Slight problem!" he said over his shoulder to the rest of the group.</p><p></p><p>"What's up?" asked Binkadink, but then the problem became evident, for a steady stream of coins began shooting out the bottom of the door, bouncing off the bookcase, and rebuilding the praying mantis form out along the northern wall of the larger room.</p><p></p><p>Darrien didn't need any instructions from the others; he knew instinctively that a giant praying mantis made of gold coins couldn't be a good thing. He shot an arrow at it, striking it straight in the middle of its mass, but the arrow was swallowed up into the creature's midsection and it was difficult to see whether it had had any effect at all. Gilbert pulled out the more powerful of his two <em>wands of magic missiles</em>, and sent a barrage of three streaking blasts directly into the creature; its form warped and buckled where the missiles struck, giving the wizard a tentative indication that at least his blast had done something.</p><p></p><p>But then the coin golem returned fire. Raising one of its forelimbs, rather than striking out with it in the manner of the praying mantis upon which its body was formed, it simply dissolved its limb, shooting the coins that had made up its mass at high speeds in a cone directly in front of it. Gilbert and Ingebold were both in the area of effect -- and so was the magic circle drawn upon the floor in chalk.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink brought his glaive down in a slashing arc into the coin golem's body, but it merely cut a path through the ever-shifting coins and had no visible effect. Likewise, Finoula stabbed at it with Malaterminus, but it was difficult to see if the construct was in the least bit discomfited. In the meantime, Wrath, who had no desire to try to bite at floating metal coins, started growling at something at the back of the room. Finoula looked back at her wolf, then tried to see what it might be growling at -- and saw the line of greasy footprints on the floor.</p><p></p><p>The invisible hellcat, upon being freed by the coin barrage spilling over onto the imprisoning magic circle, had been eager to attack the closest person in the room, but that had been Gilbert Fung - and he was still protected my a <em>magic circle against evil</em> spell. Unable to get to the portly wizard, the hellbeast had circled around the back of the room, skirting the bookshelves and coming up behind Binkadink. Finoula screamed out a warning and the gnome spun around, looking for an enemy but seeing none. Then the hellcat ran a clawed paw across the little gnome's chest and he immediately grasped the situation. His glaive strikes didn't look to be doing much against the coin mantis; he'd see how well an invisible hellcat liked them.</p><p></p><p>Unfortunately, by this time many of the party had been sorely wounded in their various fights, and Ingebold herself was no exception. "Head upstairs!" called Binkadink, making a tactical decision. Both of their current enemies were rather large; they could easily hold them off in the stairwell, where only one of them could attack the heroes. He ran past the coin mantis over to the stairwell, then stood guard while ushering the others up the stairs. "Healing spell?" he asked Ingebold as she passed by, and she channeled healing energy through her fingertips and into the gnome as she ran past. Gilbert, Darrien, Finoula, and Wrath made it to the stairway, but Castillan was in the back of the room, and the coin mantis had cut off the entrance to the stairs by that time. Left in a very large room with an invisible opponent, Castillan weighed his options and took the less obvious route: he kicked in a window, climbed through it, and then scurried up the outer wall of the manor like a lizard, reaching the rooftop before the others.</p><p></p><p>Back in the stairwell, Gilbert stayed back enough to be offered some protection but close enough to still be able to shoot at the coin mantis with his <em>wand of magic missiles</em>. Ingebold shuffled between the rest of the heroes, applying healing magic where it was most needed.</p><p></p><p>Climbing over the parapets and up onto the rooftop, Castillan stood under the afternoon sun. The entire front half of the manor was open to the air; only the back half was roofed over. Underneath this roof, the bounder found a few more of the diabolic statues that seemed to pepper this whole manor; oddly enough, these two - both erinyes - were glowing, giving off pulsating waves of light. But they weren't moving and there didn't seem to be anything bad happening as a result of their glowing, so the bounder put it out of his mind. Instead, he wandered to the center of the roofed section, where a purple-robed man lay slumped into a circular pool of water, his hands and head submerged. Pulling the man out, Castillan saw the man's skin was a light purple and his hair a darker purple; other than that, he looked to be a human in his late sixties or early seventies. But he was unmistakably dead, and his pruned fingertips gave evidence he'd been half-submerged in the pool for some time. There was nothing Castillan could do for the Purple Mage, but he was sure the Purple Mage wouldn't mind if the bounder removed the two magic rings from his fingers, the amulet from around his neck, or the wand in his pocket and the scroll case at his belt.</p><p></p><p>While Castillan was busy looting the Purple Mage, Gilbert fired the final blast from his wand that took out the coin mantis. Immediately, each of the ten thousand coins or so fell clattering to the ground. At the same time, the glowing waves of energy emanating from all of the diabolic "statues" in the manor ceased, their power no longer needed to run the defensive coin golem. The hellcat raced up to the stairwell, but was kept at bay by the protective spell centered on Gilbert. It snarled its irritation.</p><p></p><p>But then Gilbert had an idea. "Dwarf!" he cried. As Ingebold approached, he asked her "You have <em>magic circle against evil</em> spell you can cast?"