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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jeremy" data-source="post: 9743218" data-attributes="member: 4036"><h3>1/15/22</h3>While the little fey spirits go scouting, the party searches the immediate area.  Veldra searches a cabinet while Grath excavates a copper piece.  Veldra finds a bunch of crumbling paper and a metal scroll case.  Grath opens the scroll case and identifies a scroll of Raise Dead.  When the spirits return, Gribitz tries to draw on the floor what the girls describe.  Rho goes through some barrels of glassware and finds six intact potions.  One of them is labeled Potion of Labors and the others are labeled Greater Healing.  There’s the rotting body of a goblin in another barrel.After discussing the drawing the party picks a path and heads into the tunnels. One of the doors looks suspicious and when questioned by Gribitz why it looks so odd it replies somewhat offended that it is not odd, just hungry.  Gribitz commiserates as he too is always hungry and offers a goodberry he promises will fill him up for the day.   The "door" is surprisingly helpful afterwards, warning of several spike traps and pressure plates ahead that trigger various deadly traps.  The party and the "door" make conversation for a while about the mimic's earliest memories of this underground tower, what it has seen, and why it has never left.  Apparently the traps are effective in providing a steady supply of food for the mimic, usually out of some of the goblin tribes that have infested this particular level.  Grath asks what Gribitz thinks they should do about the goblins but the shaman just shrugs.  The first goblin the party encounters isn't even awake.  Gribitz loudly demands to know what its name is.  The other goblin sputters awake startled and doesn't even seem to comprehend that it should have a name, it insists that only the boss has a name before going off on a tangent and asking suspiciously if the party has come from the demonic downstairs.  Gribitz immediatley answers that they indeed have which terrifies the sleepy sentry.  Gribitz just waves dismissively and tells it that it doesn’t have enough meat on its bones to justify eating it before ordering it to get out of the way so it doesn’t get squished.At the next branching fork the party opts for the northern tunnel and comes to a locked door.  Gribitz pops the lock on a door and sees some magically embiggened mushrooms much to his delight.  He is distracted however when something in a barrel starts talking telepathically to him.  As the voice explains that it too is a mushroom Gribitz excitedly wants to know if he is a tasty mushroom.  Grath is aghast and apologizes as the entire party is suddenly able to communicate with just their thoughts.  Grath immediately turns to scolding Gribitz for wanting to eat mushroom people.  Gribitz complains, “But it’s a mushroom!”  “No, mushroom PEOPLE.  People FIRST.”  Grath forcefully declares.  But Gribitz just snorts and says, “Nuh uh, he said MUSHROOM first!”Rho carefully opens several of the barrels looking for the talking mushroom.  The one he finds actually has legs and can move were it not in a sealed barrel.  It is very weak, and Rho carefully scoops it out of the barrel. Gribitz helps and waters it a little.  Surprisingly the mushroom knows next to nothing about anything outside of the barrel.  After some frustrating conversation it seems the little creature might have become aware only recently.  Gribitz warns that as a fellow small, weak, uneducated creature everything it meets will want to kill it so it needs to make friends quickly with a big creature and stay near it if it wants to survive.Kith finds a magic blue book and Grath flips through it but it’s all in riddles and he can’t make sense of it.  Gribitz suggests the name Brain for the myconid because it talks in their brains.  He offers it a goodberry which it consumes and likes and even grows from eating. Gribitz asks if he can eat Brain in return if he dies.  Brain doesn't see any issue with eating the dead and agrees affably.Further discussion is interrupted by the sleepy goblin sentry racing past the party's hallway exclaiming that it is time.  The party backtracks a bit and follows the tunnel the goblin had raced down with a couple of the remaining fey spirits flitting about invisibly above and enjoying the chaos.  As the party follows, goblins converge from any number of other tunnels they pass, all similarly excited that "It's time!" and all racing the same direction.  Some of the tunnels the swarm of goblins pour out of and funnel through were hidden but their small forms rushing through them make them easy enough to spot in hindsight.  Eventually the mass arrives at a large chamber with a crystal in the middle and a pile of rubble with a goblin that must stand five feet tall presiding from the garbage heap.Inside the chamber Grath spots an odd chest with three humanoid skulls in it, when the priest shoves them into the bag of holding Rho in particular looks at the priest in disgust.  Meanwhile the goblins swarm and dance around heap and their boss as the arcane crystal atop it begins to glow brightly.  Gribitz's fey spirits get wrapped up in the commotion adding dancing lights all over the ceiling to the delight of the massed goblins who figure it is part of the ritual.  As the goblin ritual reaches its apex the party watches and the glowing blue crystal turns purple.  This appears to frighten the goblins who are silenced by their chieftain who starts to investigate the crystal.  Gribitz shouts out from the back distractingly claiming that its purple because the big demon dragon came up from downstairs.  As the goblin is lying through his teeth he goads Rho to bellowing out a roar.Gribitz jokes that Rho can’t REALLY roar without incinerating the lot of them and which the goblin masses cower away from.  The chieftain however descends from his garbage heap and immediately challenges Rho.  Gribitz continues to play the court jester and ridicules the tall goblin for challenging a demon dragon.  The chieftain answers by unleashing what he understands of the crystal’s magic at Gribitz who is slightly stunned.  But Rho answers back with a blistering gout of fire that incinerates multiple goblins in its path but also strikes the glowing purple crystal.  All color fades briefly from the arcane crystal before it switches to a blinding red color and returns Rho's dragon blast with interest incinerating more goblins on the return trip.  Rho bathes in the flame and flexes his bulging muscles at Gribitz's urging to the shock and awe of the surviving goblin masses.  They turn to see what their chieftains retort will be only to find that he too was incinerated in the crystal's blast.  With the chief and so many other goblins charred to a crisp, the remaining goblins follow Gribitz’s urging to pay homage to the demon dragon Rho.Veldra is dryly amused at this charade while Grath is disgusted and turns to searching for any worthwhile salvage among the goblin "treasure".  The only things he finds that seem to hold any power are a magical runed platinum coin and a magical evocation necklace of small beads around the chieftain’s corpse.  The arcane crystal in the center of the room and the necklace both glow blue in sync when Grath picks up the necklace.  Veldra tries drawing upon her celestial heritage to cast Light on the crystal to see if it will echo her but it only flashes for a moment before going back to the pulsing blue.  When Grath puts on the necklace he feels like he has the power to cast forth Magic Missiles.  The magic words speak to him and he says them without hesitating but the magic missiles issue instead from the crystal striking targets indiscriminately around the room.  This is too much for the remaining goblins who scatter down as many tunnels as they arrived through.</blockquote>

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