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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ilgatto" data-source="post: 9694199" data-attributes="member: 86051">Duergar & Daemons Part V: Land Beyond the Magic EggIn which the DM informs our noble heroes that Sir Oengus actually attempted to open a different set of doors than he did in the last installment (number “6” on the second map instead of “2”), claiming confusion because he has different numbers for the doors than our noble heroes. There is also some confusion about the diameter of the spider symbol on the plaza in relation to that of the first circle (both are now three yards in diameter); about the appearance of the Astral Plane; and about the number of spell books Sir Suvali retrieves from the box in the river room (three originally).During opening fire, the DM confirms that it is the night of the full moon and he informs Navarre that looking into the Astral Plane decidedly differs from seeing in the Underdark.Day 46, continued: When everybody has left the black void and gathers at the doors that still open to the fungus garden, Sir Suvali suddenly starts screaming again, his back against the wall.“We’re being watched!,” he shrieks.“From out there?,” Navarre asks, turning to the fungus garden.The chevalier draws his sword.“It came from the city plaza!,” Sir Suvali yells, pointing.Navarre closes the doors anyway, upon which the sorcerer reports that ‘the feeling’ is gone. Navarre stats for the plaza, the chevalier right behind him, both with their swords drawn. They signal back when they get there, upon which Sir Suvali opens the doors again and nothing happens. Eventually, Navarre returns to the doors and has a good look into the fungus garden. Some tiny spiders and insects hunt, some giant tarantulas prowl – but that’s largely it. He closes the door behind him and our noble heroes decide to forget about the whole affair for now and open another set of doors.These used to be the ones Sir Oengus found impossible to open earlier but they now open easily to the touch of the chevalier, revealing a chilly and dark place full of shadows. He sticks his torch across the threshold and its flames change in color and substance, transforming into wispy versions of themselves, now no longer shedding heat or any light to speak of and generating all manner of weird shadows.“C’est le monde des ombres,” he reports, resolutely closing the doors and gesturing his noble fellows to advance to the next set of doors.“Shadows attack,” he explains himself.Sir Suvali informs his noble companions that it is indeed the ‘plane of shadows’ behind the doors, a world where only shadows of life exist, where living creatures will quickly perish.“So this is where these shadow monsters came from?,” Navarre asks.“Maybe,” the sorcerer replies. “Maybe not.”Sir Oengus opens the next set of doors (the ones that used to lead to the river room but which the DM has as numbered “1”). They also open easily and reveal a landscape of desolate, smoking and burning planes underneath a flaming sky, the whole distinctly reeking of sulphur and decay.“Hellfire?,” Navarre blurts out, hardly believing his own suggestion.In the far distance, some creatures fly above a mountain range and the whole ‘plane’ conveys a sense of terror and despair, making some of our noble heroes, most notably the chevalier and Sir Eber, feel seriously ill at ease.“Close the door,” the chevalier says, in a voice that is both authoritative and strangely subdued.“Ho!,” Sir Oengus says, turning to face the chevalier. “Since when is it you who decides what doors we open and close?”“C’est trop hasardeux,” the chevalier says, still without any signs of agitation. “This is nothing. Close it.”“Okay,” Sir Oengus says, closing the doors.So it’s past the doors leading to the river room to the next set of doors, which do not open no matter how hard our noble heroes pull and push. There are no traces of a lock, which leads to the suggestion that they are probably locked or barred from the other side. When the chevalier knocks and there is no answer after ten minutes or so, our noble heroes decide to let all doors they cannot open be for now.“Messieurs,” the chevalier says earnestly – he’s been notably levelheaded ever since the start of the session. “I suggest we use the river gate. L’enfer? Non. Shadows kill, so non again. Planes of ether and the mind? Trop vague. The sensible way forward is the river gate.”He leads his noble companions to the doors to the river room, unlocks them and enters. When everybody is in the room, he has already opened the cupboard and he presently places its contents on the table: an amphora containing water; iron rations of some kind; and a small box. He opens the box and has a look inside.“Messieurs,” he says solemnly. “Treasure.”