</p><p></p><p>"Aye," replied the cleric. "Are we needin' another one?" At the wizard's instruction, she cast her own version of the spell, then kept the hellcat from following up the stairs by the simple measure of standing there and staring it down. Gilbert, in the meantime, clambered up the stairs, digging around in his spell component pouch as he did so. When he reached the battlements along the manor's front, he popped a spider in his mouth and began a quick spell. Once the <em>spider climb</em> spell took effect, he climbed down the outer wall, backtracking along the route Castillan had taken to get to the rooftop. Sneaking in through the window, Gilbert raced over to the stairwell as fast as his heavy form would allow him to go, telling Ingebold to back up as he ran. She did so, the hellcat entered the bottom of the stairwell, and then, sensing a trap, tried to back out. But by then, Gilbert had sidled up to him, blocking off his access with the outer perimeter of his <em>magic circle against evil</em> spell. Unable to cross the boundaries of the two spells any more than he'd been able to cross the chalk-inscribed magic circle that had bound him in the Purple Mage's arcane library, the hellcat was trapped. It could do nothing but shriek as Darrien and Castillan shot arrow after arrow into its hide, eventually killing it.</p><p></p><p>"Like shooting fish in barrel," exclaimed Gilbert, inordinately pleased with himself.</p><p></p><p>After that, it was simply a matter of racing against the clock. Nobody knew what would happen if they stayed in the tower past sunset, but nobody wanted to stick around to find out. Fortunately, the magic that formed the thousands of coins into a mantis golem was apparently a one-time effect; Gilbert had the others scoop the scattered coins into their original containers and lug them down the stairs to the waiting wagon, while he tinkered with the <em>Omnibook</em> and learned how to get it to absorb other written works into itself. He didn't get the Purple Mage's entire library contained within the <em>Omnibook</em> - there wasn't time for that - but by ignoring obvious works of poetry and sticking to the more useful topics, he managed to absorb a good portion of it.</p><p></p><p>As the sun started to set, though, everybody rushed out of the manor. They brought the wagon and the animals with them down to the edge of the pathway leading to the Purple Mage's manor, where they could still keep it in view but hopefully be far enough away from any harm that might come from being too close.</p><p></p><p>Inside the manor, as the sun's rays diminished, the diabolic statues began pulsating again. The cascading waves of light pulsed ever faster and faster as time progressed, until when the sun finally went down the entire manor gave off a blinding flash of light. Even after instinctively looking away, the heroes were unable to see anything but an afterimage of the manor for a good half minute.</p><p></p><p>By the time their vision cleared, the manor was gone.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>Inside the manor, things were happening all at once. The statues all gave off a final pulse of blinding light, and the entire manor disappeared from the prime material plane. The devils rose up from their frozen positions, no longer trapped by the Purple Mage's spells, no longer being used as power sources to fuel various magical effects in the manor (like the alignment-detecting runes on the front porch, or the mirror of prophecy, or the coin golem mantis, or the swarms of animated books in the study and the animated cutlery the heroes had avoided setting off in the kitchen). They rose, stretched, and vowed vengeance against the one who had summoned them from the Nine Hells and then ignomiously trapped them.</p><p></p><p>But there would be no vengeance, for the Purple Mage was already dead. He had received a dire prophecy that morning from his daily check-in with the magic mirror, one hinting at his impending death. Going upstairs to perform further divinations at his scrying pool, he had confirmed his worst fears: today was the last day of his life. The news caused his elderly heart to collapse in his chest, confirming the truth of the morning's prophecy.</p><p></p><p>But the Purple Mage died contentedly, knowing that he had put safeguards into place. He'd never get to convert the hellcat into a power source like he had the various other devils before him - a shame, too, for he was eager to see what an invisible statue looked like - nor would he get to finish his experiments with the <em>Omnibook</em>, but he knew that the imprisoned devils would not be let free upon the Oerth just because he was no longer alive to cast the required spells upon them each night to keep them trapped in their immobility.</p><p></p><p>The devils had no sooner regained their mobility when the Manor of the Purple Mage reached its final destination. Popping into sudden existence from the prime material plane, the manor appeared in the rancid skies of the Nine Hells, directly above a lake of burning fire. It plummeted to the bottom of the lake, its imprisoned denizens finally returned to their diabolic home.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>We played through this adventure at my house, as we traditionally host a D&D game session on New Year's Day and follow it up with a two-family dinner, then exchange the Christmas gifts we've gotten for each other. This time, Jacob arrived separately about an hour after his parents and his brother; he'd picked up a last-minute opportunity to get in a half-day's work. (Sometimes it's hard to believe that Jacob, who was 8 years old when we first started gaming together, is now a college student. Fortunately, his college is a mere 45-minute drive from his parents' house, so he still makes it home every other weekend.) But Vicki ran Castillan until Jacob showed up; he came in right after the fight with the dire frog, so he didn't miss much.</p><p></p><p>Poor Joey, though! He had stayed up very late the evening before (New Year's Eve, after all), and was dead tired. That's not much of an exaggeration, either, as he fell heavily asleep right there at our dining room table during the game. Jacob carried him over to our living room sofa, where he slept in a comalike slumber all through the rest of the adventure, all through dinner (we tried waking him, but it just wasn't going to happen), and all through the gift exchange afterwards. He was still groggy and half-unconscious when his mother put his shoes on and his dad carried him to their vehicle to head back home. (My wife Mary packed him a heat-up serving of the dinner he missed, in case he woke up hungry at home, but I'd be willing to bet he slept through the night.)