Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Silver Moon" data-source="post: 1241273" data-attributes="member: 8530">Game #7 - 11/23/03Chapter 23, “Chamber of the Wizardess”, September 13th, 1019, 6:30 P.M.Cassie, Mark, Mojo and Narg had been sitting inside of the Bag of Holding for around half-an-hour.   Mojo’s special armor had vanished once they entered the bag, but his wound looked to be fully healed.  Narg is getting impatient and complains, “This is taking way too long.  Why did we send Alton in the first place?”  Mojo replies, “It’s was not so much a case of us sending him as telling him to get away from us.”   Mark comments, “Well, maybe that was a mistake.  He wasn’t with us when were in that group of buildings before, so doesn’t know his way around.”    The bag then opens up, and Alton chimpanzee voice says, “They’ve got everything buttoned up tight.”   “What are you talking about?” Cassie asks.  Alton replies, “The building on the yoke was deserted.  I’ve moved further back and right now I'm before the first three buildings, but the doors and windows are all shut.”   I went inside the middle one, a furnace building with the fires still running, but nobody is around.  “Anyone in any of the crow’s nests?” Narg asks.  Alton replies, “A gargoyle is still on the roof of the building to my right.   Can they see through invisibility?”  Narg replies, “I don’t remember, but why don’t you go to the one on your left instead.”The bag closes up.  A few minutes later it opens again.   Alton says, “No good.  It has no doors, and the windows higher up were only illusionary, with solid walls behind them.”  Mark comments, “That makes no sense.  How does anyone get inside of it?”  Narg replies, “Teleportation.  We saw those Gith creatures doing that.”   Mojo says, “Hold on.  If it was solid wall behind where you saw windows then maybe there are windows behind where you saw solid wall.  Let me out, I’ll take a look.”   Mojo activates his Ring of Invisibility and climbs out.   He notices that they are now around a mile or two closer to the town of Gheldaylin.  The fire in the second floor of the Head Howdah is now burning rather speedily.  He looks up at the building beside him and manages to see through the illusions, confirming that his suspicions about the windows were correct.   He climbs back inside, instructing Alton to climb up and find a real window.    A short while later they are dumped out of the Bag and onto the floor of a twenty-foot diameter room.   The room appears to be a bedchamber for a single individual, with mahogany walls and matching mahogany furniture, including dresses and an armoire.  The room also contains a collection of embroidered pillows. Cassie unfastens the hammock from the wall and begins to roll it up.  “What are you doing?” Narg asks.  She replies, “This is fine silk.  I’m keeping it,” and she then puts in and pillows into a Bag of Holding.   Mojo says, “Why bother?  You don’t actually expect Arrow-Boy to fit in that thing with you? (A reference to her elvan archer boyfriend Aradyn).  She replies, “Sure, we’ll put it under the trapeze.”   Mojo laughs and says, “Yeah, right.  If only he would be that daring.  I’d be willing to bet that Aradyn sleeps on a wooden slab on the floor and that he wears pajamas to bed.”   Narg comments, “Heck, I’ll even bet that he wears wooden pajamas.”  [DM’s note: I always get a kick out of Narg insulting Aradyn, as both characters belong to the same player.]Purge is let out of the first Bag of Holding to check the wooden armoire in the room for traps.  He does not find any, and it does not appear to be locked.   It is opened to reveal very nice women’s clothing, much of which is silk with silver, gold and platinum embroidery on it.   Cassie decides she will take all of it, and starts to remove the garments from the wooden and bone hangers.  Mojo picks one up and asks, “What is this strange thing the clothes are on?”   Cassie replies, “Just hangers, they don’t appear to be magical.”   “Hangers?  I don’t understand?” he comments.   “Something to put clothes on!” She replies.  “What’s wrong with the floor?” is his response. Cassie is determined to find the Wizardess’s magic book, and she begins to check everything in the room where it might be.  She orders the others to look too.   She examines a large mirror fastened to a desk, and contemplates taking it with except it is too big to fit in the Bag of Holding.   Mojo says, “We should take it with us as a gnoll distraction.  They will run up to at and start barking at the other gnolls that they see.”Everyone continues to look around the room more carefully.  Mojo notices for the first time that there is actually a trapdoor concealed by a illusion on the floor.   He finds the edge of it and starts to pry it up, as a rank mangy aroma smelling like unwashed gnolls penetrates.   “What is it?” Mark asks.  Mojo answers, “Based on the smell, I’d say there is a puppy mill down there.”They look below to see a room below is filled with several bunk beds and other crude bedding including blankets and sleeping mats.   