“Stand back!,” Sir Suvali yells, all but charging to the table. “There may be exploding runes!”The chevalier doesn’t flinch, draws his sword and uses it to open the box. Within are a strange helm-like object and another wooden box, everything fitted snugly into the available space. He makes a tutting noise, takes out the helmet and puts it on his head. It immediately sprouts a silver beard, to the great hilarity of his noble companions. He stiffens and removes the helm, upon which the beard disappears almost instantly.“Good lord!,” Navarre all but howls, wiping the tears from his eyes. “What is that thing!?”Everybody has a good look at the helm, which turns out be of expert craftsmanship and features geometrical ornaments in a minimalist style. No one has ever seen a helm like it.“It was made by dwarves,” Sir Eber says.“Just so!,” Navarre snickers. “What with the beard and all.”“Gentlemen,” Sir Suvali announces. “There is more in the box.”From the smaller wooden box, he procures a bag with coins and a cylindrical container that turns out to contain four glass flasks of some sort. In the space left by the helmet are three books. So far, everything taken from the box was stored in such a manner that no amount of shaking would make any of it move. Sir Suvali spends some considerable time inspecting the goods and so our noble heroes net three spell books; a bag with fifty coins each in gold, silver, and copper, all of dwarven make; two green vials containing a green liquid; two more vials; and a dwarven helm that will grow a beard.“I say, old fruit,” Navarre says to the chevalier, who is still occupying himself with the helm. “You’re not seriously considering wearing that thing? I mean…, that beard!”The chevalier throws him a snooty glance.“I will have you know that Sir Eber has remarked that it lends one a certain Viking-like… allure,” he says primly. “Perhaps even to a god-like extent.”“Did he now?,” Navarre laughs. “Well? Put it on then!”The chevalier puts on the helm again, which instantly grows its beard and sends Navarre howling with laughter again.“Allure, indeed!,” he eventually manages to utter.The chevalier responds by executing a gallant flourish, which only adds to the glee of his noble companions.Anyway. Duringst the meanwhile, Sir Suvali has been inspecting the larger box. It is a foot long, half a foot wide, and half a foot high. A second and a third box fit into it extremely tightly.“Three boxes,” he says. “I cannot separate them.”Sir Eber points to some words on the first box, giant crowbar at the ready and flexing his muscles.“What’s with those words?,” he says.“They can be command words,” Sir Suvali says.“What do they say?”“Let me see…,” the sorcerer murmurs. “That looks like… gaur…”“Gaur!,” Sir Eber yells.Instantly, the box starts folding out until it has transformed into a pinnace some ten feet long, four feet wide, and two feet high, with a pair of oars, an anchor, and a mast and sail in lowered position. It looks like it will seat three to four people in some comfort.“Oengus!,” Navarre yells. “Where are you? A boat!”“Hoth,” Sir Suvali says and our noble heroes have to jump out of the way in some haste when the pinnace starts unfolding into another boat, this one all but filling the room when it is done. This boat is twenty-four feet long, eight feet wide, and six feet high, with a deck, rowing seats, five sets of oars, a cabin, a mast and sails in lowered position. It has room for some fifteen people.“Gaur,” Sir Suvali says and the boat folds back to pinnace size.“Captain on deck, lubbers!,” Sir Oengus hollers, witnessing the whole event with a look of great satisfaction on his face. “Suvali! How does this work?”Sir Suvali explains the use of the commands words to him, without saying any of them out loud but the third – Dindin – which returns the boat to box form.When he is done, the chevalier and Sir Eber have opened the door to the river again.“Out of my way, ye scurvy swags!,” Sir Oengus hollers, moving to the door with the box in his hands.“Perhaps we would be wise to see what’s what with that river, captain,” Navarre says. “If anything, this door seems to be a sluice door, which would seem to suggest a regular flooding and I don’t feel much for being on a river in a tunnel when that happens.”“Scupper that!,” Sir Oengus hollers. “But I’ll as have a look-see anyways, to be sure!”He steps onto the quay.“No signs of flooding,” he yells. “No tides. River be deep enough to float the large boat, to be sure. So it’s sails away, me hearties!”He puts the box into the river and says: “Hoth!”Instantly, the box unfolds to its largest size. Sir Oengus grabs one of the ropes dangling down the side and ties the vessel to one of the mooring rings. He repeats this process with the second rope and boards the folding boat, to the applause of Navarre and the chevalier.