</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>T-Shirt Worn: My Doctor Who TARDIS shirt, because the <em>Omnibook</em>, like the Doctor's TARDIS, is "bigger on the inside than it is in the outside." Also, the Manor of the Purple Mage is a dwelling capable of going from one place to another, much like the TARDIS - although it only ever got to make one trip, the one time, before being destroyed forever. (As an inside joke, I made the book that the <em>Omnibook</em> was originally disguised as be a work whose title's first initials spelled out "TARDIS.")</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6791165, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 11: MANOR OF THE PURPLE MAGE[/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Binkadink Dundernoggin, gnome fighter 5 Castillan Ivenheart, elf bounder 5 Darrien, half-elf ranger 5 Finoula Cloudshadow, elf ranger 5 Gilbert Fung, human wizard 5[/INDENT] NPC Roster: [INDENT]Ingebold Battershield, dwarven cleric 5 (Moradin)[/INDENT] Game Session Date: 1 January 2016 - - - The group was in standard traveling formation: Ingebold, Castillan, Darrien, and Gilbert Fung in the mule-driven wagon while Finoula rode Daisy (and Wrath trotted at the pony's heels) and Binkadink rode Obvious on either side about ten feet ahead. The adventurers were making their way down the dirt road near the Ghostwood Forest, south of the small city of Garonis; it was a clear, sunny morning and looked to be a nice day. Binkadink was in a particularly good mood, having put in an order for a masterwork gnomish glaive at a weaponsmith's shop in Garonis before they had left that morning. Suddenly there was the sound of an explosion to the group's left, from somewhere within the forest, and a group of eight purple spheres rocketed skyward above the tallest of the trees. These spheres blossomed out like a flower, with some falling to the wayside and others streaking out as if heading for a specific destination. Almost simultaneously, the six adventurers realized one of them was headed directly their way, morphing in shape as it did so. "Incoming!" called out Gilbert in case the others hadn't noticed. Ingebold switched the reins to her right hand and grabbed up her shield with her left, ready to brace herself for impact if need be. But it never came to that; as the purple sphere closed the gap between itself and the adventurers it slowed down, continuing to alter its shape as it went. By the time it was hovering just to the side of the wagon, it had taken on the appearance of a purple, hooded robe - although one not being worn by anybody who could be seen. Despite the apparent lack of a body, a voice called out from the hovering, purple robe. It said, in a clear, strong voice: With that, the purple robe exploded into a harmless cloud of shining violet and lavender motes that faded away in the slight breeze in seconds. "Well, that weird," commented Gilbert. "It sounds like we were just invited to loot the manor of a dead wizard," pointed out Castillan. "I'm in!" "We might as well check it out," replied Finoula. "I imagine the manor's over there, where the explosion occurred. Should we leave the wagon and the animals here and hike through the woods, or press on down the road and see if it heads over that way?" Those seemed to be the only options, as there was no way the wagon would make it between the trees if they tried making a bee-line to where the purple spheres had begun their path. "If it's a manor, there should be at least an access road leading to it," pointed out Binkadink. "And we'll make better time if we stay on the road." The group decided to continue on down the road for a short while in any case and see if the road - which thus far had been winding here and there rather than staying in an even reasonably straight line - made a turn to where the manor was likely located. Sure enough, after about a half a mile there was indeed a fork to the left, which led in the direction towards where the purple spheres had emanated. But right before the group got to the fork, a large, horse-sized creature leaped onto the dirt-packed road ahead of them from behind a clump of trees. This was a frog, bigger than any the group had ever seen. It croaked loudly, managing to project a sense of great hunger and eager anticipation for a quick meal. Finoula and Binkadink were the closest to the dire frog. The ranger kicked her pony to greater speed and pulled out her longsword, Malaterminus. As Daisy raced by the great beast, Finoula bent to the side and made a swipe with her blade - but the frog hopped back at the last moment, and Malaterminus merely [i]swished[/i] harmlessly through the air. Wrath had followed the pony's course and made an effort to bite the frog, but in avoiding the sword-thrust the frog had managed to leap out of the way of the wolf's snapping teeth as well. But Obvious was just as fast as the timber wolf, and Binkadink had led his jackalope to the other side of the frog, so avoiding Finoula only made the beast a better target for the gnome fighter. His glaive lashed out and the blade buried itself into the creature's flank. At nearly the same time, Darrien and Castillan sent arrows flying from the wagon over to the frog. They struck true, and the frog died a relatively quick death, his hunger still unsated - but no longer a problem. After a bit of meandering, the side road did indeed lead up to a manor - a quite impressive-looking one, four levels tall with a set of stone stairs leading up to the double wooden doors. However, the doors were currently open, and standing in the doorway were two elven archers. Finoula and Binkadink slid from their riding mounts as Ingebold brought the mule-cart to a halt. The elven ranger quickly and expertly tied her pony's reins to the side of the wagon. "Watch over the other animals," Binkadink whispered to Obvious in the burrowing-mammal language they shared. Then, as a group, the six adventurers approached the manor, Wrath trotting alongside Finoula. "Hold it right there," one of the elves called to the group, raising their bows and choosing their initial targets. "Don't even bother coming any closer; this manor, and everything within it, has already been spoken for. Looks like you got here a little too late. Now turn around and head on back, and nobody gets hurt. Go on, now." That advice wasn't particularly palatable to the proud members of the Kordovian Adventurers Guild. Looking askance at each other, Castillan and Darrien took off like shots at either end of the stone path leading to the manor, raising their own bows in the process. Finoula and Wrath weren't far behind; Binkadink was