Mojo asks, “Why would she want a whole bunch of smelly gnolls sleeping in the room below here.”  Cassie suggests, “They were probably there to help protect her.”  “Or maybe she was a prisoner,” Narg suggests.   A now frustrated Cassie says, “Well, I sure don't see any books down there.  It has to be around here somewhere.”  “Maybe she had it with her,” Mark suggests.   Cassie retorts,  “I sure hope not, because I fried her.”  Alton decides to investigate the room below, and climbs down the ladder.  Feeling around, he discovers that the bunks don’t actually exist, even though he still sees them.   He closes his eyes and relies on his chimpanzee sense of smell, with the gnoll scent now disappearing and being replaced by the smell of beeswax.   He tells this to the others, and Cassie says “It’s her study!"  Cassie  enthusiastically climbs down the ladder.   Feeling around the room, Alton and Cassie soon find a desk.   They yell for Purge to climb down and check for traps. Meanwhile, Mojo takes a much closer look into the room, now seeing it to be a study with a smooth mahogany desk, along side a large amethyst-encrusted pedestal holding a leather-bound tome.  The pedestal itself has been sculpted into the shape of a purple worm with its mouth agape, its hinged jaws securing the book in place.  He tells this to the others and they believe him but are still unable to see through the illusion of the gnoll bunkhouse.    Mojo directs Purge over in the direction of the Pedestal.   As he nears it a female voice calls out “Ah, ah, ah!  If you touch my book it is the innocent who will suffer.”     Mojo comments, “The innocent? Well, none of us have anything to worry about then.”   Purge moves back and Cassie then sends Alton forward, which repeats the message.  “Just a Magic Mouth spell,” she concludes.   Narg starts to lose his patience, and tells Cassie, “This is taking too long.   Just take the book and let’s go.”   “It may be trapped,” Alton suggests.   Narg replies, “Fine, then leave it, and we’ll come back here later.”   “Like that’s really going to happen,” Mojo adds sarcastically.    Cassie grabs the book.   Cassie’s desire to read the volume causes her to now see through the illusion, and she opens it up to confirm that it is indeed a spell book.   She then shuts the book and then hears some screaming.   She tells the others, but nobody else can hear it.  She then begins sees miniature people running around inside of her eyes.  These little people begin to pound on her cornea, and their screams are begging her to release them.   Their screams intensify, and Cassie begins to tell her allies about what is happening.  “Sounds like the book was cursed,” Purge comments.   Narg suggests to Cassie “Put the book back and maybe it will stop.”  She does so, but the people inside of her eyes just yell louder, pleading for her to stop torturing them.   Cassie’s head begins to ache.  Cassie screams out “Damned Cursed Book!”   “And they call me stupid,” Mojo says.  “Because you are!” Cassie yells at him.   “Yeah, right.  You didn’t see me trying to read a cursed book,” is his response. Narg orders everyone out of the lower room.   Cassie goes to grab the book again, and Purge asks “Are you sure that is wise.”   She yells at him, “It’s already done its damage.”  Mojo states “It hurt her, so she feels she must possess it.”     Cassie continues to get increasingly annoyed at the incessant whines she is hearing inside her head and cannot think straight.   Fortunately for her, Mojo reminds her that she also is wearing a medallion from Finder Wyvernspur, that can activate a special suit of armor for her.   She hits her medallion and the armor springs into place, the voices in her head then stopping.   Since this holy armor does not hinder spell casting she decides to retain it, fearing that deactivating it will bring the curse back.   She also notices something that Mojo hadn’t, namely the armor’s visor bestows upon the wearer True Sight.   Mark says, “Yeah, don’t you remember.  Finder added in that power when the evil Overlord in the Abyss tried to trick us into walking through a magical doorway into a pool of lava.”    They all head back upstairs.   The true sight permits Cassie to look through the illusionary windows.   Mojo can also see through them, and the two describe for the others what they see.   The sun has just set over the horizon they are moving towards and the light is beginning to fade.  The fire atop the Kadtanach’s head is now a roaring inferno.  Flying alongside the head are both wyverns, each with two gnolls, a pilot and an archer, the archers aiming at the door of the Head Howdah.   Cassie comments, “They must think we are still inside, and are waiting to shoot us when we run out.”    Lights can be seen from the buildings of the crossroad community of Gheldaylin, now less than a mile away.    She then sees two unknown objects rise up into the air from that town and head in their direction.</blockquote>

Verification