“I do declare!,” the first exclaims. “We shall go on an expedition!”“This is seriously weird,” Sir Eber says next to him.“Captain!,” Navarre yells. “When are we to… splice the mainbrace?”“There be no drinkin’s till I says so, ye scurvy dog!,” Sir Oengus hollers. “Get yer scrawny ass on board and belay yer lamp to the prow as to I can eye where we be heading! And be smart about it, by thunder!”Suppressing an ‘Aye, aye, captain!’, Navarre climbs on board and attaches his lantern to the bow.“I’ll be lookout then, shall I?,” he says, when the others and all supplies are on board.“Will it be upstream or downstream?,” the chevalier asks, a doubtful eye on the oars.“That’ll be downstream, old boy,” Navarre replies. “We don’t have any oarsmen.”“I will row,” Sir Eber says. “And you look like you could some exercise as well, Dauberval.”“Exercise my foot, Sir!,” Navarre hollers. He has been rummaging through the supplies and presently procures a bottle of Lillac.“Sarazin?,” he calls, holding up the bottle.“Je suis aventurier,” the chevalier says decidedly. “I will row, too.”Navarre stares at his noble friend in some disbelief. Will the fellow ever cease to amaze him?“Maybe you can beat that drum we found, then, Dauberval?,” Sir Eber says, already weighing his oars. “Beat time.”“Beat time my foot, Sir!,” Navarre yells at him. He gets back to the bow, sits down, stretches his legs and opens the bottle of Lillac.“Santé, mes amis!,” he says, raising his glass to his noble fellows on the benches.He has a good look around and sees that the walls and ceiling of the tunnel are quite wet. Water drips down from the ceiling, so much so, in fact, that he has to don his waxed coat lest he end up soaking wet. He empties his glass, lowers it into the water on an end of string and draws it up again. The water is cold, perhaps only some degrees above freezing, but tasty. He starts filling his water skin when Sir Oengus speaks again.“Attention on deck, lubbers!,” he hollers. “I says as we be headin’ upstream so’s we can turn her around on the double if we should run into trouble of any kind.”All agree, although Navarre, of course, cannot help but remark on what he perceives to be a tiny flaw in the plan.“Wouldn’t this take us right back to the surface, old bean?,” he suggests. “You know, water running downhill and all that.”“Right as rain, lubber!,” Sir Oengus yells at him from the wheel. “I wants to know where this ‘ere water be comin’ from and that be exactly where we be headin’, by thunder! Now row, ye scurvy swags! Put yer backs in to it!”And so our noble heroes continue their journey in the Underdark on an underground river in a folding boat.Navarre is having a splendid time of it on the bow, reminiscing of happy days at the surface, punting on the river in the company of his friends and a choice of eligible damsels. Enjoying his wine, he marvels at the river and the tunnel, his lantern illuminating strange formations every now and then. He does not notice anything he would consider to be alive.Some two and a half hours later, the boat passes a small cascade that tumbles into the river from a hole in the ceiling and then, one and a half hours later, the chevalier calls for a break.“No so fast, old beast!,” Navarre calls back at him, quite inebriated by now. “Land-ho, if ye’ll pardon me French!”Sure enough, he has spotted an unusually large opening in the tunnel wall some distance ahead to the left and he conveys as much to his noble fellows. The rowers move the boat another twenty yards until a quay not unlike the one they left some hours ago appears in the light of the lantern. Sir Oengus steers the boat to the quay and drops anchor, noting that the river is about twelve yards deep at this point.The quay is a ledge in a cavernous opening cut from the bedrock, perhaps twenty yards long and five wide. A door not unlike the one back in the river room sits in the rocky facade at the back. Both quay and door have a distinctly desolate feel about them, perhaps best likened to that of a disused door in a back alley in the less savory parts of a city.Navarre is the first to jump onto the quay, quickly followed by Sir Eber. They have a good look at the door but remain at a loss at how to open it – they find no locks, no handles, no hinges, no levers anywhere.“Did we knock?,” the chevalier asks, still on board.Sir Eber procures his dwarven hammer and hits the door several times, to which the DM shrugs and tells him to roll d20 with an indifferent look on his face.“Twenty!,” Sir Eber hollers, when he rolls a “20”.“Oh, God,” the DM says, now definitely without an indifferent look on his face and much to the mirth of the players. He starts paging through some papers, saying that the door appears to be quite thick, perhaps as much as six feet. Navarre draws his sword and then nothing happens.