just as eager for battle but lagged just a bit behind initially as he first elevated his [i]gnomish stilt-boots[/i] to their highest setting. Ingebold and Gilbert were the farthest back, and the wizard took the opportunity to cast a [i]magic circle against evil[/i] spell upon himself. "Evil?" asked Finoula as she sprinted to the manor, dodging arrows. "Undoubtedly so," replied Malaterminus in her head using his telepathic powers of communication. "Both of them, very strong readings." Castillan got off a shot that struck the elf on the left; as they got closer to their foes they could see a very strong family resemblance between the two. [b]Aelios[/b] grunted in pain at the shaft sticking out from his shoulder, and replied with a shrill whistle, which his brother [b]Stelios[/b] echoed - while shooting an arrow into Binkadink's side, just above his belt. Then, as one, they reached out and pulled the doors closed as they stepped deeper into the manor. Castillan and Darrien, acting in unison like a well-oiled machine, each dropped to a knee and aimed arrows at the closed doors, ready to shoot at the first one to open them and stick their heads out. Before that happened, Binkadink reached the front doorstep, with Finoula and Wrath just behind him. He was shocked when a blue light suddenly encompassed his head; from just behind, Finoula could see the gnome's entire head wreathed in a blue halo. But the light didn't seem to have any negative effect on the gnome, so, shrugging, he pulled open the door, only to be shot at nearly point-blank range by Aelios. Back at the bottom of the stairs, Ingebold and Gilbert got to find out firsthand what the earlier whistling had been about: from out of the surrounding trees, another timber wolf and a hyena came charging in from opposite directions, the hyena biting at the wizard while the wolf went for the cleric. Their cries were enough for Darrien to spin around and shoot at the hyena, helping Gilbert kill his foe. Ingebold slammed her warhammer against the side of the timber wolf's head, and then the wizard finished it off with a [i]magic missile[/i] spell from the lesser of his two wands. Both beasts dropped to the ground, dead. Up at the manor's double doors, Finoula had opened up the right-hand door, her head likewise erupting in a halo of blue light as she did so. She stabbed at Stelios with Malaterminus and her short sword both, getting in a shallow cut before the elf jumped back a step and shot at her, getting her just below the shoulder on her left arm. Wrath snuck in between their feet, his head momentarily displaying a halo of greenish light as he crossed the threshold into the manor, but extinguishing itself once he was inside. But once inside, he chomped down on Stelios's leg, causing the elf to roar in pain and crash to the ground. Binkadink finished off Aelios with his glaive; seeing this, when Stelios got back to his feet he abandoned his longbow on the ground and came up swinging with a finely-crafted scimitar. But his initial swipe was a ruse, for he almost immediately turned tail and tried leaping to the top of the lengthy dining room table that bisected the large room behind him, it being the shortest way to get to the stairs at the other side of the room. He didn't make it, being cut down by an arrow to the back, and collapsed face-down onto the wooden table, dead. "We're in," stated Castillan, calling back to the others. Gilbert's head glowed green as he crossed the threshold and Ingebold gained a brief halo of a lighter, sky blue color, but there didn't seem to be any long-term effects from the chromatic displays. The group at first had assumed this was some sort of "marking" magic, so the manor could track them at sundown when they were supposed to be out of the building, but upon seeing the various colors displayed they finally deduced that this was some sort of personality test, showing who was of a generally evil bent and who was good. "I wonder what color these archers'd generate?" wondered Ingebold aloud. "Probably nothing," decided Gilbert. "They dead. Dead people no longer good or evil - they just dead." "You know, we all know you can talk normally," interjected Castillan. "Why you still talk like this?" he asked, imitating the wizard's singsong, pidgin way of speaking. "I talk like I talk," replied Gilbert, visibly irritated. "We check out manor now." The vast dining room took up the majority of the ground floor. There were six statues scattered along the edges of the room, and illumination was provided in the form of numerous [i]everburning torches[/i] hanging in sconces. Examining the statues, Ingebold identified each in turn. "Lemure, barbed devil, bearded devil, another lemure, chain devil, erinyes. Interesting - each of these is a devil from the Nine Hells of Baator. This 'Purple Mage' had a strange sense of interior decoration." "I no think these statues," replied Gilbert, examining the nearest. (Just by chance, it happened to be the erinyes, a voluptuous diabolic counterpart to the succubus demon.) "This too detailed. I think they not carved, but turned to stone." Casting a [i]detect magic[/i] spell, he gave the statue a closer examination. "Yep, aura of transmutation magic," he announced. "All these statues the same." In the meantime, a few of the others had checked out the three closed doors lined up against the wall to the east. The southernmost one was a study, containing several chairs, a small table, and carved shelves filled with books and various knickknacks. Looking them over, Castillan noticed the books were all selections of poetry. Unimpressed, he started calculating the likely value of the various trinkets, and was a bit happier to note that together they were likely worth more than a hundred gold pieces. That certainly beat books of poetry! Ingebold had opened the middle door, finding it to be a rather unremarkable kitchen. Finoula had entered through the northern door, which proved to be a pantry - there was even a connecting door to the kitchen, and another that led outside; this latter one was barred from the inside. The food all looked fresh, but was mostly staples such as flour, wheat, sugar, wheels of cheese, and small barrels of water and wine. "This boring," declared Gilbert. "Let's look upstairs." There was just the one set of stairs leading up to the next level, and the stairwell continued up, leading to a third and a fourth level as well. The second floor contained a living room and two bedrooms, the larger one