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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 9821183" data-attributes="member: 27780">4 players present: They hemmed and hawed for a while on the very first puzzle, eventually pushing each of the buttons in order. Fortunately there are no particular consequences for failing this first one, and so even though they pushed the right one last (standing well back and getting a summon to do it just in case there were dire consequences for picking wrong) the big stone slab did eventually open for them. They then headed into area 2, taking various amounts damage from the Forbiddance effect along the way, except for the drow, who's player was absent again, so I had him stay outside since failing the save could have one-shotted him and killing characters when their players aren't there just isn't fair. This may prove to be advantageous long-term, as it means there was someone on the outside when the door closed again behind them, giving some extra options for escape without completing the whole adventure. The binder splashed around in the pools, but did not find the key down there and they decided against ringing the bell, so they never got to see the water level changing trick. She was more useful in the next couple of rooms, taking the initiative in opening the secret door in the room of acid tears, tanking the damage for herself and then getting out a golden parasol from her collection so the less tanky party members could get through without suffering. She also figured out the trick to the rotating central statue in room 4 straight away. They used this to first get into room 5, which contains only a single buried body and minor treasure. (with the death by strangulation in the original adventure replaced by an illithid borehole to the back of the skull to keep things in theme.) Then they turned it around and tried to get into room 6. Here some unintended changes to the original adventure started creeping in, because I forgot that up on the map is not north in this adventure. This meant the poison needle was in this door. The sniper tried to pick it, rolled poorly and wound up reduced to 2 str. (After many sessions of barely being targeted by monsters due to all his sneaky tricks, he's definitely finding it humbling that mere mechanical dangers would be the thing to bring him low.) Once again it fell to the binder to smash down the door. Inside, they saw the huge head statue on the opposite wall, reskinned to a particularly corpulent illithid with its tentacles held aloft, but still with a tunnel in its sphincter mouth big enough to fit tiny creatures. The sniper could probably have used his kobold flexibility to squeeze through, but was still feeling extra cautious after the last mistake. So the binder revealed yet another of the tricks up her sleeve that she hadn't found a reason to break out - a few levels in Osteomancer lets you liquify your bones and ooze through the smallest gap. This let her get through to the other side without incident and open it to let the others through. They then headed around to room 11. They didn't spot the secret door, but did spot the naga curled around the central pillar camouflaged amongst all the bas-reliefs. (now with extra pseudonatural template) This led to several minutes of tense whispering amongst themselves trying to talk about it without it realising it had been spotted, which mainly just wasted time. Eventually it just cast Evard's Black Tentacles at them and started the combat. Since many of them got grappled, and some of them wasted time attacking the indestructible tentacles, it took a couple of rounds before the binder could close on it and shred it into pieces, but once she did, it died as quickly as most things without DR. They headed on down to corridor 10. They approached the clockwork automaton outside cautiously, but as it didn't attack, eventually went up to it. They used large quantities of force to get through the door to room C and the treasure chest inside, which unfortunately set off the flasks of oil and destroyed the manual. Faced with the choice of putting the key in the automaton and turning it clockwise or widdershins caused a whole load more dithering, but eventually they decided to go with the traditional direction from their universe. This of course made it explode, making them think they'd made the wrong choice and this was just another way this universe was subtly wrong. (when in actuality, both directions screw the PC's over in this adventure, just in different ways) They continued to explore. They saw the rug in room 12, but pointedly did not touch it, evading that particularly lethal little trap for now. They resisted the effects of the illusionary fishes and found the key to the secret door in room 14 without incident as well. Things got interesting again when they headed down the stairs and reached area 16, the teleporting chamber behind the secret door. They didn't actually roll well enough to find it, but knowing that a dead end like this is suspicious, the sniper decided to risk the side-effects Blinking has here and see what was on the other side of the wall. His intuition was right, and he wound up in the small room covered in glyphs and spirals. Since he examined everything closely, this moved him over to the seemingly identical room in area 17. As we were near the end of the session anyway, I decided it would make most sense to send the rest of the group away and resolve what happened while he was separated in PM. We're less than halfway through this adventure, so it'll probably keep them busy up to the end of the year.</blockquote>

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