“Quite,” he says, after some eight minutes have passed. “I say we...”A grinding sound happens and then the door starts to move upward, slowly revealing an utterly dark space behind.“Put away your weapons,” Sir Eber whispers.Navarre looks at the ranger as if the fellow has lost his mind and he takes a step back instead. When the door has risen some four, five feet, Sir Eber gets down on his knees and peers through the opening. Although he cannot actually see a bloody thing, he does get the impression that he seems to be looking into a huge space.“Is that a street?,” he says to Navarre.Navarre takes a step forward and then many bolts come whistling through the opening, with Sir Eber taking a hit.“They seem unfriendly,” the ranger says, when the noble duo have jumped to the side.Suddenly, eight gray, nasty-looking dwarves appear out of nowhere, wearing armors and helmets, toting metal crossbows and with many other weapons on their persons. The noble duo take a few steps back and their fellows on the boat duck behind the railings.“We come in peace,” Sir Eber says.“Surrender!,” one of the dwarves yells in broken Gaelic. “Put weapons down!”“We will not drop our weapons,” Sir Eber says. “They are not drawn.”“An unwelcome reception!,” the chevalier yells from behind the railing on the boat. “Who are you? We have come to talk!”Without another word, the dwarves disappear into thin air.“Allô?,” the chevalier calls. “Do you have a leader? A king?”Now, many voices start yelling behind the door: “Prisoners! // Drop weapons! // Humans! // Disgusting! // Alarm!”“We are here to talk trade,” Sir Eber hollers.Are we?, Navarre cannot help but think. Truth be told, he is quite amazed at the demure tone of his noble fellows. By Olm! He is a peer of the realm and he will not suffer treatment like this! Still, always present a firm and united front and all that, so he decides to hold his tongue for the moment.“We come in the name of King Oerknal,” the chevalier yells from the boat.“Who?,” one of the voices comes.“Our king is a dwarf,” Sir Eber says.“King is traitor! Queens outlaw kings! Duergar serve queens and princesses!”“I concur unreservedly!,” the chevalier cries. “I, too, serve princesses!”“Duergar too!”“We have come to trade!,” the chevalier calls. “To speak to your queen! Do you have wine?”There is no answer for some time and there is still no dwarf – duergar? – in sight.“Trade?,” another voice comes. “You have gold?”“We have gold,” Sir Eber says. “Dwarven gold.”“Duergar can sell,” the voice says.“Duergar sell drinks!,” another voice yells. “Very good! Special for clan!”“Excellent!,” the chevalier calls. “How much can you sell us?”“How much gold you have?”“That rather depends on the quality of your beverages!,” the chevalier calls.“Do you have leather armor of a magical nature?,” Sir Eber asks, if only to add to the increasingly bizarre exchange.“Yes!,” another voice calls. “How many are you?”“We are five,” Navarre replies, now very much tiring of the whole episode. “Now, kindly take us to your leaders so we can have a proper conversation.”“Wait!,” a voice calls.“Et vous?,” the chevalier calls. “How many are there of you?”“How?,” a voice calls. “Here? In city? In empire?”“Er…,” the chevalier calls. “In the city?”“Many cities!”“And what is this city called?”There is some murmuring but no answer comes.“My name is de Sarazin!,” the chevalier calls.“This Beyond!,” one of the voices calls. “You from where?”“We come from above!”Cries of recognition and – is it excitement? – come from behind the door.“Do you know what I speak of?,” the chevalier asks.“Certainly!”“This is duergar kingdom!,” a bold voice resumes. “Duergar build world! Duergar build Underdark!”“Mes félicitations,” the chevalier calls. “So you known where is this river going?”“Fire Beetle Island!”“And after that?”“Stalag! You not welcome!”“Fire beetle island, you say?,” the chevalier calls.“You also not welcome!”“Et vous? Will you welcome us?”“Beyond famous for friendly and jovial!”“And so we find you to be!,” the chevalier calls.Despite his misgivings, Navarre cannot help but smile. By Olm! The chevalier seems to be a skilled negotiator!Presently a couple of small barrels roll onto the quay, seemingly all by themselves.“For you taste!,” a voice sounds. “Gnome blood!”The chevalier jumps onto the quay.“Une dégustation?,” he cries. “How? Where?”He rights one of the barrels, opens it, dips a glass into it and quaffs the contents, which taste of turpentine.“A… surprising bouquet,” he manages to stammer.The stuff must be at least 80° proof.“Maybe we can use it to fuel our fire bombs,” Sir Eber suggests, sniffing at the barrel.“Hundred copper for barrel!,” a voice comes from the darkness.