apparently belonging to the Purple Mage himself, judging from the chest of drawers filled with men's clothing, much of it in various purple hues. The smaller bedroom didn't look to be in current use and was likely for the occasional guest. The final room on this level was a small library, containing three chairs around a small table, a metal stove for heat - not currently lit - and five small bookshelves filled with books of various sizes and shapes. "But this is odd," pointed out Castillan. "None of the spines have any titles on them." "Let me check it out," demanded Gilbert Fung, casting his eyes over the room with his [i]detect magic[/i] spell. "Yep, they all magic," he announced, "Transmutation magic again. Hey elf, touch one and see what happen." "Yeah, I don't think so," replied the bounder, stepping back out of the room. "I have a stupid idea," suggested Darrien. "What if I shot at a book with the [i]Arachnibow[/i], and pulled it off the bookshelf with a silk line from outside the room?" "That's...actually not a stupid idea at all," remarked Finoula. "Give it a go." Darrien did so, standing in the doorway of the small room and choosing his target. He let loose, the arrow turned into a silk line of spider web in mid-flight, he gave the book a tug...and then chaos followed. Not only did Darrien's target book come flying off the shelf, but so did every other book in the room. And they were literally flying - flapping their covers like wings, fluttering around the room in a chaotic swarm. Darrien quickly grabbed the door and pulled it back closed, as the sound of pounding books emanated from within. "Anybody want to go in there?" he asked. Nobody did. Fortunately, even as everyone else was turning back to the stairs to see what was up on the third floor, Darrien gave the closed door one last look, and saw the doorknob starting to turn.... "Hey!" he cried, diving for the door and grabbing the knob, holding it in place. Apparently the book he had snagged was using the line of spider web still adhered to it to wind around the doorknob and pull it open. Fortunately, even an animated book was no match for the strength of the half-elf ranger, so Darrien was able to hold the door closed while Castillan tied one end of his rope to the knob and another to a nearby sconce holding an [i]everburning torch[/i]. "There!" he replied, satisfied with his handiwork. "They shouldn't be able to get that open now." The group moved upstairs, Binkadink in the lead. Most of the third floor was one big room, with four much smaller rooms at each corner, those to the east containing doors and those to the west being separated by full-length curtains. The large room was lit not only by the [i]everburning torches[/i] but also by a number of candles on the floor to the right, positioned around a hand-drawn magic circle in chalk, and on a series of tables directly across from the stairwell, upon which various alchemical experiments seemed to be in mid-progress. A series of bookshelves stood in the middle of the room to the left, as well as a table and chair. The table held a thick tome of some sort. Binkadink entered the room, glaive in hand. As soon as he passed the first bookshelf, he was struck by a [i]scorching ray[/i] spell, cast by a wizard who had been huddled between the shelves. The gnome was taken by surprise, but he gritted his teeth, refusing to acknowledge the pain, while at the same moment grateful that of the two balls of fiery energy the wizard had sent his way, only one of them had hit. "[b]Mira[/b]! [b]Kira[/b]!" yelled [b]Armond Petruzzio[/b] as he frantically backed away from the armored gnome. "Those idiot elves we left on guard duty have failed to do their jobs!" Two black-clad women slid out from behind the curtains to the west, and while the two elves at the front doors had looked to have a family resemblance, these two sisters were unmistakably twins. Each wielded a pair of sharp stilettos, and raced across the room to come to the assistance of Armond. However, by that time, most of the rest of the adventurers had made it up the stairs. Gilbert cast a [i]color spray[/i] at the nearest woman, Kira, who had been approaching Finoula with deadly intent. The female assassin was instantly stunned; Finoula had no compunctions about slaying her where she stood. Mira had come the long way across the room, avoiding the magic circle on the floor, and was approaching the bookcases where Armond and Binkadink fought it out. The gnome made a successful strike on the wizard with his glaive, but took a [i]lightning bolt[/i] to the face for having done so. Smoke curled away from the gnome's armor, but he managed to strike the killing blow on the wizard immediately thereafter. Mira, meanwhile, was peppered with arrows and fell before she had had an opportunity to skewer anyone with her stilettos. The room was quiet; the battle was over. But then Gilbert heard a telepathic call in his mind. "Wizard!" it called. "Behold: I am a [i]book of infinite spells[/i], sitting inside the circle upon the floor. Fetch me, and I can open up untold realms of magical power for you!" "Yeah, I no think so," replied Gilbert aloud, drawing puzzled looks from his friends. Turning to Finoula, he said, "Have sword look for evil in circle." The elven ranger complied, reporting back that Malaterminus had indeed found an aura of evil emanating from the center of the magic circle. "Ha! We onto you!" laughed Gilbert. "How about you show yourself now?" Whatever entity might have been inside the circle opted not to reply. Instead, Castillan heard a telepathic voice in his head. "Hey, elf," it said. "That book in the center of that circle in the floor? It's not really a book - it's a place to hide coins. Seriously, it's filled with platinum coins, centuries old -- worth a fortune, I bet! Why don't you go help yourself to them? The others don't need to know." "Um, guys, something's in my head, telling me to go fetch that book on the floor there," reported Castillan. "Don't enter the circle, whatever you do!" advised Ingebold. "Yeah, there something in there all right," muttered Gilbert. "Here, maybe this help!" He said the words of a [i]grease[/i] spell, carefully coating a portion of the circle's interior without having the edge of his spell effect touch the chalk outline of the circle. There on the floor stood two large footprints, made no doubt by there being an invisible creature standing at that spot (and standing there still) when the spell came into effect. They were large paw-prints, looking rather like those of an oversized tiger. "Rakshasa!" deduced Gilbert. "Everybody stay far away from that circle!" "Hey, elf chick," said a voice inside Finoula's mind. "I'm not a rakshasa, I'm a genie. I'll grant you three wishes if you want." "I don't want anything from you," replied Finoula aloud. "C'mon, three wishes. Anything you want. All you have to do is come over here and rub the book on the floor. That's my genie bottle." "I'm not rubbing anything!" replied Finoula rather loudly, raising a few eyebrows. The invisible creature tried a new tactic. "Here boy!" it telepathically called to Wrath. "Who wants some fresh treats? C'mere, boy!" But the wolf was not used to voices suddenly manifesting inside his mind, and rather than obey the voice he just whimpered and pawed at his head. Finoula guessed immediately what was happening and pulled Wrath over by her. "Last chance, wizard," said the voice, trying again with Gilbert. "I'm really a wish-granting genie. You want that elf chick? Wish number one, she'll be all yours." "How you know she not already mine?" challenged Gilbert. "Oh, come on, man. Get real." Deciding they'd spent enough time on the unseen menace, Ingebold cast a [i]detect magic[/i] spell and gave the room a once-over. "There are auras of both conjuration and abjuration around that magic circle," she reported. "So whatever's in there is trapped in there," reasoned Finoula. "Good to know." "And this book is radiating very powerful magic," the dwarf added. This time, she was referring to a book on the round table near the bookcases, not the one inside the magic circle. She picked it up and read its title. "'Theoretical Astral Realms Delineating Infinite Spaces.'" She snorted. "Sounds like somethin' a wizard'd read." She put it down, but Castillan picked it right back up, curious about what could be so magical about it. The inside cover of the book held a drawing of a bookcase, filled with a dozen or so books on its top shelf. He turned the book sideways to read their spines: [i]Beholder Variants[/i], [i]Folk Tales of the Vistani[/i], [i]Quinquillian's Journals[/i], and a few others - including the title of the book he was holding. He flipped to the book's inside back cover, which had a picture depicting a line of scrolls. "Hmm," he commented to himself, putting the book back down. Books weren't really his thing. Finoula, in the meantime, had peeked behind the northernmost curtain - the room from which Kira the assassin had emerged - and saw a full-length mirror anchored securely to the floor. Her reflection looked back at her - and then spoke directly into her mind. "Beware, for the betrayal of a beloved friend is the worst kind to bear," her reflection said, her lips moving although the ranger's did not. Then it returned to being a normal reflection in all ways. The elf stepped out of the room to see if anyone else had heard anything from inside the room, but they were all busy checking out other parts of the arcane library and lab. Just to be sure, Finoula re-entered the mirror room and looked at her reflection, but it was back to behaving normally. "Come check this out," she called to the others. Darrien was the closest; he stepped over and looked at the mirror. His reflection stared back at him, then said, quite clearly, "There are many different paths on which a race might be run; you are on a different path than where you believe yourself to be." "Weird," agreed Darrien. He called Binkadink and Castillan over. They stepped into the room together and something odd happened. For a brief second, both the gnome and the elf were visible in the mirror, then Castillan's image winked out. Binkadink's image then said, telepathically, to the gnome, "One you cherish will prove to be from much farther away than you might imagine." Immediately after having passed on this information, Binkadink's mirror image vanished and Castillan's returned, secretly telling the elf, "One day, you will mate with an insect." "I'll [i]what[/i]?" demanded Castillan, but the image gave no reply. Now the mirror was reflecting the images of both adventurers in the room, as if nothing were out of the ordinary. But Gilbert and Ingebold both wanted to hear what their mirror images would tell them. Gilbert's said, "Some books always judged by covers; remember this after apparent sudden death." Ingebold's said, "A wounded heart may indeed be mended over time; forgiveness is key." "Weird," everyone agreed. Gilbert picked up the heavy tome on the table, and it had a much bigger effect on him than it had had on either Ingebold or Castillan. His mind was instantly flooded with instructions on how the book could be used to absorb other written works and later display them within its pages; indeed, the only reason the book was labeled "Theoretical Astral Realms Delineating Infinite Spaces" was because that tome had already been absorbed into the [i]Omnibook[/i]. Gilbert smiled slyly and pocketed his new treasure. Finoula checked behind the other curtain, but the contents there were less magical: an iron cage held the moldering bones of a human, the unholy symbol of Erythnul, God of Slaughter, still hanging from his skeletal neck. Castillan tried the door to the southeast, finding it to be a closet of sorts well-stocked with all sorts of arcane material spell components, neatly labeled. At the same time, Binkadink was trying to open the door to the northeast, but found it locked. He called the bounder over to help him out, and Castillan had the door open after a few quick seconds with his lockpicks. The room inside contained two chests, two crates, and two barrels, all closed. Castillan cautiously peered at each of the containers, seeking hidden runes or other indicators of a magical trap. Seeing nothing, he randomly chose one of the chests and lifted the lid. It opened without trouble, exposing a pile of gleaming golden coins within. "Now that's more like it!" exclaimed the bounder, picking up a golden coin and admiring its luster. That proved to be a mistake. None of the six containers had been trapped, but it looked as if each of the coins stored inside had been. The coin wriggled out of Castillan's grip as, at the same time, coins began spilling out of the other containers. They all whirled together in the middle of the room, taking on the semblance of a gigantic insect of some type. While it was taking form, Castillan jumped back out of the room and slammed the door back shut. "Slight