“Fifty,” Sir Eber replies.Not to be deterred, the chevalier opens the second barrel and tastes its contents. It reminds him of a bitter ale.“Hundred silver,” the voice calls.“Indeed?,” the chevalier mutters, opening the third barrel and taking a sip.“Du vin,” he says, pulling a face like a lemon. “Of an unfortunate vintage.”“Hundred gold,” the voice calls.“What?,” Navarre exclaims, after taking a sip of what the chevalier has identified as ‛wine’. “Preposterous! You’d be fortunate if we’d pay you ten gold for this stuff!”“Mayhap as you’d be interested in these ‘ere maps, ye old picaroon?,” Sir Oengus hollers, disembarking with the sea charts he took from the war room in Diamond Castle in his hand.“No maps!”“Well blow me down for askin’!,” Sir Oengus hollers.“Some salt, perhaps?,” the chevalier asks, proffering a vial of the white granules he found in the egg.“Is duergar salt! Where you get?”“As I said,” the chevalier says. “From above.”“No posts down river!”“Curieux. I assure you that there was a quay like this up there.”Some animated whispering happens behind the door.“Yerichor?,” a voice eventually comes. “Lost Yerichor?”“Lost?,” the chevalier replies. “I distinctly recall it being there this morning.”“Good!,” comes a voice.“Where you get helm?,” comes another.“We travel from trade post to trade post,” the chevalier continues. “We have seen much.”“Helm of guards of great kings of yore!,” the voice calls.And so the conversation continues for a while, with the chevalier deftly avoiding any remarks he believes might lead to hostilities, until another voice sounds. It seems to be that of a little girl used to giving orders.“Hello!”, the voice comes. Somehow, the greeting sounds like a command.“Ah!,” the chevalier calls. “Bonjour, ma petite!”“Human must address me as ‘princess’!,” the girl calls, obviously offended by the chevalier’s informality.“Ah! Non… mais… Sire!,” the chevalier cries, executing a gallant flourish.“What is this talk!,” the girl calls. “Humans drop weapons! And you! Tie down!”This leads to some consternation among the invisible duergar and they start yelling at each other in raw, shrill voices, from which our noble heroes would not have been able to make much if the DM had not translated some of it into broken Gaelic.“Perhaps not, princess,” one of the voices is heard to say. “Humans refuse to be tied up!”“But-I-want-them-t-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!,” the princess whines, before suddenly changing her mind and ordering the invisible duergar to open the door and allow our noble heroes to enter ‘the city’. Commands are issued and now the door starts rising again.“We are going to fold the ship,” Sir Suvali hisses from the deck when the door is almost fully open. “Make sure they don’t see it!”“Advance,” Navarre says to the chevalier and the ranger next to him.The noble trio take a few steps forward and Navarre shines his lantern into the space beyond the door. The light causes some dismay among the duergar and Sir Suvali and Sir Oengus use the confusion to disembark and command the folding boat to revert to a box again.The room beyond the door turns out to be a large cavern suffused with a very weak, gray twilight. As far as our noble heroes can make out, it is filled with stalactites and stalagmites, often joined to form columns great and small, with many of them featuring what seem to be collections of holes in them at about a dozen yards above the floor. Right in front of them, a street of sorts disappears among the dripstone formations. Letting his light roam, Navarre notices several structures, each about halfway up and between two columns, most with a number of openings in them. Homes, perhaps? No sound comes from the ‘city’ and there is no living creature in sight, although several duergar can be heard speaking close by.When Navarre, Sir Eber, and the chevalier have taken a few steps into the cavern, the latter halts and executes a graceful révérence.“We are honored, chère princesse!,” he says. “Je vous-en prie! Allow me the honor of introducing myself and my companions and to assure you that we are wholly at your disposal. I am… Scaralat de Sarazin! Next to me are Navarre of Dauberval and Eber of Weald. Behind us on the quay are Suvali of Wyrsn and Oengus of Nisibis. À votre service! We have brought cadeaux. Avec nos compliments!”And with yet another gallant flourish, he presents a bottle of the lavender bath salts to the emptiness in front of him.Now, a single duergar appears – out of nowhere as seems to be the habit of the creatures. As far as our noble heroes can make out, this specimen seems to be older than the crossbow-toting duergar they saw earlier. He is in full armor and armed to the teeth.“Welcome to Beyond,” he says. “Please to follow me.”</blockquote>

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