problem!" he said over his shoulder to the rest of the group. "What's up?" asked Binkadink, but then the problem became evident, for a steady stream of coins began shooting out the bottom of the door, bouncing off the bookcase, and rebuilding the praying mantis form out along the northern wall of the larger room. Darrien didn't need any instructions from the others; he knew instinctively that a giant praying mantis made of gold coins couldn't be a good thing. He shot an arrow at it, striking it straight in the middle of its mass, but the arrow was swallowed up into the creature's midsection and it was difficult to see whether it had had any effect at all. Gilbert pulled out the more powerful of his two [i]wands of magic missiles[/i], and sent a barrage of three streaking blasts directly into the creature; its form warped and buckled where the missiles struck, giving the wizard a tentative indication that at least his blast had done something. But then the coin golem returned fire. Raising one of its forelimbs, rather than striking out with it in the manner of the praying mantis upon which its body was formed, it simply dissolved its limb, shooting the coins that had made up its mass at high speeds in a cone directly in front of it. Gilbert and Ingebold were both in the area of effect -- and so was the magic circle drawn upon the floor in chalk. Binkadink brought his glaive down in a slashing arc into the coin golem's body, but it merely cut a path through the ever-shifting coins and had no visible effect. Likewise, Finoula stabbed at it with Malaterminus, but it was difficult to see if the construct was in the least bit discomfited. In the meantime, Wrath, who had no desire to try to bite at floating metal coins, started growling at something at the back of the room. Finoula looked back at her wolf, then tried to see what it might be growling at -- and saw the line of greasy footprints on the floor. The invisible hellcat, upon being freed by the coin barrage spilling over onto the imprisoning magic circle, had been eager to attack the closest person in the room, but that had been Gilbert Fung - and he was still protected my a [i]magic circle against evil[/i] spell. Unable to get to the portly wizard, the hellbeast had circled around the back of the room, skirting the bookshelves and coming up behind Binkadink. Finoula screamed out a warning and the gnome spun around, looking for an enemy but seeing none. Then the hellcat ran a clawed paw across the little gnome's chest and he immediately grasped the situation. His glaive strikes didn't look to be doing much against the coin mantis; he'd see how well an invisible hellcat liked them. Unfortunately, by this time many of the party had been sorely wounded in their various fights, and Ingebold herself was no exception. "Head upstairs!" called Binkadink, making a tactical decision. Both of their current enemies were rather large; they could easily hold them off in the stairwell, where only one of them could attack the heroes. He ran past the coin mantis over to the stairwell, then stood guard while ushering the others up the stairs. "Healing spell?" he asked Ingebold as she passed by, and she channeled healing energy through her fingertips and into the gnome as she ran past. Gilbert, Darrien, Finoula, and Wrath made it to the stairway, but Castillan was in the back of the room, and the coin mantis had cut off the entrance to the stairs by that time. Left in a very large room with an invisible opponent, Castillan weighed his options and took the less obvious route: he kicked in a window, climbed through it, and then scurried up the outer wall of the manor like a lizard, reaching the rooftop before the others. Back in the stairwell, Gilbert stayed back enough to be offered some protection but close enough to still be able to shoot at the coin mantis with his [i]wand of magic missiles[/i]. Ingebold shuffled between the rest of the heroes, applying healing magic where it was most needed. Climbing over the parapets and up onto the rooftop, Castillan stood under the afternoon sun. The entire front half of the manor was open to the air; only the back half was roofed over. Underneath this roof, the bounder found a few more of the diabolic statues that seemed to pepper this whole manor; oddly enough, these two - both erinyes - were glowing, giving off pulsating waves of light. But they weren't moving and there didn't seem to be anything bad happening as a result of their glowing, so the bounder put it out of his mind. Instead, he wandered to the center of the roofed section, where a purple-robed man lay slumped into a circular pool of water, his hands and head submerged. Pulling the man out, Castillan saw the man's skin was a light purple and his hair a darker purple; other than that, he looked to be a human in his late sixties or early seventies. But he was unmistakably dead, and his pruned fingertips gave evidence he'd been half-submerged in the pool for some time. There was nothing Castillan could do for the Purple Mage, but he was sure the Purple Mage wouldn't mind if the bounder removed the two magic rings from his fingers, the amulet from around his neck, or the wand in his pocket and the scroll case at his belt. While Castillan was busy looting the Purple Mage, Gilbert fired the final blast from his wand that took out the coin mantis. Immediately, each of the ten thousand coins or so fell clattering to the ground. At the same time, the glowing waves of energy emanating from all of the diabolic "statues" in the manor ceased, their power no longer needed to run the defensive coin golem. The hellcat raced up to the stairwell, but was kept at bay by the protective spell centered on Gilbert. It snarled its irritation. But then Gilbert had an idea. "Dwarf!" he cried. As Ingebold approached, he asked her "You have [i]magic circle against evil[/i] spell you can cast?" "Aye," replied the cleric. "Are we needin' another one?" At the wizard's instruction, she cast her own version of the spell, then kept the hellcat from following up the stairs by the simple measure of standing there and staring it down. Gilbert, in the meantime, clambered up the stairs, digging around in his spell component pouch as he did so. When he reached the battlements along the manor's front, he popped a spider in his mouth and began a quick spell. Once the [i]spider climb[/i] spell took effect, he climbed down the outer wall, backtracking along the route Castillan had taken to get to the rooftop. Sneaking in through the window, Gilbert raced over to the stairwell as fast as his heavy form would allow him to go, telling Ingebold to back up as he ran. She did so, the hellcat entered the bottom of the stairwell, and then, sensing a trap, tried to back out. But by then, Gilbert had sidled up to him, blocking off his access with the outer perimeter of his [i]magic circle against evil[/i] spell. Unable to cross the boundaries of the two spells any more than he'd been able to cross the chalk-inscribed magic circle that had bound him in the Purple Mage's arcane library, the hellcat was trapped. It could do nothing but shriek as Darrien and Castillan shot arrow after arrow into its hide, eventually killing it. "Like shooting fish in barrel," exclaimed Gilbert, inordinately pleased with himself. After that, it was simply a matter of racing against the clock. Nobody knew what would happen if they stayed in the tower past sunset, but nobody wanted to stick around to find out. Fortunately, the magic that formed the thousands of coins into a mantis golem was apparently a one-time effect; Gilbert had the others scoop the scattered coins into their original containers and lug them down the stairs to the waiting wagon, while he tinkered with the [i]Omnibook[/i] and learned how to get it to absorb other written works into itself. He didn't get the Purple Mage's entire library contained within the [i]Omnibook[/i] - there wasn't time for that - but by ignoring obvious works of poetry and sticking to the more useful topics, he managed to absorb a good portion of it. As the sun started to set, though, everybody rushed out of the manor. They brought the wagon and the animals with them down to the edge of the pathway leading to the Purple Mage's manor, where they could still keep it in view but hopefully be far enough away from any harm that might come from being too close. Inside the manor, as the sun's rays diminished, the diabolic statues began pulsating again. The cascading waves of light pulsed ever faster and faster as time progressed, until when the sun finally went down the entire manor gave off a blinding flash of light. Even after instinctively looking away, the heroes were unable to see anything but an afterimage of the manor for a good half minute. By the time their vision cleared, the manor was gone. - - - Inside the manor, things were happening all at once. The statues all gave off a final pulse of blinding light, and the entire manor disappeared from the prime material plane. The devils rose up from their frozen positions, no longer trapped by the Purple Mage's spells, no longer being used as power sources to fuel various magical effects in the manor (like the alignment-detecting runes on the front porch, or the mirror of prophecy, or the coin golem mantis, or the swarms of animated books in the study and the animated cutlery the heroes had avoided setting off in the kitchen). They rose, stretched, and vowed vengeance against the one who had summoned them from the Nine Hells and then ignomiously trapped them. But there would be no vengeance, for the Purple Mage was already dead. He had received a dire prophecy that morning from his daily check-in with the magic mirror, one hinting at his impending death. Going upstairs to perform further divinations at his scrying pool, he had confirmed his worst fears: today was the last day of his life. The news caused his elderly heart to collapse in his chest, confirming the truth of the morning's prophecy. But the Purple Mage died contentedly, knowing that he had put safeguards into place. He'd never get to convert the hellcat into a power source like he had the various other devils before him - a shame, too, for he was eager to see what an invisible statue looked like - nor would he get to finish his experiments with the [i]Omnibook[/i], but he knew that the imprisoned devils would not be let free upon the Oerth just because he was no longer alive to cast the required spells upon them each night to keep them trapped in their immobility. The devils had no sooner regained their mobility when the Manor of the Purple Mage reached its final destination. Popping into sudden existence from the prime material plane, the manor appeared in the rancid skies of the Nine Hells, directly above a lake of burning fire. It plummeted to the bottom of the lake, its imprisoned denizens finally returned to their diabolic home. - - - We played through this adventure at my house, as we traditionally host a D&D game session on New Year's Day and follow it up with a two-family dinner, then exchange the Christmas gifts we've gotten for each other. This time, Jacob arrived separately about an hour after his parents and his brother; he'd picked up a last-minute opportunity to get in a half-day's work. (Sometimes it's hard to believe that Jacob, who was 8 years old when we first started gaming together, is now a college student. Fortunately, his college is a mere 45-minute drive from his parents' house, so he still makes it home every other weekend.) But Vicki ran Castillan until Jacob showed up; he came in right after the fight with the dire frog, so he didn't miss much. Poor Joey, though! He had stayed up very late the evening before (New Year's Eve, after all), and was dead tired. That's not much of an exaggeration, either, as he fell heavily asleep right there at our dining room table during the game. Jacob carried him over to our living room sofa, where he slept in a comalike slumber all through the rest of the adventure, all through dinner (we tried waking him, but it just wasn't going to happen), and all through the gift exchange afterwards. He was still groggy and half-unconscious when his mother put his shoes on and his dad carried him to their vehicle to head back home. (My wife Mary packed him a heat-up serving of the dinner he missed, in case he woke up hungry at home, but I'd be willing to bet he slept through the night.) - - - T-Shirt Worn: My Doctor Who TARDIS shirt, because the [i]Omnibook[/i], like the Doctor's TARDIS, is "bigger on the inside than it is in the outside." Also, the Manor of the Purple Mage is a dwelling capable of going from one place to another, much like the TARDIS - although it only ever got to make one trip, the one time, before being destroyed forever. (As an inside joke, I made the book that the [i]Omnibook[/i] was originally disguised as be a work whose title's first initials spelled out "TARDIS.") [/QUOTE]
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